Sam Bennett says he expects to head to the World Championships road race on Sunday as one of two protected riders for Ireland together with Ben Healy.
Currently racing the Tour de Pologne with trade team Bora-Hansgrohe, Bennett has shown rising form at the recent Sibiu Tour in Romania with two victories. He claimed fourth place on the opening day in Poland despite, he said, making two errors in stage 1’s bunch sprint finale.
Bennett will have two more chances to show his form in Pologne on stage 4 and stage 7 prior to heading to Glasgow for the Worlds road race on August 6.
The transfer window for 2024 opens officially on August 1 and the 32-year-old, out of contract in December, is widely believed to be moving on from Bora-Hansgrohe for the second time in his career after he was left out of their Tour de France team for the second straight year.
However, despite rumours linking him to multiple destinations, Bennett says nothing is yet decided for next year. “There’s no news for now,” Bennett told Cyclingnews before stage 3 of the Tour de Pologne.
Regarding the Worlds, Bennett says that Ireland’s strategy for the road race will likely be for “us to have two guys [as co-leaders],” namely himself and Giro d’Italia stage winner Ben Healy.
“Ben can go up the road to see what he can do and I can wait and see what happens in the main bunch,” Bennett said. “It’s going to be a very hard race and a very technical course with lots of corners. So we’ll have to take it as it comes.”
As for Pologne, Bennett admitted that he had fluffed his lines in the opening bunch sprint on the rain-lashed motor circuit in Poznan on Saturday.
“I went too early, I was stuck on the front with 300 metres to go in a slight headwind, and I ended up leading out everyone,” he said. “That was unfortunate because it never really showed how I’m going.
“I’m just back from altitude and I got those two wins in Sibiu, so I’m definitely going all right. That result doesn’t show anything, because the two things I said I shouldn’t do that day – be too early on the front and go too early – were the two things I did.”
After not being selected for the Tour de France, Bennett’s end-of-season program will see him miss out on a Grand Tour completely in 2023, and instead, he said, he’ll be doing races like the Deutschland Tour and the Tour of Britain.
“First, though, it’s the Worlds,” he pointed out, with the Tour de Pologne the last opportunity to polish his form before next Sunday. And if he can improve on that fourth place on Saturday in Poznan between now and the end of the race in Krakow – which traditionally ends in a bunch sprint – then so much the better.
