BinckBank Tour: Sam Bennett wins stage 2

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Sam Bennett (Bora-Hansgrohe) notched up his second victory in as many days when he claimed stage 2 of the BinckBank Tour in Ardooie. The Irish champion beat Jasper Philipsen (UAE Team Emirates) and Dylan Groenewegen (Jumbo-Visma) to the line and thus retains the overall lead.

The surfeit of sprint options at Bora-Hansgrohe meant that Bennett missed selection for both the Giro d'Italia and Tour de France this year, but he has responded to that disappointment in exemplary fashion, and has now amassed ten victories in 2019, eight of them at WorldTour level.

Bennett's positioning, decision-making and finishing speed meant that his victory in Ardooie brooked no argument. Mindful of the strength of the Jumbo-Visma lead-out, he parked himself on Groenewegen's wheel on the run-in, but then had the nous to respond promptly when Philipsen streaked past in the finishing straight. In the final 100 metres, Bennett pulled away to seal a resounding victory.

"I can't believe it. After 70k my legs weren't that great, so I didn't expect to get a result today," Bennett said afterwards. "But the guys protected me so well all day. I was saving so much energy and the others were losing so much, that in the end I had enough legs to get a win. I'm delighted with that, I didn't think I'd get a second win."

The flat, 170km run from Blankenberge lent itself to a bunch sprint, but when the race came here a year ago, Jasper Stuyven defied the fast men with a canny late move. In Stuyven's absence, Trek-Segafredo were again prominent in the finale, though this time in an apparent attempt to set up Mads Pedersen for the sprint. Edward Theuns, second on Monday, led out the sprint from distance but to no avail.

Jumbo-Visma's Mike Teunissen hit the front within sight of the line, but his teammate Groenewegen never hit his stride in the finishing straight and had to settle for a distant third behind Bennett and Philipsen.

Kristoffer Halvorsen (Ineos) came through to take 4th place, while Alvaro Hodeg (Deceuninck-QuickStep) made up a lot of ground in the final 100 metres to take 5th. The Colombian raised an arm in protest at how his progress was inadvertently arrested by a slowing Groenewegen, but, in truth, he was never going to get back on terms with the unassailable Bennett.

In the overall standings, Bennett holds a lead of 12 seconds over Lukasz Wisniowski (CCC) and 14 over Josef Cerny, though his chief concern will be Wednesday's flat run to Aalter, where he will be fancied to complete a hat-trick of stage wins.

"I'm getting greedy, so I'd like one more stage win here," said Bennett, who arrived at the BinckBank Tour having placed 6th in Sunday's European Championships in Alkmaar. The 28-year-old is using the race to build towards his Vuelta a España debut.

"We're having a great tour here. I just want to get through and get to the Vuelta in good shape."

How it unfolded

The start town of Blankenberge is just 37km from Knesselare, where Bjorg Lambrecht was laid to rest on Tuesday morning. Lotto Soudal teammates past and present carried Lambrecht's coffin into the church for the funeral mass in Knesselare, while the six Lotto Soudal riders competing at the BinckBank Tour remembered their late teammate with a minute's silence on the signing-on podium.

Stage 2 of the BinckBank Tour proved something of a mirror of the first. The flat run to Ardooie was a little over 100 miles in length and once again, the day's early break featured Baptiste Planckaert (Wallonie Bruxelles), who this time forged clear in the opening kilometres in the company of Josef Cerny (CCC), Robert Stannard (Mitchelton-Scott), Jesper Asselman (Roompot-Charles), Thomas Sprengers (Sport Vlaanderen-Baloise) and Damien Gaudin (Direct Energie).

This sextet quickly established a lead of 2:30 over the peloton but the sprinters' teams were reluctant to grant them any more leeway, with Jumbo-Visma and Bora-Hansgrohe prominent in policing affairs at the head of the peloton. With a little over 100km to go, a crash in the peloton saw Maarten Wynants (Jumbo-Visma) and Chris Lawless (Ineos) forced to abandon the race, while Stijn Vandenbergh (AG2R La Mondiale) was among a clutch of later fallers, though the Belgian was able to continue.

After hitting the finishing circuit in Ardooie, the break's lead was gradually whittled down by the sprinters' teams, though not before Cerny availed of the 'Golden Kilometre' of three bonus sprints to move up to third in the general classification.

The leaders had 40 seconds in hand on the bunch when they took the bell with 16.7km to go, though a sharp acceleration from Sunweb on the final lap helped to slice the gap considerably. With a shade under 10km to go, Zdenek Stybar (Deceuninck-QuickStep) looked to upset the odds by trying to bridge across to the break, but after labouring for a time in no man's land, the Czech retreated to the relative sanctuary of the peloton.

Bora-Hansgrohe's pace-making ensured the break was eventually swept up with 5km to go, while Jumbo-Visma hit the front en masse inside the final 4km, with Jos van Emden especially prominent. The Dutch team's efforts didn't suffice, however, to propel Groenewegen to victory, even if Bennett downplayed the idea that he is the fastest man on this BinckBank Tour.

"I don't think I am the fastest here, but it doesn't matter," Bennett said. "I just have to get the line first."

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