Puncture scuppers Sam Bennett’s effort on the fifth stage of Tour of Qatar

Sam Bennett’s push to land his first victory of the new season continues, with bad luck foiling the Carrick-on-Suir rider’s intention to take on the other sprinters in yesterday’s fifth stage of the Tour of Qatar.

Bennett, who was fully backed by his Bora-Argon 18 team, was manoeuvring into position prior to the mass sprint to the line but then ran into problems.

“Our guys did a very good job as we were part of the lead group with several guys,” said Bennett’s sporting director André Schulze after the 153 kilometre stage to Madinat ash-Shamal.

“We concentrated completely on Sam and we prepared the sprint with our lead-out train. But unfortunately the bad luck hit us again. With two kilometres to go Sam had a puncture – so again, no chance to sprint for us.”

Misfortune

Bennett had similar misfortune on the opening leg of the Mallorca Challenge, the Trofeo Santanyi-SesSalines-Campos, last month. He suffered a puncture with 500 metres to go but managed to take 10th; yesterday’s bad luck happened much further away from the line and he was seriously delayed, trailing over seven minutes back.

He will be frustrated as he has shown good form this year.

In addition to that 10th place last month, he was also fourth on another stage of the Challenge Mallorca race, as well as fifth on Sunday’s opening stage of the Tour of Qatar.

He has another chance today in the final stage of the race. It generally finishes in a bunch gallop and his team will work hard to give him another opportunity to square up against some of the world’s quickest sprinters.

Meanwhile, Bennett’s Bora-Argon 18 team, and fellow Irish man Matt Brammeier’s MTN-Qhubeka squad, were both confirmed as receiving invitations to the Tour of Flanders Classic.

Prestigious

The race is one of the most prestigious single-day events on the calendar and will feature the world’s top teams. As Bora-Argon 18 and MTN-Qhubeka are Pro Continental rather than WorldTour teams, they require wildcard slots to be able to compete in the April fixture.

Both teams have already secured invitations to the Tour de France, meaning that the two Irish riders could in theory each make their debuts in the race in July.

If so Ireland could have its highest-ever participation rate in the event. The previous best was four Irish riders in one edition, namely Stephen Roche, Seán Kelly, Martin Earley and Paul Kimmage; this time around, it is possible that five riders from this country could be there.

In addition to Bennett and Brammeier, Dan Martin, Nicolas Roche and Philip Deignan could be part of the line-up for Cannondale-Garmin and Team Sky.