Sam Bennett (Bora-Hansgrohe) has confirmed that he will now move towards a much bigger focus on the green jersey in the Vuelta a España after taking a second straight sprint stage even before the race had left Holland.
Bennett recognised that there is still almost all of the race left to go, but his two wins out of two opening road stages have now given him an impressive total of 117 points compared to 80 for Mads Pedersen (Trek-Segafredo). Pascal Ackermann (UAE Team Emirates) is now a distant third, with 34 points.
Bennett’s next opportunity for a bunch sprint will likely come on stage 7 to Cistierna, although the lengthy first category climb mid-way through could well split the peloton apart. But there are plenty of mid-stage sprints which could benefit him in a bid for the points competition.
Meanwhile, Bora-Hansgrohe celebrated a memorably successful Sunday with two WorldTour wins out of two, as Marco Haller won the BEMER Cyclassics in Germany and the Irishman, with his uneven first half of the season fading quickly in the rear mirror, claimed his second Vuelta stage victory in 24 hours.
“There is a long way to go, anything can happen, but we want the sprint jersey ... and we will start to commit more to look at points," Bennett said.
“We have two stages now, so we can make bigger decisions on when to take points and when to leave them. Hopefully we can compete for the green - that would be really nice.”
Just as on Saturday at Utrecht, Bennett once again paid fulsome tribute to his teammates, thanking them for “doing a perfect job," he said.
"Danny [Van Poppel] always gets me there, and I’m really happy too, that I could finish it off. There were lots of accelerations, so many corners, I just wasn’t sure if I could because my legs were feeling dead. But I got there.”
Asked if he could say if he was now ‘there’ for the sprints, having said on Saturday that there was still some room for improvement, Bennett smiled and answered simply “he’s on his way.”
