Sam Bennett’s arrival at Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale was an open secret in recent months, and his transfer was finally confirmed at the team’s 2024 presentation in Lille on Monday.
Vincent Lavenu’s squad has not featured a top tier sprinter since Jaan Kirsipuu in the early 2000s, but Bennett explained that he felt Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale offered him the best chance of returning to the Tour de France.
Bennett’s last act at the Tour was to win in the green jersey on the Champs-Élysées in 2020, but he has endured his share of difficulties in the intervening period. The injury that kept him out of the 2021 race also precipitated an acrimonious departure from QuickStep, while he missed out on selection in each of the past two seasons at Bora-Hansgrohe.
“I had to put everything out on the table, and I have to go where the opportunity is,” Bennett told the Irish Times. “And this is where I was getting the best opportunity. You know, I’m not getting any younger and I need to get back to the Tour de France, I need to be at my highest level. Bora are going more and more towards GC [Tour general classification]. For me going to this team will be a huge benefit to me.”
Bennett was arguably the best sprinter in the professional peloton in 2020, and he carried that form into the beginning of the next season, notching up seven wins before a knee injury ruined the remainder of his campaign.
His return to Bora-Hansgrohe, however, yielded just six wins across two seasons and it was also blighted by ill fortune. Bennett looked to have turned a corner when he won two stages at the 2022 Vuelta a España, for instance, only to be forced out of the race with a COVID-19 infection. He is now eager to make up for lost time at Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale.
“I am hungry,” Bennett said. “I want to prove himself. I want to get back to the Tour de France, and to win there again. “The priority is to show myself, to show that I am capable. I want to be the top guy again.”
Bennett did not bring any teammates with him from Bora-Hansgrohe and his new squad does not have a recognised sprint train, but he downplayed the idea that he would be lacking in support. “I think we’ll improvise,” he said.
AG2R last landed a bunch sprint at the Tour in 2004, when Jaan Kirsipuu won the first road stage in Charleroi and fellow fast man Jean-Patrick Nazon beat Erik Zabel in Wasquehal two days later. In the two decades since, the squad's July focus shifted increasingly towards the general classification.
The 33-year-old is the fourth Irish rider to race in Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale colours after Mark Scanlon, Nicolas Roche and Philip Deignan. He has signed a two-year deal with his new team and insisted that he had plenty of time left in the professional peloton.
“My body isn’t all beat up, so I should still have a good number of years left in me,” Bennett said. “I was quite late coming to the professional ranks and in reaching my level. And then the last years I haven’t done the Grand Tours, so they weren’t taking miles off the clock.”
