Bennett out of the Tour
Robemen, let's talk about Sam Bennett and his exclusion from the Tour de France. Let's cue that intro! The big question is this. How do we use cycling as a tool to improve our health, our happiness and our longevity? That is the question and this podcast will give you the answers. My name is Anthony Walsh and welcome to the Robemen Podcast. Roadman, welcome back to another Roadman's Cycling Podcast. Today I want to talk about Ireland's own Sam Bennett, the fastest man in the world, the Carrick Sprinter, he took the Green Jersey all the way to Paris last year and a hot favour to do so again this year. But there's a bizarre turn of events going on a quick step and now Bennett is confirmed as out of the Tour de France and being replaced by Marc Cavendish. But the reasons why he's out seem to be different from what Bennett's saying and what the Quick Step boss, Patrick LeFevre, saying, as always the truth is probably somewhere in the middle, but it's been complicated at the moment by Bennett leaving Quick Step at the end of the season. That's what I want to dig into and go through some of the bizarre quotes from Patrick LeFevre in today's Belgium newspaper. I jump into that a quick reminder about Patreon folks, it's patreon.com forward slash Anthony underscore watch. Patreon is how we support this podcast. Patreon is the lifeblood of the podcast and the podcast as I say works on a system of soundness. If you're listening to the podcast and I can see the analytics every day so I know you're listening to the podcast. If you're getting value out of it, if you're enjoying it, there's a couple of things I ask of you. If you can can afford it, please subscribe to the Patreon, it's the price of a point once a month. It's just a little clap on the back to say, thanks, you're doing good work. Also, share it with friends, share it into WhatsApp groups, into club Facebook groups, if there's something valuable if you think, especially new Reuters will benefit from someone who whizzed them and regardless of what level you're at, like how can you not benefit from interviews with the likes of Sven Tuft. And just following us over on Instagram, it's roman.cycling, sharing all the pokes are put now, all that stuff that always helps. Okay, well, man, let's dig into this one. So for me, this started when the favor confirmed that Cavendish wouldn't ride the tour and Bennett Ward. That was last week. And then the latest development was yesterday when Bennett put out a tweet, a long form tweet and said, and this is a quote, sometimes life throws you a curveball. A couple of weeks ago in training, I had a really minor injury that simply couldn't heal in time to be at my best this year's Tour de France. The race and the Wolfpack deserve me to be at my very best. Myself and the team believed I'd be ready in time but it became clear in the last few days that I wouldn't be at the level I always strive to be at the one wind bunch sprints at the biggest race in the world.
Lefevere's bizarre accusations
This season has so much more to offer me so I'm going to keep fighting and most importantly, race without injury risk in the coming weeks and months. The best to look to the Wolfpack stay safe on the unforgiving roads of France. Not in really too suspect there, because the team announced a week ago that he was going to ride, but the injury didn't heal up. But where it starts getting bizarre is Patrick LaFevre's the manager's reaction in the Belgium newspaper, because he's bizarrely questioned if Bennett's actually injured at all, or if he's getting, and this is a quote again, in Verte de Coma's performance anxiety rather than an actual knee injury or anything pain related. So what happened was three days before the tour of Belgium, Bennett bumped his knee against the Ham and the bars, LeFevre told Sporza, and this is a quote from LeFevre, he didn't tell us about anything about that, he arrived at the start of the tour of Belgium and we sent him home again, then there was this yes-no game of whether to train or not to train. We asked him to rest, behind our backs he went out and he went to another physiotherapist in Monika who said he could train better. So, the favours clearly pissed off that he hasn't gone and used the team physio, that he's gone and used a local physio in Monaco. Instead, no more information on that. Can't speculate as to Bennett's motivation behind that or what's going on as the physio for the team next year or no idea what's going on there. And then the favours starts talking about, it almost seems like Bennett is involved and the flight's booked, but then Bennett's refusing to get on the flight or something completely bizarre. So, this is where it is, that's getting really weird for me. So another quote from La Favour, he said, For some told us that the flight was delayed. Then there was, he'd given us talk that it was overbooked. And then it was Bennett that no longer got a seat on the plane. I'm not suspicious by nature, but then I start to ask myself questions. Now that's translated from, I would imagine, Flemish. So the translation's probably not brilliant, but this part needs no translation. He said, this is not a story with a happy ending. So that's quite a menacing threat from Bennett's boss and we know he's leaving there at the end of the season. You know, as an unapologetically biased Irishman, I'd love to say Sam Bennett at the Tour de France this year, it's not gonna happen. There's a romantic side to have coming back from the Tour and have as a polarizing character and I've got to spend some time at New York a couple of years ago on the track quick have of Beth Flesingley and he's such a nice guy, like time for everybody and very different to the mainstream media opinion of them. And that and the fact that if you're any sort of secular romantic or historian, he's just one so many stages of the Tour de France, the most prolific Tour de France stage winner in history. So for him to go back to the Tour de France, for one last Tour de France, it'd be such a fairytale for a car to win a stage, but I can't help but be just a little bit disappointed that carves potential swan song comes at the expense of Sam Bennett.
Damage to Bennett's next move
Honestly, I think that's a story that's going to run and run because it's just very bizarre and he's calling Bennett's character into question really, his professionalism into question. Like he's saying, it's a performance anxiety issue that he's not actually injured or the injury isn't bad enough to keep him out and then there's all this confusion with the flight. So although Bennett is a consummate pro, I'd imagine at some point he's going to have have to come back out and clarify what the hell the favours talking about. Because it seems like those sort of rumours could potentially be damaging and hurt him. Public perception, media perception and maybe even his salary on a big move next year which I know he's hoping for because he's coming into the final years of his career and he needs that big money move to sustain him and life after cycling. So that's it the drama started for Tour de France and Tour de France isn't even upon us. Tomorrow I'm back with our feature Lent interview podcast and that's what Colin Griffin, Connor Griffin, Connor is Roman client's absolute legend, really funny interview, I think you're gonna enjoy that one and then or back on towards the Earth Friday and we will do we'll do a full Tour de France preview podcast so I'm looking forward to that Roman until then, ride safe and chat to you soon. Okay stop what you're doing, it's Anthony again, I want to talk to you for one second about the next step in the roadman journey. I'm laying down a challenge for you. It's called the 8-week challenge. So for 8 weeks, I'm challenging you to be the very best version of yourself. Whatever that is. For 8 weeks, I want to take you under my wing and I want to personally build for you a customized training plan on our analytics platform. This plan is going to be laser focused on your goal and I'm going to navigate around your life, your work, your social commitments. So don't worry about what your circumstances are right now. I remember after I took some time out of cycling, I went off and taught out this Billy Big Businessman. I came back and I realized I wanted to get into cycling, but I knew after a bit, to try it in a loan, it actually wasn't making me any fitter. My needs is an entire system. It needs a 360 overhaul. So for the first time ever, I wanna share with you this exact system I used to get back in shape. I'm talking stuff like, I'm gonna give you my morning routines, the cold therapy I use, the cookbooks and recipes I use, and even the motivational audios by listening to get back on track. So right now what I want you to do is pause this audio, go to www.roadmancycling.com forward slash eight week or check out the link in the bio, click that. So one more time, it's roadmancycling.com forward slash eight week. Chatty all soon.