Sam Bennett enters his second pro season with Bora-Argon 18. Last year the Irishman won three races in the first half of the season and he scored no less than thirteen top 10 results throughout the year. On the eve of his first race day, the Trofeo Santanyi-SesSalines-Campos (Mallorca Challenge), the team’s Head Sport Director Enrico Poitschke revealed that the young sprinter will do lots of races in the first half of the year.

“Also in his second pro season, we’ll stick to an intense race program in the first half," he said in an interview puclished on the team website. "Last year we saw that Sam is capable to race such a program right from the beginning. And now he has developed even further. So, Sam will debut in the two flat race days of the Mallorca Challenge, followed by starts in Qatar and Oman. After that, he’ll have a short recovery break before in March he’ll race some classics as well as Tirreno-Adriatico and Milano-San Remo.

“Sam has proven his winning skills and that’s why he’ll be quite regularly on the starting line. He’ll be in the line-up of every race that suits him. In total, we plan to let him race 42 days till end of June. Indeed, this is quite an intense program. But it also gives us the chance to treat Sam with care in case he’s ill or he feels down after some races. Then, we could easily skip some races in between.

“The team will ride for Sam on the first and the fourth day of the Mallorca Challenge since both races will most likely be decided in a sprint. And of course we’ll fight for winning the sprints.”

For the 2015 season, Bora-Argon 18 has reinforced Bennett's lead-out train, mainly with the signing of Shane Archbold.
 

“We worked quite intensively to build the new lead-out train for Sam,2 Poitschke said. "We trained lead-outs which allowed us to find the right positions within the train. And the Mallorca Challenge will give us some insights how it works under race conditions. We’ll decide afterwards if we’ll slightly adjust the positions or just stick to them.

“Shane Archbold will be Sam’s lead-out man, so Shane is the last rider in the train and he’ll bring Sam on the final kilometer. Zak Dempster has shown last year how to gain positions in the finish and how to direct Sam through the peloton, so he is the next-to-last rider. Daniel Schorn and Ralf Matzka, both with the speed and capability to win sprints on their own, are on the first two positions of the train to start the lead-out. All other riders, racing with those five guys, will protect them throughout the race so they save as much energy as possible until the final kilometers.”