{"id":302319,"date":"2025-11-23T19:44:11","date_gmt":"2025-11-23T19:44:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/302319\/"},"modified":"2025-11-23T19:44:11","modified_gmt":"2025-11-23T19:44:11","slug":"q36-5-confident-tom-pidcock-and-sam-bennett-can-thrive-together","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/302319\/","title":{"rendered":"Q36.5 confident Tom Pidcock and Sam Bennett can thrive together"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

The Belgian coach emphasized that Pidcock\u2019s needs are clear but manageable. \u201cTom needs a certain level of support, and what is important for him is the other people share the same ambition. That\u2019s like a dedication and winning and wanting to go for it.\u201d<\/p>\n

A pairing that could revive Bennett\u2019s Tour fortunes<\/p>\n

Bennett\u2019s collaboration with Bogaerts goes back a decade to their years at the An Post-Sean Kelly team, where the sprinter\u2019s talent first emerged and with whom he spent three seasons (2011-2013).<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s fantastic to be joining Q36.5 Pro Cycling Team next season. My career was launched by Kurt Bogaerts, so it feels as if I\u2019ve taken a winding path home. As a sprinter, my career has been shaped by hunting for wins and I\u2019ve been really fortunate to have been given lots of great opportunities to perform, and win, at all 3 Grand Tours,” Bennett said in a press release the day his signing for the team was announced back in October<\/a>.Despite a long and successful professional career in which he has amassed 71 professional wins, Bennett has only ridden the Tour de France four times. His Tour trajectory has been uneven: repeatedly overshadowed at Bora-Hansgrohe due to Peter Sagan<\/a>\u2019s leadership, sidelined by injury in 2021, and omitted from selections in 2022, 2023 and 2025. His best performance came in 2020, back in his prime days, getting two stage wins and securing the green jersey.<\/p>\n

That history makes Bogaerts\u2019 reassurance particularly significant for Bennett. The coach underscored that Q36.5\u2019s ambitions in Grand Tours are broad, not just restricting to one big objective, which gives room to very different types of riders.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the Vuelta we went for the sprints on a regular basis with several guys, and we were sprinting top 10. We were going into breakaways. And we didn\u2019t lose one spot into the GC,\u201d he said. \u201cI said this before, we didn\u2019t go with high GC ambitions into the Vuelta, and we will not do that into the future Grand Tours.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Pidcock\"\/<\/p>\n

Pidcock’s third place at the Vuelta has been his best Grand Tour’s GC result so far\u00a0<\/p>\n

That flexible and opportunistic approach helped Pidcock secure the best GC result of his career so far, as he finished third overall at the 2025 Vuelta a Espa\u00f1a. It was also one of the best GC results ever for the team.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe try to come home with something. A podium is amazing,\u201d Bogaerts explained. \u201cThe longer the Vuelta went on, we identified that actually the podium was possible. Then we actually focused more on the podium than on a stage with Tom. But I think it doesn\u2019t close any doors.<\/p>\n

Bogaerts also described the positive effects of bringing a sprinter. \u201cWhat is nice when you have a sprinter is that you have ambition every day. You have focus every day; it\u2019s not just concentrating on not losing time. I think it\u2019s a healthy, ambitious focus on a daily basis, that you can have daily goals for different individuals.\u201d<\/p>\n

Q36.5\u2019s Tour prospects strengthened by roster depth<\/p>\n

Q36.5 Pro Cycling is currently a ProTour team, which means it has no automatic invitation to any of the Grand Tours. However, strong 2025 results (14 wins overall and great performances at the Vuelta and some classics) and the presence of top-tier riders such as the aforementioned Pidcock, Bennett, Chris Harper and Eddie Dunbar make a wildcard selection increasingly likely.<\/p>\n

Bennett’s main goal is very clear: to come back to the Tour de France and secure a final stage win. He is 35 years old, so time is ticking and chances are not that many anymore. Securing a spot alongside Pidcock next July could offer the opportunity he has been striving to regain.<\/p>\n

Bogaerts, for his part, remains confident that supporting both ambitions is not only possible but beneficial to the entire squad. \u201cFor sure I want to try again,\u201d he said of the dual approach. And if Q36.5 makes the Tour roster, both of its stars could finally share the same Grand Tour spotlight.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Belgian coach emphasized that Pidcock\u2019s needs are clear but manageable. \u201cTom needs a certain level of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":302320,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[445],"tags":[49,48,635,129544,135702,131810,28430,82,43201],"class_list":["post-302319","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-cycling","tag-decathlon-ag2r-la-mondiale-team","tag-kurt-bogaerts","tag-peter-sagan","tag-sam-bennett","tag-sports","tag-tom-pidcock"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302319","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=302319"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302319\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/302320"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=302319"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=302319"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=302319"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}