Pedersen at the Giro, then Milan at the Tour and now Pedersen again, who leads the points classification of the Vuelta with a 9-point advantage over Vernon (Mads in his green jersey at the start, next to Vingegaard in red). For the Lidl Trek It won't be the season of records yet, but the prospect of bringing home the three shirts is certainly interesting. And so we asked ourselves what differences there are in the fight for the points classification between the Giro, the Tour and the Vuelta. And it occurred to us to ask Daniele Bennati, who won the Spanish green jersey in 2007, the Giro cyclamen in 2008He was third in the points classification at the 2006 Tour, behind McEwen and Freire, when a crash sent him home with five stages to go. In addition, Bennati was one of the first riders in 2011 to sign for the then Leopard Trek of Luca Guercilena, staying there for two seasons with 7 victories, which years later would become the current Lidl-Trek.
"Without a doubt, the green jersey at the Tour," says the Tuscan, "is the hardest to win. I have to be honest, in 2006 I was pretty close to McEwen. I probably wouldn't have won it, but I would have played it. I fell on the Telegraphe descent after climbing the Galibier and had to return home early. In terms of difficulty: The green jersey at the Tour is much more complicated than at the Giro and the Vuelta, but it's inevitable that to win them you have to be super strong in all three."
Aside from your crash in 2006, you won two stages at the Tour in 2007, but finished sixth in the points classification. Why was the green jersey so tough for you?
Ero a real landslide in the intermediate sprintsI don't think I've ever won one in my life and I've even lost against riders who on paper were much slower than me. This penalized me a lot at the Tour, because Intermediate sprints are always very important to win the green jersey, in addition to winning stages and achieving many placings. I won two stages and then finished sixth and fourth. Petacchi for example won the jersey in 2010, won two stages, but entered the top three five timesWhen it goes like this, you have an advantage, because you can ignore fleeting goals for a while.
Can you talk about your weakness in intermediate sprints?
I didn't have the ability to sprint halfway through the stage. Maybe it was a motivation issue, but I couldn't give my all in the intermediate goals. To win the green jersey at the Tour you also have to be able to sprint after 20 kilometres or after 80 and this is definitely Milan has it in its stringsHe has won several of them and this is certainly an added value, perhaps because, being a track cyclist, he has the ability to go overboard even after just a few kilometers.
Is there a difference in the points classification battle between the three Grand Tours?
When I won the points jersey at the Vuelta, I wasn't wearing it until the last stage. The rules have changed over the years. In 2007, the mountain and plain stages gave the same scoreFor us sprinters, it was even more complicated. I had won three stages, but I remember that in that final in Madrid, the green jersey was worn by Samuel Sanchez. He had also won three stages, so he was ahead of me. I managed to win the points jersey by beating Petacchi on that final finish..
What about the Giro?
In 2008 they gave the same points for the flat stages as for the mountain onesI remember that Emanuele Sella had also won three stages and one day he came to me and said, "Be careful, Benna, because I'll steal your cyclamen jersey!" In fact, he finished second in the Plan de Corones time trial and we found ourselves very close in the points classification (51 points, ed.). Luckily, in the final stages I also achieved a few more intermediate stage placings and saved myself. But the fact that we had the same score for all the stages meant that we had to fight against the classification riders and those who won the mountain stages.Maybe I had the advantage of being faster than the guys in the standings, so I could win some intermediate sprints and still bring home some points.
So, whether it's the Giro, the Tour, or the Vuelta, the points jersey doesn't come by chance, but is there a way to earn it that needs to be studied?
Exactly. By calibrating the teammates' work in relation to the stage's route. Right. la UAE Emirates is an exception, but only because they have Pogacar And when he's there, they don't bring the sprinter. Also because Tadej could win the points jersey if he wanted. For the rest, they study the routes and develop the best strategy to take home the points jersey.
Lidl-Trek only had Milan at the Tour, given Skjelmose's crash. At the Giro and the Vuelta, they had Pedersen and Ciccone, having to support both of them. A great job?
If there is a top-seeded player in the team, the sprinter has to make do with a couple of companionsThe teams are now equipped and can work together. the GC man and the sprinterThen, as with Pogacar, it also depends on the level of the man in the general classification. When I rode for Contador at the end of my career, there was no points jersey that could hold up: you just pulled for him..
