The European time trial and road race championships take place in Italy this week.
Tour De France green jersey winner Sam Bennett will make his return to the racing circuit when he slips on the Irish kit as part of a four-man team for Sunday's road race.
Having not raced since the Tour Of the Algarve in May, Bennett will now have been three months out of action following his knee injury which saw him miss out on this year's Tour De France.
At the time, the news of his unavailability for the showpiece grand tour greatly angered his Director Sportiff Patrick Lefevere, with the Belgian hitting out at Bennett saying "I have balls, he doesn't".
With this latest news that Bennett is available for Ireland but not Quick-Step, Lefevere is once again speaking in Belgian newspaper Het Nieuwsblad to express his frustrations.
"What he's doing now is playing with my balls in public"
The course in Italy for this Sunday's road race is an undulating 179.2 km run around Trento. Lefevere has been quick to jump on this latest news from Bennett as a response to their changing financial relationship.
Having not raced for three months, Quick-Step are entitled - as per UCI regulations - to cut the riders pay by half.
Bennett's agent Andrew McQuaid has indicated that he will be fit to complete the road race this Sunday, with Lefevere questioning why he would not take an in-house fitness test to prove his physical condition.
I hear from his manager Andrew McQuaid that he will definitely finish the European Championship. I'm not so sure about that yet. We have already suggested that we do an exercise test at our Bakala Academy, but he does not go into that. For me it's simple; first prove that you're fit, before you take the place of a teammate.
Amid the very public bust-up between Lefevere and Bennett, the acid-tongued DS had made reference to Bennett's switch back to Bora-Hansgrohe for the next season. In 2020 Bennett left Bora to make his move to Quick-Step, with Lefevere likening that return to a victim of domestic abuse returning to their abusive partner.
The relationship breakdown was well documented in the media with the conversation coming from one side only. Bennett is yet to speak publicly of the ordeal, but Lefevere has provided enough quotes to maintain the story since before the three-week outing in France.
On the back of that media onslaught, Bennett has chosen to write the world governing body to condemn the domestic abuse comments, but Lefevere while Lefevevre apologised for some clumsy words, he says that his thoughts on the Carrick-On-Suir man have not changed.
My opinion of him remains the same, but what I wrote about intimate partner violence – in the context of his return to Bora – was not appropriate. Mea culpa.
From now on I'll choose my words more carefully in the whole discussion around Bennett.
