Bennett joins the big boys
New Zealand cycling fans can dare to dream that the country at last has someone who could win the Tour de France.
Nelson’s George Bennett over the last few months has demonstrated he can mix it with the best of the world and will reassess what he can achieve in his cycling career after a breakthrough few months.
The 26-year-old cyclist has been a professional since 2010, but over the back half of this year he’s elevated his status in the peloton to a rider with true general classification (GC) qualities.
GC riders are a special breed, they can not only climb well but also be competitive in time trials.
The likes of Chris Froome, Nairo Quintana and Alberto Contador fit into this category and while most youngsters dream of winning the Tour de France when they take up the sport, most who turn professional realise that their career will as a domestique, helping out their team leader by setting the right pace or fetching drink bottles.
Bennett had diligently fulfilled those roles for his LottoNL-Jumbo team and Cannondale and RadioShack before that.
Bennett always looked like a rider who had potential to go well in stage races, because of his strong climbing abilities and over the last few months he has had some impressive results, including finishing seventh at the Tour of California, 14th at the Criterium du Dauphine and seventh on a stage at the Tour de France.
He has also finished fourth on a mountainous stage of the current Vuelta a Espana and going into today’s stage was in 11th place overall. Because of all this, Bennett says he’ll re-evaluate his goals.
‘‘I don’t want to get too far ahead of myself, but at the same time it’s made me think about everything,’’ Bennett said.
‘‘I’ve always dreamed of being a GC rider in the Tour de France. I’ll need a couple more years to develop, like in the time trial and the last little bit in the 240km stages.
‘‘But I’m not putting any barriers on what I can do and if I keep the same progression then I’m pretty optimistic that I can have an exciting career.
‘‘Although after a few good results I’m not suddenly thinking I’m the next Chris Froome or anything like that.
‘‘This is such a hard sport and you’ve got to keep your feet on the ground.
‘‘Next year for sure, I’ll get my chances again and the team are starting to see that they can send me to races as the designated guy.
‘‘But there will still be a lot of times where I’ll be back being the last man in the mountains for [Steven] Kruijswijk or [Robert] Gesink.’’
The Vuelta is Bennett’s last race of the year and he plans to spend the off season working on his time trialling, a vital component in the make up of any GC rider.
While he feels he needs to improve a lot on this, he finished a respectable 25th in yesterday’s 37km time trial at the Vuelta.
Bike NZ’s high performance director, Mark Elliott has watched Bennett mature over the years and says he understands what it takes to make it to the top.
‘‘The key thing for me is seeing George understanding the level he has to operate at,’’ Elliott said. ’’He’s really clear about what it looks like now, as a top world level cyclist. The dedication those guys have to operate at is pretty hard to comprehend. But George gets that and has taken a pretty professional approach.’’