Bennett’s team undone by ‘ride of century’
Huddled around an iPad with his Jumbo-Visma team-mates, Kiwi cyclist George Bennett watched in disbelief as Tadej Pogacar produced ‘‘the ride of the century’’ to snatch the yellow jersey from Tour de France leader Primoz Roglic on a highlydramatic penultimate stage.
Roglic looked odds on to deliver Jumbo-Visma’s first Tour de France triumph after leading for 11 days, only for fellow Slovenian Pogacar to devour his 57-second advantage with a spectacular effort during Sunday’s decisive time trial to become the youngest winner of the famous race since 1904.
The 22-year-old UAE Team Emirates rider was almost two minutes quicker than Roglic over the 36.2 kilometre course and earned the right to celebrate on the final stage procession into Paris yesterday.
‘‘This is just the top of the top,’’ Pogacar said. ‘‘It’s been an amazing three-week adventure.’’
Knowing how much JumboVisma had invested in this year’s Tour and how close they came to winning, Bennett said it was heartbreaking to watch Roglic’s yellow jersey hopes evaporate right before his eyes. He was devastated for his team-mate.
‘‘We were all at the top watching it on TV and obviously it’s pretty emotional,’’ said Bennett, who rode almost the entire race with a suspected broken rib after crashing on the opening stage.
‘‘Everyone is tired and had invested everything – the whole year had been built around it – and obviously it was a real tough watch.
‘‘What can you say in a time like that? You can only watch and feel for Rogla.’’
Bennett said he went for a walk to compose himself.
‘‘Everyone was so invested in it. We’ve put so much energy and time and suffering into it, so of course we were upset. We were upset for ourselves and upset for Primoz.
‘‘But by the time we got to dinner, had a couple of beers and some laughs, we started to come to terms that actually we rode the perfect race and this guy’s just done the ride of the century.’’
Although they ultimately fell short of their main objective, Bennett believed it was still a successful Tour de France for Jumbo-Visma.
They won three individual stages and improved on last year’s third-place with Roglic completing an historic 1-2 finish for Slovenia to end up 59 seconds behind Pogacar in second. Richie Porte, of Australia, was third.
‘‘No one’s disappointed in him [Roglic] at all. Everyone knows he still put in a really good ride, he didn’t collapse, maybe it wasn’t his strongest day ever but it was still a really good ride,’’ Bennett said.
‘‘Once we accepted Pogacar was just on another level, it kind of made it easier. We didn’t make mistakes, we didn’t make tactical errors or have bad luck, this guy was just this much stronger.
‘‘I think in the end we still have the strongest team, that was very evident throughout the race. We were by far the strongest and we still finished second in the Tour.’’
After completing the arduous three-week slog with a busted rib, Bennett is now in a race against the clock to recover for next Monday’s UCI Road World Championships in Imola, Italy.
With 5000m of climbing, the course is well suited to Bennett’s strengths, however it will be a tough task backing up one week after a Grand Tour. He is also expected to line up at next month’s Vuelta a Espana.
‘‘I’ve been nursing myself here with a few injuries and things like that and I’m on my arse in terms of form but I’ve got a week to pull up so it could go either way,’’ he said.
‘‘I’ll give it a nudge but it’s not that I’m coming full of confidence like I was a month ago, before I had to drag myself around France for three weeks with the [rib] problem.
‘‘It’s sort of out of my hands now, I just have to recover and if I recover enough then I’ll probably be quite OK and if I don’t then it’ll be a great learning curve heading into Tokyo [2021, where Bennett backs up from the Giro d’Italia].’’
The final stage of the Tour de France was won by Deceuninck– Quick-Step rider and green jersey sprint classification winner Sam Bennett. George Bennett finished 34th overall and fellow Kiwi Jack Bauer was 84th. Sam Bewley did not finish after breaking his wrist in a crash on stage 10.