Bennett endures a ride from hell
New Zealand’s world tour cycling star George Bennett fought bravely to secure a top-20 finish in one of the toughest world championship road race tests at the ski resort of Innsbruck, Austria.
The Lotto NL Jumbo professional went with a powerful surge that attempted to bridge up to the two remnants of the early break
25km from the finish, but were caught and ultimately had to fight up the ginormous Hell Hill with the bunch yesterday.
He settled for 18th place, finishing with the second small group split apart on the final cruel climb as Spanish superstar Alejandro Valverde claimed the rainbow jersey that he has eluded him for nearly two decades at the top of the sport.
It was an impressive performance from Bennett on one of the sport’s most brutal tests of 265km and close to seven hours that came down to this final nearvertical climb of the narrow brute known locally as Hell Hill.
‘‘In cycling more often than not the stuff you try doesn’t work more than it comes off. We decided as a group that we wanted to gamble for something really special,’’ Bennett said.
‘‘The break that I fought to get away had no more than one rider from any one country so I thought it could stick. In the end the Spanish were riding for Valverde and we had the wrong Spaniard in our break and it got closed down.
‘‘It’s disappointing especially riding for your country but that’s bike racing. I was never going to feature on that final climb. It was filthy. I could not follow Valverde, that’s not my type of climb. I did try to come back but a couple of guys were zig-zagging across the road in front of me trying to stay upright and that stalled me.’’
An early break built to over 20 minutes before the final two survivors caught on the last of seven laps of the Olympic circuit. A late break that included Bennett looked dangerous but evaporated on the single pass over the
2.9km Hell Hill, where gradients soared to over 25 per cent.
Three other New Zealanders – Dion Smith, Patrick Bevin and Sam Bewley – failed to finish.