Bennett on target for highest ever NZ placing
Sixth-placed Kiwi could threaten podium with best form in mountains
George Bennett has navigated the first two weeks of the Giro d’Italia but he still has a fierce uphill battle to come.
Bennett is on track to record New Zealand’s best finish in a cycling Grand Tour, sitting sixth through 12 stages of the Giro.
Considering the world class field surrounding him, it’s been a quality showing for the 28-year-old.
Bennett sits ahead of several stars who were tipped for big things, having outperformed Fabio Aru, Miguel Angel Lopez, Esteban Chaves and Chris Froome through the tour’s first two weeks.
The way he’s accomplished it has been through consistency — claiming top-30 finishes in all of the last 10 stages.
As favourite after favourite suffered a rough day in the saddle, Bennett hung tough, riding with the leaders for most of the testing finishes. On the occasions when he couldn’t keep the pace, Bennett limited his losses, avoiding a raceruining day and staying well positioned overall.
As a result, he sits 2m 09s down on leader Simon Yates. Any optimistic hopes of overall victory are realistically over — barring a superhuman performance in the mountains — but Bennett can now have genuine ambitions of a top five finish, and could eye the podium if he reaches his best form.
At worst, his chances of beating New Zealand’s previous best Grand Tour result — his own 10th overall at the 2016 Vuelta a Espana — look strong. In last year’s Giro, eight of the top 10 riders through 12 stages remained in the top 10 by the end of the race, with the cream of the peloton rising to the top early on.
That number may dip slightly in this edition, with the race reaching the pinnacle in the final week.
A 34.2km individual time trial will shake up the general classification, and five demanding summit finishes in the mountains are still to come for a peloton which will already have racked up 2000km of racing.
One of the most difficult finishes comes tonight — the Monte Zoncolan, a fearsome 11km final climb with a giddying maximum gradient of 22 per cent. It’s a relentless finish filled with hairpins and tunnels, with the climb including a ridiculous 6km stretch where the gradient doesn’t dip below
10 per cent.
To make matters more gruelling, the brutal finale comes after two additional climbs in the final 50km, completing a stage likely to create major time gaps.
However, this is Bennett’s territory — and he should hold up better than many of his fellow top 10 riders.
In the end, that factor — endurance — is what the Giro will come down to, and based on Bennett’s consistency so far, Kiwi cycling history could be on the way at the end of May.
Yesterday, it was another Bennett, Sam Bennett of Ireland, who pulled off a superb final attack to win the
12th stage.
Bennett began his sprint a long way out to storm past Matej Mohoric and Carlos Betancur to claim his second stage of the race at a wet finish to the 214km route from Osimo to the motorsport circuit of Imola.
“I saw two guys ahead, my team had done so much work for me and I couldn’t let them down. I just went for it,” said Bennett, who rides for BoraHansgrohe.
“I looked back when I saw how far away the line was. I didn’t know if I would make it but I kept going and I pulled it off.”
Danny van Poppel was second, just ahead of Niccolo Bonifazio.
Yates retained his 47s advantage over defending champion Tom Dumoulin of the Netherlands.
Thibaut Pinot is third, 1m 04s behind the British cyclist.
“I guess these were favourable weather conditions for an Englishman. And also for an Irishman,” Yates said.
The stage was meant to be a relatively easy one before the race hits the mountains this weekend but rain and hail in the final 30km and the one classified climb of the day added to the drama.
The race finishes in Rome on May
27.