Bennett’s friends are now his foes in Tokyo road race
For the past few weeks, George Bennett has gone to bed visualising winning a medal at the Tokyo Olympics.
It has been his dream since he was a child in Aniseed Valley near Nelson to stand on the podium at the Olympic Games.
Now 31, in the peak of his career, with 14 grand tours under his belt, Bennett said he still rated the men’s road race as one of the most sought after races to win.
‘‘The Olympics for me was a dream far before the Tour de France, and before I even rode a bike. I never watch athletics, but I watch every athletics event at the Olympics. Maybe it’s a thing coming from New Zealand where cycling isn’t big, but the Olympics is,’’ he said. ‘‘I hold it in a higher regard than a lot of other guys.
‘‘There are guys who will say ‘I won’t be going to the Olympics because it’ll affect my preparation for the Vuelta a Espana.’ The Vuelta? The Vuelta I’ve done eight times or something and most of the time you’re on your knees at that stage of the year and don’t want to go.
‘‘I can’t get my head around it. The Olympics is the Olympics. It is the dream and I’m probably more geed up for this one than I was my first one. The first one was cool because you’re going to the Olympics, but I didn’t feel like I was going to really be in the race, now I’m more excited for race day.
‘‘You look at what the Olympics did to Greg van Avermaet when he won in Rio. He became a superstar after the Olympics. There’s no doubt that this is the most hotly contested Olympics in history because of the course. Suddenly all the big stars see a course they can do well on.’’
The New Zealand champion has no shortage of motivation heading into his second Olympics. He is desperate to make amends for his disappointing Giro d’Italia campaign which saw him drop out of overall contention within the first week, and felt he was better placed to aim for a podium five years on from his 33rd place finish in Rio de Janeiro.
The 243km road race will take place on Mount Fuji today and features 4865m of elevation gain, playing to Bennett’s strength as a climber. The expected hot and humid weather should also work in the slender rider’s favour as it was on the colder days that he struggled to perform at the Giro.
‘‘With the Giro I put such big expectations on that and the build up was going well, and I thought maybe I could be on the podium here, but in the end it just didn’t work out for me and it was such a big fall from how I thought it was going to go and how it went,’’ he said. ‘‘I’d love to say as long as I did my best I’d be happy, but it doesn’t really work like that. I’ll be happy if I get a result. In a grand tour if you get a top-10 it’s quite big but no one wants to be fourth in the Olympics, even though that would be an amazing result at a grand tour. There’s three good positions and everything outside that is ‘oh well, you tried’.’’
Two of the favourites to strike gold are Bennett’s team-mates at Jumbo-Visma, Belgian Wout van Aert and Slovenian Primoz Roglic.
Both riders are coming off contrasting Tour de France campaigns with van Aert claiming three stage victories and Roglic abandoning the race due to injuries he suffered in a nasty crash.
With only Patrick Bevin to call on for help, Bennett admitted he would need luck to upstage the European heavyweights who have strength in numbers, and would have to gamble on letting the breakaway go to save himself for the final climb, which is where he hoped the race would be decided.