Bennett jostles for tour return
The frustration of a failed Vuelta a Espana campaign still pains George Bennett as he puts the brakes on an otherwise impressive season on the bike.
The Kiwi rider went up another gear this year, achieving numerous career-best results including top-10 finishes at the Giro d’Italia, Tirreno-Adriatico, Volta Ciclista a Catalunya, Tour of the Alps, Tour of Poland and Il Lombardia.
Bennett’s eighth placing at the Giro is the best result a New Zealander has achieved at a Grand Tour, but creating another piece of New Zealand cycling history was not enough to satisfy the ambitious 28-year-old climber, who is now jostling for a return to the Tour de France next year.
When assessing his 2018 performances, Bennett was quick to single out his 35th placing at the Vuelta as one result that didn’t go to plan.
Even though the positives have outweighed the negatives during a consistent season where he was rewarded with a threeyear contract extension, the LottoNL-Jumbo rider was still bitterly disappointed with his performance in Spain as the Vuelta was one of his major targets and he spent three months preparing for it.
‘‘I didn’t win a race like I did last year and last year was a breakout year because I won Cali [Tour of California] and I was right up in there in the Tour [de France] and it was a surprise. But this year I was top-10 in nearly every single race except for the Vuelta,’’ said Bennett, who plans to spend the next two months resting up back home in Nelson.
‘‘I reached a new level in terms of strength in the Tour of Poland but I never really achieved what I wanted to in the big races like the Giro. I felt that didn’t go as expected and obviously at the Vuelta, that was a really disappointing race for me.’’
Bennett’s failure at the Vuelta could cost him a leadership role at next year’s Tour de France. He skipped the sport’s most famous race this year in order to concentrate on the other two Grand Tours, but he could only watch on as team-mates Steven Kruijswijk and Primoz Roglic excelled in his absence, both riders impressing with top-five finishes.
Although the emergence of three genuine general classification contenders provides LottoNL-Jumbo with some serious firepower for next year’s Tour, Bennett realises that competition for a leadership role is at all-time high and that simply making the cut is no guarantee.
‘‘We have a luxurious problem. It used to be that you could say you wanted to do this as a leader and that’s what you did, but now we have multiple leaders and not just in the GC but in sprints too.
‘‘They’ll have to put the pieces together and work out who is going where in 2019. The Tour route came out last week and there’s not many time trials and there’s a lot of mountains so that’s definitely what I’ve got my eye on.’’
As LottoNL-Jumbo management spend the rest of the year finalising their gameplan, with the makeup of their Tour roster high on the agenda, Bennett said he plans to keep out of those discussions.
Instead he’s taking his mind off professional cycling for a few weeks and plans to head around the South Island to ‘‘play tourist’’ on the trails.