George Bennett on cricket, the Giro and the environment
It’s George Bennett’s time to shine. Often a super-domestique, he’s now got his own shot at the Giro. Chris Marshall-bell makes the enquiries
George Bennett wants to discuss something that’s on his mind. “What on earth was going on with that pitch?” the Jumbo-visma rider muses, stunned. “Were they playing on a bloody minefield or something?”
The New Zealander is talking about the third cricket Test between India and England, that the latter lost inside two days, the shortest Test since 1935. Bennett has no sympathy for England – indeed, at the 2019 Tour de France he was heartbroken watching the Kiwis lose to England in the cricket World Cup final – but he’s perplexed by what happened in Ahmedabad.
I mention that England captain Joe Root got five wickets, the cycling equivalent of Chris Froome winning five sprint stages at the Tour de France. “Unreal, hey. But, look, I think even I could have taken a wicket or two on that pitch.”
We can’t vouch for Bennett’s bowling skills but Jumbo-visma have certainly vouched for his racing talent. He started his season on Sunday at Paris-nice and it’s set to be the biggest one of his pro career to date. The team, which first signed him in 2015,
has this year handed him leadership responsibility at the Giro d’italia and agreed to leave the talented climber out of the Tour de France to give him a run at the Olympic road race.
His Giro d’italia leadership will be the first time he’s led at a Grand Tour team since his eighth place at the 2018 Giro. “Oh, mate,” he says. “It’s very exciting. It’s quite humbling, too. They’ve put faith in me, looked at all my data and believe that I can do it. They’ve said they’ll give me a team.
No complacency
“It’s not something you take lightly. You can never be complacent. I’ve spent the last few years helping a few people out, and there’s always talk about me trying to do it myself one day.
“Well, here we are: they’ve handed me the car keys and it’s important to make the most of the chance otherwise… I love helping Primož [Roglič] win his races but I also love the thought of going for it myself. It’s an important opportunity that I have to take.”
Don’t mistake the humility for weakness, though: he’s there to compete for at least a podium place. “Before I crashed at the Tour last year and got my head kicked in, I had moments where I felt that I can be one of the best in the world. I was climbing with the best, I was doing great things, but then it came unstuck.”
It was career-best form: fifth on GC at the Vuelta a Burgos and Tour de l’ain, and then winning Gran Piemonte before finishing second at Il Lombardia. Ahead of the new season, he feels like he’s back at that level.
“Right now I’ve got the same optimism that everyone starts the season with, but I’ve won the New Zealand nationals, produced the best time trial I have ever done, and if I arrive at the Giro with the form I had before the Tour last year, then anything is possible,” he adds.
“I’m not going to be shouting from the rooftops that I’m going to win it, and to do so I’d have to finish above six or seven really top guys, but
I’m optimistic. I’m going to throw my hat in the ring and be around there.”
Bennett is fascinating. He’s engaged in each topic, highly knowledgeable and just wants to chat. It’s no surprise, then, that the Andorra and Girona-based rider has his own successful podcast with compatriot Sam Bewley, The Social Distance Podcast, that is approaching its one-year anniversary in April.
“I’m optimistic. I’m going to throw my hat in the ring”
Hot topic
Our conversation jumps from one topic to the next but there’s one that, we can tell from his voice, animates him more than others. “Climate change is something that I am really passionate about. For me, it’s the biggest thing in the world and I have grappled with it a few times.
“Look at the state of me: I fly from here to here, I use how many water bottles in a race, I put away 7,500 calories a day. It’s a very wasteful life that we lead. I try to justify it by thinking that maybe we are inspiring people to ride a bike, to put their cars away. This should be cycling’s legacy.”
He’s just recently returned from eight weeks at home in New Zealand,
six of those weeks were spent out of quarantine attending weddings, concerts, parties, going to the beach. The pandemic may have been largely defeated in his home country, but its threat pales into insignificance against the climate emergency. “It might not be affecting us on a daily basis right now, but this will cause the biggest ever humanitarian and ecological crises,” he continues. “It doesn’t matter if we have the pandemic or poverty if we don’t have a place to live.”
Does cycling need to address its own impact, we ask. “For sure. There must be a better way than putting a caravan of trucks through the Pyrenees or the Alps during a Tour stage,” he ponders. “Perhaps cycling teams should encourage people to ride to work or something as that would encourage a greater net carbon reduction throughout the world.”
Genuine opportunity
Travelling to Tokyo for the Olympics this summer certainly won’t help his carbon footprint, but despite that his excitement is palpable. “I’m out of the Tour team for a year to give me a proper run into the Olympics because it’s the only Olympics in my lifetime that suits a guy like me,” he says.
An undulating course with 4,865m of climbing, Bennett describes it as “a genuine opportunity”. “The heat and humidity will cancel a lot of guys out, but that’s something I’m really good in and it doesn’t really affect me,” he says.
“Do I back myself? I back myself to the point where I could get lucky. I wouldn’t say I’m going to be one of the big dogs everyone’s talking about, but I consider myself as an option to make the winning group and then strange things happen. I want to put myself in the equation.”
The next time the likable Kiwi returns to his home country, he may be a little more in demand. “Most Kiwis may not know the Giro, but they know the Olympics,” he adds. “I have a chance to do something really special this year in both races and transcend cycling in New Zealand. I hope to take the chance to do that.”