Road Cycling
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Haven't watched my recording of the Oomloop yet but caught up with the UAE
George Bennett immediately justified his salary doing a perfect job for his team and for Pogacar on the climbs.
If that's his team role though the poor bugger is never going to see a stage win.
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George's schedule for the next few months...
After the UAE Tour I’m back home in Andorra for three weeks before the Volta a Catalunya [21-27 March] and then it’s almost straight into the Tour of the Basque Country [3-8 April]. From there, I’ll take on the Ardennes classics [Amstel Gold Race, La Fleche Wallonne and Liege-Bastogne-Liege] for the first time, which I’m excited about. It’s then onto the [Critérium du] Dauphine [5-12 June]. After, hopefully it’s the Tour de France [1-24 July]. It’s never locked in this early but I’ll throw my hat into the ring. As for the end of the year, we have a lot of stuff pencilled in but you can take that with a pinch of salt in February.
Quite an interesting interview...
George Bennett: “The difference between Pogačar and Roglič is often the difference between their helpers
One of the biggest transfers of the off-season saw George Bennett move from Jumbo-Visma to fierce rivals UAE Team Emirates. We caught up with the 31-year-old to talk new training ideas, new gear and new ambitions…
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Volta a Catalunya starts tomorrow night.
Quite a strong field. Looks like George will be supporting Joao Almeida.
UAE has recruited pretty heavily in the off-season and have pretty much as strong of a roster as TJV and Ineos. They picked up Almeida, George and Marc Soler - among others.
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@chris-b I see both Trek - Segafredo and EF Education-EasyPost have each found a spot amongst their seven riders for guys from Eritrea of all places. Is this cycling's equivalent of Eric the Eel or Eddie the Eagle or are they decent riders? It clearly can't be because they brought their way in via sponsorship money they have backing them but still hard to believe that Eritrea has more riders taking part than NZ has.
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@chris-b There are also a few guys from the West Indies doing ok in the track cycling world, also a couple of Malaysians so things seem to be expanding from the predominantly European/Australian base that track cycling has always seemed to be. Quite a few South Americans doing well on the road too it is noted.
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Flat stage in the Catalunya last night, but cross winds near the end caught out a few of the bigger guns - Simon Yates (crashed and got caught out/attacked), Carthy, Mentjies, Hindley, Woods, Dumoulin, Storer - all lost 30-odd seconds.
George safely ensconced in the quite small leading group, with his leader, Almeida.
Richie Porte sick and withdrew.
At the end of Stage 1 Sonny Cobrelli had a cardiac arrest, but resuscitated and recovering in hospital. (Yeah - I nastily thought that too!).
Mountain stages the next couple of days.
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@chris-b said in Road Cycling:
Flat stage in the Catalunya last night, but cross winds near the end caught out a few of the bigger guns - Simon Yates (crashed and got caught out/attacked), Carthy, Mentjies, Hindley, Woods, Dumoulin, Storer - all lost 30-odd seconds.
George safely ensconced in the quite small leading group, with his leader, Almeida.
Richie Porte sick and withdrew.
At the end of Stage 1 Sonny Cobrelli had a cardiac arrest, but resuscitated and recovering in hospital. (Yeah - I nastily thought that too!).
Mountain stages the next couple of days.
Should spread the field a bit time wise. Interesting stage with three Cat1 climbs. They start going uphill right from the start with no let up for 80km. Anyone who can make a break on the second climb and can descend well will be in a great spot for the third.
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@crucial Significant time for Yates et al to make up on the big guns still in the lead group.
Almeida, Carapaz, Quintana and maybe Kruiswijk and Valverde.
UAE has George and Soler as cards to play from the lead group, as well - if they want.
A few others like Chaves, Martin and Poels maybe in the mix.
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@chris-b said in Road Cycling:
@crucial Significant time for Yates et al to make up on the big guns still in the lead group.
Almeida, Carapaz, Quintana and maybe Kruiswijk and Valverde.
UAE has George and Soler as cards to play from the lead group, as well - if they want.
A few others like Chaves, Martin and Poels maybe in the mix.
I am hoping that the first climb has a decent peleton and George can save himself to work on the second. He seems to be in the team as the the climbing pacer.
Pretty sure that will be everyone's gameplan though so the second climb may also get nullified. -
@crucial On past form, you'd think Soler would be a more dangerous rider for UAE to send ahead than George - if they were going to try that.
I'd think that the teams of the guys who have lost time will need to make the stage hard, so they should be interested in setting the early pace.
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@chris-b said in Road Cycling:
@crucial On past form, you'd think Soler would be a more dangerous rider for UAE to send ahead than George - if they were going to try that.
I'd think that the teams of the guys who have lost time will need to make the stage hard, so they should be interested in setting the early pace.
Sorry, didn't mean that George will be given space to go ahead just that his role will be to pull Almeida up one of the climbs. Just hope he gets to go deeper in the race than the first (or second) climb. In the Emirates he was going flat out to stretch the field then dropping right back job done.
One day a stage like this will go his way and he can pull on the last climb then hang in there to the end for a podium. -
@crucial I was agreeing with you in a roundabout way.
I think George will be pacing Almeida - but, if other teams do that job, he might be able to just ride along with Almeida tonight and stay high in the GC.
If UAE were going to send anyone up the road, I think they'd send Soler.
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Quite interesting stage.
The peloton stayed largely together till the final climb.
Ben O'Çonnor broke away early on the climb and maintained a 25 second lead till the final scramble, where he held on to win by 6 seconds.
A lead group of about 30 riders (including George) finished more-or-less together. George poked his nose into the breeze very briefly halfway up the climb, but otherwise sat in. A small handful of riders including Guillame Martin and Soler made brief bids to catch O'Connor.
Net result, George is 10th equal (with about 10 others), 19 seconds down on O'Çonnor. His teammate Ayuso is 2nd and Almeida 4th = - 3 seconds ahead of George.
Soler got caught and spat out the back near the finish and lost a handful of seconds, as did Chaves, Meintjes, Carthy and Woods.
Simon Yates cracked and lost 10 minutes - as did Michael Storer.
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@crucial I only watched the TV coverage and had a look at the placings.
But, I just looked - he crashed the day before - yesterday he was feeling effects of recent illness. Likely withdrawal today.
Tom Dumoulin and Michael Matthews were high profile withdrawals yesterday - Tom was sick.
Tom has been a pretty underwhelming signing for TJV so far. Not done much in their colours.
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One of George's better rides last night.
A breakaway of seven riders (including Soler) mainly got caught just before the final climb.
Bruno Almirail, however, survived and made a solo attack to lead by about 25 seconds. George then attacked and was able to ride across to Almirail. Unfortunately, never got more than about 15 seconds ahead of the main group - but, sat at that distance towing Almirail for 4-5 kms.
When the big guns started to launch about 4kms from the finish they got swallowed up.
Eventually Almeida won on the line for UAE, from Quintana and Higuita - with Carapaz a few seconds back. Ben O'Çonnor cracked a couple of kms from home.
George rode on to finish 13th on the stage, but 43 seconds down. However, good to see him have a crack.
He's now 11th overall but 56 seconds down.
Quintana is the overall leader, but Almeida has the same time. Higuita is 6 seconds down - then a bunch of guys 17-26 seconds down including Ayuso, Poels, O'Çonnor, Martin and Carapaz.
Startlist for Volta Ciclista a Catalunya 2022
