COMO — George Bennett hunched himself over his handlebars beyond the finish line in Como, shell-shocked and checking his bike computer after what he called the biggest day out of his career at Il Lombardia. The New Zealand champion, riding for NSN Cycling, told Cyclingnews the effort was "Biggest day out I've ever had, genuine. Numerically, that was ridiculous," after almost six hours of racing in the final Monument of the season.
The breakaway took a while to form but eventually contained 14 strong names, including Ben O'Connor, Antonio Tiberi and Victor Campenaerts, and lasted deep into the finale. "We just had a really really strong breakaway," Bennett said. "It was so hard with the wind so it was basically only top riders in there, and we just pulled all day. Nobody did one soft pull – except for Campenaerts, he sat on for 100k, but then even he started pulling really hard." He added: "Everyone just committed so hard. It was probably the best breakaway I've ever been in, in terms of cohesion and everything like that. Man, we got far but we decimated as well."
Bennett revealed a normalised power output of 5.2 watts per kilo for almost six hours, and an average power output of 280 watts for almost six hours, which for him is almost 5 watts per kilo. "Never done that," he stated. "Never done that average. I've had bigger peaks before. But the average of that… honestly sometimes in Andorra I do hit that with tempo efforts, but to do it for six hours… and to still be like 50th..." There was no despondency in the remark, with Bennett smiling at the finish despite the eventual placing.
"I really enjoyed it. This is my favourite race of the year. I always feel good here, and I love racing here," he said. "These Italian Classics are for me the best races of year. They're real racing. You need good legs, but they're super technical, tactical, you need to be a racer as well. And the fans are just the best here."