Last year, when he lined up to start the season in Australia, George Bennett was all too aware that uncertainty and challenges lay ahead, and while the path on the road certainly didn’t end up being easy, it was nothing compared to the one he faced off it.
2025 may have been a contract year, and in such an intensely competitive market, riders are often driven to be hyper-focused on proving their worth to secure a continuation of their career. But there were far more pressing concerns that left him bolting from Liège-Bastogne-Liège to return home to New Zealand, where he faced a deep personal loss, his mother’s death from brain cancer.
Then, even when he returned to racing mid-year, there was no easy run, with crashes in the Vuelta a España. After that, when he was ready to race again, Israel-Premier Tech’s absence from the late-season block of Italian races meant his season was cut even shorter, to 47 race days – by far the fewest of his 15-year professional racing career. However, there is no sense that the 35-year-old is worn down by the experience; if anything, it seems to have spurred the NSN Cycling rider on.
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