Cycling: Kiwi George Bennett slips to 10th after Giro d'Italia time trial

  • 23/05/2018
Bennett finished over three minutes behind the stage leader.
Bennett finished over three minutes behind the stage leader. Photo credit: Getty

Kiwi George Bennett's hopes of a top-five finish at the Giro d'Italia have suffered another blow after the Stage 16 time trial.

The 28-year-old's poor luck continued with his bike suffering more mechanical problems in finishing 3m 4s behind stage winner Rohan Dennis to slip to 10th in the overall rankings.

Australian Dennis may have claimed the stage win, but race leader Simon Yates and his pro cycling team team, Mitchelton-Scott, cleared a significant hurdle in their bid for overall glory.

No British rider has ever won the Giro, but Yates will go into the final five days as clear favourite, after surviving Tuesday's time trial with a 56-second lead.

His time of 41m 37s over the 34.5km course from Trento to Rovereto was only 22nd best on the day, but it was enough for the 25-year-old to stay clear of defending champion Tom Dumoulin of Team Sunweb.

Dutchman Dumoulin, the world time trial champion, took 75 seconds out of Yates, but had started the day 2m 11s down in second place.

BMC Racing's Dennis, with a time of 40 minutes exactly, moved up to sixth overall with Tuesday's stage victory - the Adelaide rider's fourth on Grand Tours - and he was delighted to be back in the top 10.

"It's pretty good to beat time-triallists like Tony Martin and Tom Dumoulin," the 27-year-old said.

"Obviously I wanted to come here to win a stage and I was hoping to do that in Israel in the opening time trial," he said. "It wasn't the case, but I'm glad I could get one here today.

"To come here and repay the team for all their hard work, and jump back into the top 10 is a big day for me.

"Basically, I just have to hold on for as long as possible. There's going to be guys going crazy in the last week.

"I think there could be some guys hurting. I think that I'll be hurting a bit as well.

"I'm just going to take it each day, and try and hold on to that top 10."

The Australian-owned and run Mitchelton-Scott team's best result in the three Grand Tours - Giro d'Italia, Tour de France and La Vuelta - since their inception in 2011 was Colombian rider Esteban Chaves' runner-up finish in the Giro two years ago.

Yates had become the first rider in 15 years to win three stages on the Giro in the leader's pink jersey, after launching a bold solo attack with 17km to go in Stage 15 on Sunday.

And returning to the road after Monday's rest day, he was delighted to keep the pink jersey and said doing so will allow him to take a different approach into the final week, after some aggressive racing so far.

"I'm really happy," he said. "The first half I felt good, I had a good rhythm and I felt I was going well, I wasn't losing so much time.

"I was really trying to hold my position, but the final 10km, I really died a thousands deaths. I thought I would lose a lot more time, but I managed to hang on.

"It really changes my tactics for the coming days, I think. Unfortunately for the fans I can be a lot more defensive."

Team Sky's four-time Tour de France winner Chris Froome recorded the fifth-best time of the day with a 40m 35s, which saw him move up to fourth overall, 3m 50s down, after Frenchman Thibaut Pinot of Groupama-FDJ struggled.

Italy's Domenico Pozzovivo remained third, but slipped 3m 11s behind Yates.

PA/Newshub.