'It's an Arms Race': George Bennett on Rise of the WorldTour's 'Super Teams'

ADELAIDE, Australia (Velo) — George Bennett is swapping out long-running stints at two of the peloton’s super teams at UAE Team Emirates and Jumbo-Visma for a fresh start in 2024 with Israel Premier Tech.

Perhaps no rider in the WorldTour boasts the insight into the inner workings of  the WorldTour juggernauts overflowing with riders like Primož Roglič, Wout van Aert, Jonas Vingegard, and Tadej Pogačar than Bennett.

“What’s it like on the super teams? For me it’s normal,” Bennett told Velo. “I’ve never been anywhere else.”

The New Zealand climber doesn’t see a move to the second-tier with Israel Premier Tech as a step down.

Instead, he says there’s no monopoly on innovation in today’s elite men’s peloton, and that every top team is working on cycling’s latest, shiniest new toys.

“It is a bit of an arms race in racing right now,” Bennett told Velo. “And it drives a whole lot of other things. It’s a wormhole you can get down there and get lost.”

Also read: Bennett joins Israel Premier Tech on two-year deal 

The 33-year-old saw the rise of Visma-Lease a Bike from the inside, and then joined the UAE juggernaut at the peak of Pogačar’s powers.

Much of his career traced the rise of both of the WorldTour’s top squads. He joined the Dutch squad in 2015 a year before the arrival of Roglič and the dawn of the era of the “Killer Bees.”

In 2022, he moved to UAE Team Emirates to help pace Pogačar, who is now the world No. 1.

“Things have changed a lot in my career,” he said. “Jumbo-Visma got an advantage early with some of the things they were doing with nutrition and training, but a year later, everyone was doing the same thing.

“I don’t think there is anything now that any one team has exclusively,” Bennett said. “No one is not looking at skinsuits or wind-tunnel testing or nutrition.

“Whether it’s aerodynamics or lactate sensors or altitude training, all the top teams are doing the same thing.”

Innovation was part of the rise of the super teams starting with Sky/Ineos more than a decade ago, but Bennett said there are no secrets in cycling.

So what sets the Vismas and UAEs apart? For Bennett, it’s budget and money the top teams bring to sign the proven hitters.

“Basically it comes down to how many watts your riders can push,” he said. “And you need big budgets to sign these riders. Wout van Aert and Jonas and Primož will be good on a lot of teams.

“When I joined Jumbo in 2015, we won eight races, and we were one of the worst teams in the peloton,” Bennett said. “Don’t take anything away from Jumbo, but a lot of the little things that they were doing have become a bit of a myth. What they had was Roglič.

“Their biggest skill is talent ID,” Bennett said of Visma-Lease a Bike. “They’re not doing anything more than Israel or UAE in terms of nutrition, training, tech … all the top teams now are nailing nutrition, aerodynamics, and equipment.

“Jumbo was the first to do it well, but a lot of teams do stuff like that now.”

Fresh start at Israel Premier Tech: ‘I want to be back at my best’

The New Zealand climber says all the bells and whistles at the top of the WorldTour are fine until something doesn’t fit right. For Bennett, after two uneven seasons at UAE marked by a COVID-19 infection in 2022 and a grand tour snub in 2023, it was time for a change.

“Being on a big team with a huge budget and fancy things is really nice. If you’re not doing what to do at races or going to races that you want to do or if you’re not preparing for races you want, you’re not going to be happy,” Bennett told Velo. “It doesn’t matter how many fancy things you have or the business-class flights, personally the way for me to perform well is I have to be happy. The team is not getting value, and I am not getting value.”

George Bennett (New Zealand) joins Israel Premier Tech from UAE Team Emirates.

Bennett 33 from New Zealand has signed for 2024-2025. pic.twitter.com/UYBrNe0eUw

— Mihigo Saddam “Mkude” (@mihigosadam) September 12, 2023

After searching out for a new team at the end of 2023, Bennett said he was close to signing with a few teams before a late-hour window opened to join Israel Premier Tech.

With the team keen to rejoin the WorldTour after seeing relegation to the Pro-Conti level at the end of 2022, Bennett said the team’s aggressive racing tilt is just what he needs.

“UAE is a great team, and I got one well with a lot of the riders and staff. It was mainly their vision of me versus of what I wanted to do that didn’t line up,” he said. “I want to get back to grand tours. I just want to be back at the front end, to be helping the guys in the mountains again, and I felt like it’s been two years since I haven’t done that.

“This team is very opportunistic,” Bennett said of IPT. “It’s attacking, getting into the breaks, and I like the mental edge of this team. The relegation lit a fire under everyone in the organization. There’s a new fire to get back to the WorldTour.

“I never really had the chance to go for stage wins in the ‘grandies.’ I was always there as a helper for Roglič or Tadej,” he said. “That’s something they’re keen on and that excited me.

“There is also times I will be helping others, like Liège with Michael Woods, but it is also important to keep that spark and chasing results yourself,” Bennett said. “It’s a different mentality than being part of a super team.”