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“I’m just sorry to everyone who has been backing me but that’s bike racing.” George Bennett had been up there with the best. But he leaves the Tour, “DNF stage 16”. We caught up with him at the end of the stage…

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RIDE: It’s a shame but you can’t fight illness and wind… is it a stomach bug that’s knocked you around?

George Bennett: “I came with a fever yesterday. Already on the day before the rest day, I started feeling pretty crook in the stage.

“It started with a fever and I thought I was going to be okay on the rest day. I felt okay in the morning but after lunch, I just came down with the worst fever I’ve had in a long, long time.

“I couldn’t even move. I couldn’t get out of bed. I was sweating… the works.

“And then I spent really, really rough night just trying to get rid of the fever.”

 

Was there vomiting or diarrhoea?

“No, none of that. Just muscle pain.

“I woke up this morning and my temperature was two-and-a-half degrees lower than the night before, which was good. But I have never felt that bad on the bike in my life.

“We started stage 16 and I tried to do everything. I just went absolutely full-gas up that climb but when you’re watching Marcel Kittel ride away from you on a hill, there’s something wrong.

“I started getting dizzy and all sorts of pain so there was nothing I could do.”

 

It’s not the kind of condition you need to ride in echelons… on any day, let alone on a day when they’re really giving it some.

“Yeah, a day like this I don’t like in any situation but when I can hardly pedal it’s horrible.

“I’m just so devastated to leave, man.

“I did everything for this race. I spent how many months of my life riding to the top of a mountain and… yeah, now I’m going home.”

 

Are you thinking of the Vuelta or anything like that?

“Yeah, the Vuelta.

“Hopefully I can be back for [Clasica] San Sebastian but I don’t know about that.

“The Vuelta is definitely on the radar now. But I’ll see if I can recover from this one first. I think this seriously case of man-flu will have me in bed for a few days.”

 

Did you shed a tear when they pealed your numbers off?

“Yeah, it was not a nice moment, you know? Sitting on the side of the road waiting for a team car. At that moment you think about everything that’s gone into it.

“You just stop on the side of the road and it’s over. You don’t roll into Paris with the planes flying overhead, you just get in a team car and get a plane home to Girona.

“I’m just sorry to everyone who has been backing me but that’s bike racing and there’s plenty more of them and you’ve just got to remind yourself, ‘It’s just a bike race.’”

 

 

– Interview by Rob Arnold

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