George Bennett has won the Tour of California. The Lotto NL-Jumbo rider has held on to his yellow jersey in a blistering final 125 kilometre stage, to become the first New Zealander to win a UCI World Tour title.
Bennett rode into the winner’s yellow jersey on Friday’s penultimate stage, a 24-kilometre time trial. He finished fourth on the stage, but was 41 seconds ahead of Majka to leapfrog him into the overall lead.
The win was setup on stage two in the mountains, when he was the only rider to stay with Majka over the six climbs on the 144.5km stage. Majka claimed the stage win that day, out-sprinting Bennett to the line.
“This has been a coming-of-age year for Bennett,” he said.
It was Bennett’s first tour win as a professional, having gone pro as in 2011 with Radioshack.
Evan Huffman won the last stage, outsprinting breakaway companions David Lopez (Team Sky) and Nicolas Edet (Cofidis) in Pasadena.
Tour of California 2017 – stage 7 results (Mountain High – Pasadena):
| 1 | Evan Huffman (Rally Cycling) | 2:37:28 |
| 2 | David Lopez (Team Sky) | ,, |
| 3 | Nicolas Edet (Cofidis) | ,, |
| 4 | Lachlan Morton (Dimension Data) | ,, |
| 5 | Rob Britton (Rally Cycling) | ,, |
| 6 | Peter Sagan (Bora-hansgrohe) | +22” |
| 7 | Matteo Trentin (Quick-Step Floors) | ,, |
| 8 | John Degenkolb (Trek-Segafredo) | ,, |
| 9 | Ben King (Dimension Data) | ,, |
| 10 | Jhonatan Restrepo (Katusha-Alpecin) | ,, |
Final general classification:
| 1 | George Bennett (LottoNl-Jumbo) | 22:54:38 |
| 2 | Rafal Majka (Bora-hansgrohe) | +35” |
| 3 | Andrew Talansky (Cannondale-Drapac) | +36” |
| 4 | Brent Bookwalter (BMC) | +45” |
| 5 | Ian Boswell (Team Sky) | +01’00” |
| 6 | Vegard Stake Laengen (UAE Team Emirates) | +01’54” |
| 7 | Lachlan Morton (Dimension Data) | +01’55” |
| 8 | Tao Geoghegan Hart (Team Sky) | +02’12” |
| 9 | Sam Oomen (Team Sunweb) | +02’15” |
| 10 | Haimar Zubeldia (Trek-Segafredo) | +03’14” |
