TOUR·KINETIC

NSN Cycling · 2026 Tour de France
Climber-domestique / mountain-stage hunter
George Bennett

The reigning New Zealand road champion rides his sixth Tour de France at 36, wearing the silver fern after an emotional 40 km solo at Rotoorangi that capped what he called a 'rough 18 months'.

George Bennett paper-collage portrait in the 2026 NSN Cycling kit

The reigning New Zealand road champion rides his sixth Tour de France at 36, wearing the silver fern after an emotional 40 km solo at Rotoorangi that capped what he called a 'rough 18 months'. A veteran of 17 Grand Tours across Jumbo, UAE and Israel–Premier Tech days, he is NSN's insurance policy for the days when the race points uphill. When the sprint train is parked, Bennett gets a free rein in the mountains.

Palmarès

  • Tour of California overall winner (2017) – first NZ WorldTour stage-race winner
  • Gran Piemonte winner (2020)
  • 2nd, Il Lombardia (2020)
  • New Zealand road race champion (2021, 2026)
  • 8th, Giro d'Italia (2018)
  • 10th, Vuelta a España (2016)
Cut-out factHis 2017 Tour of California victory made him the first New Zealander ever to win a WorldTour stage race.

The squad

Riding the 2026 Tour with Biniam Girmay, Lewis Askey, Marco Frigo, Matis Louvel, Krists Neilands, Jake Stewart, Tom Van Asbroeck — see the full NSN Cycling team page.

Portrait: AI paper-collage render (gpt-image-2) after a reference photograph — source: Wikimedia Commons, author: Jérémy-Günther-Heinz Jähnick, license: CC BY-SA 3.0. A fan project — not affiliated with the Tour de France or A.S.O.