Winning the 2015 US Pro Challenge is the latest highlight in a breakout year for Rohan Dennis.
We knew he was good, but with what he has achieved this year scribes and spectators are shuffling their mental filing systems to move him from the shelf marked ‘good’ up to the one labeled ‘very, very good’.
Here’s a recap. The 2015 Tour Down Under was supposed to be the fairytale finish to Cadel Evan’s stellar career, until the Great One was left in the dust of his young lieutenant’s wheel on the steep final ramp of the Stage 3 Paracombe finish. Dennis held on to take the overall race win.
A few weeks later it was the hour world record on the track. A hard as nails time-trial rider, with the BMC machine firmly in his corner, it was no surprise that Dennis rode the event with aplomb to set a new world mark.
Through the mid-season he rode solidly in the European stage races before stepping up to win the Tour de France’s opening time trial, riding a record average speed. He went on to successfully complete the second Grand Tour of his career.
Last week his BMC team dominated the US Pro Challenge and Dennis always looked like being the winner. Riding within himself for the first few stages, he burst away on the final climb of Stage 4 to take the solo win. From there he was never threatened for the title.
Dennis is still not finished for the year. He’s building toward the World Championships with his eye on winning both the individual and team time trials.
Such is his focus on the time trial he has publicly said he doesn’t want to be selected in the Australian road race team, but in coming years it’s likely his name will be linked to stage race overall victories as much as time trials.
Some riders attract the limelight. Some burst onto the scene with an avalanche of early results and big headlines. This has never been the way with Dennis.
In fact as a young rider he was regularly in the shadow of a fellow Adelaide born youngster, Jack Bobridge. With Bobridge the elder by only 10 months it was inevitable he and Dennis would be linked and comparisons drawn.
In 2009 it was the 20-year-old Bobridge who was picked out by Lance Armstrong to join him on a training ride. In those days that was like being kissed by the Pope; now, not so much.
Bobridge was the first of the pair to turn pro and also the first to wear the Australian Champion’s colours. Interestingly, both riders got their start in the Pro tour from Jonathan Vaughters who is one of the canniest in the world at picking young talent.
The career parallels continued this year when both riders attempted the hour record just a week apart.
Was Dennis’s record attempt announced in response to hearing, just the day before, that Bobridge was going to have a go? I guess it could have been a coincidence but the vastly differing results of those ‘hours’ serve to highlight their change in fortunes.
The unsuccessful Bobridge hour looked rash and underprepared. The Dennis hour was as purposeful and considered as his overall career trajectory.
For many reasons Bobridge has struggled to progress his natural talent – there’s no blame in that, it’s just how things go for some athletes – while Dennis is emerging as a potential champion.
In the short term, Dennis has to find his role in a BMC squad laden with talent. Compatriot Richie Porte and American Tejay van Garderen will be duking it out for the team’s Grand Tour leadership for the next couple of years, so there’s little chance Dennis will be thrown in too deep, too soon.
Perhaps in time, like Porte, he will need to change teams to realise his emerging leadership potential.
Porte has long been anointed as Australia’s next likely Grand Tour winner, which perhaps takes some pressure off Dennis. He’s not a headlines kinda guy, and those expectations, like an Armstrong blessing, could be a poisoned chalice.
But with Dennis’s ability and proven work ethic I think it’s just a small step for him to hone his body and strengths toward bigger stage race victories. I predict he will have to get used to seeing his name in headlines a lot more in the next five years.
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