Again when he was reducing his enamel as a racer in Western Australia, Ben O’Connor stated he recollects crossing paths with Luke Durbridge, the longstanding professional who’s quickly to be his teammate at Jayco-AIUIa. In all probability one of the simplest ways to explain the younger O’Connor’s response when he noticed ‘Turbo-Durbo’ was being star-struck.
“I keep in mind I used to be using spherical Perth and seeing Durbridge and going – Oh my God! Durbo! GreenEdge!” O’Connor advised reporters throughout an interview at a current coaching camp in Spain along with his new squad.
“So think about if it had been Cadel” – Evans, the Tour de France champion in 2011, who by no means raced for his residence Australian squad throughout his profession – “and he’d been in GreenEdge. That will have been big, as a result of he’d received the Tour.
“I believe as a youthful bike owner, to have that attract for the Aussie group can be particular, as a result of while you’re youthful, you look as much as these guys, you wish to be like them. So it is cool for Aussie biking.”
‘It’ in fact, is O’Connor’s imminent transfer to Jayco-AIUIa their prime Grand Tour chief, an area left vacant by the departing Nice Britain’s Simon Yates and beginning on January 1, 2025. O’Connor is already at coaching camp in Spain along with his new squad, getting familiarized and having fun with an environment which, in contrast to his earlier group, Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale, totally connects along with his Australian roots.
O’Connor is at pains to stress that he has nothing however reward for his former French group, the place in 2024 he loved his greatest season so far. He even gently however firmly rebuts one journalist’s suggestion that he’ll have much less destructive vitality to deal with at Jayco-AIUIa by saying, “No, as a result of the entire thing about ‘French negativity’ is not true.”
2024 Vuelta a España: Ben O’Connor throughout his 13 phases as race chief (Picture credit score: Getty Pictures)
In addition to clearly trying ahead to being the first-ever Australian Grand Tour chief for Jayco-AIUIa of their 12-year historical past, and perhaps inspiring some future generations of racers, come 2025, albeit with caveats, O’Connor can be decided to carry out not less than in addition to he did in his stand-out 2024 season. As he places it: “I do know there’s extra I can do.”
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“I most likely will not be within the lead of the Vuelta for 2 weeks once more, that is for certain,” O’Connor says with fun, referring to his prolonged spell on the prime of the Spanish Grand Tour GC final September, which culminated with second total in Madrid.
“However I can get shut. Whether or not it’s the greatest yr of my life in biking phrases, I am not sure, however I can carry out at this stage once more, that is for certain, and I can carry out higher as a result of I do know there’s extra I can do.
“Outcomes are fickle, although, you are able to do your greatest issues and have it not work out. It may well simply be about intelligence, being good. It is like on the [2024] Worlds, proper? I wasn’t the second strongest man there within the race, I used to be good, however I wasn’t second strongest. However I got here away with a silver medal.”
In the case of efficiency versus outcomes, he agrees that “you possibly can’t correlate that in any respect”.
By means of instance, he cites the 2024 Giro d’Italia the place he rode to fourth total. “I used to be sick as a canine within the remaining week, I hated that week, it sucked, aside from Bassano [stage 20] the place I began to really feel higher once more.
“You possibly can have a look at that and go: that was a giant missed alternative as a result of I had the prospect there to be on the rostrum however I could not do it as a result of I used to be sick. That is the best way it’s, however what else are you able to do? Do not cry about it.”
It was the same story on the 2024 UAE Tour the place he stated he might have received outright however as an alternative needed to accept second behind Lennert van Eetvelt (Lotto-Destny).
“Van Eetvelt did an ideal experience, however I additionally most likely did not do the very best one. These two issues you possibly can say: hey, I obtained a podium in two WorldTour stage races, however I did not win them, that did not occur.
“So I do know that for subsequent yr, it is one thing I can enhance on. However you possibly can’t return and alter time, both.”
But for all O’Connor is aware of he has but to achieve his peak, even when he attains and maintains a better efficiency stage in 2025 he’s life like about his possibilities of taking over Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike) and Tadej Pogačar (UAE Staff Emirates). That stated, he isn’t going to change races simply to overlook out on crossing swords with the highest two Grand Tour racers of his period, both.
“That is out of attain, they’re too good,” he says about his possibilities of beating both the Slovenian or Dane. “You may be shut on sure days however I am not that bodily gifted.
“I assume I might do the Giro and Vuelta yearly, and keep away from the Tour” – thereby avoiding Vingegaard and Pogačar not less than in a single Grand Tour – “however the Tour is the top, you wish to be there.
“Sports activities are filled with greats, that is half and parcel of it and you’ll’t win every part, you possibly can’t keep away from it, ‘cos that is skilled sport. You simply need to get on and cope with it.”
Ben O’Connor takes his first win of 2024 at Vuelta a Murcia (Picture credit score: Getty Pictures)
One-day racing – when?
The Grand Excursions and stage racing are very a lot O’Connor’s bread and butter, and he is but to disclose his race programme for 2025 past the Tour de France, saying in Spain that it’s nonetheless underneath wraps.
However when he talks to journalists in a resort in Alicante, it so occurs that he’s barely an hour’s drive away from the place he took his first win of the season, the one-day Vuelta a Murcia, due to a gutsy late solo break. Then whereas that was a superb begin to the yr and helped him hit the bottom working, O’Connor’s remaining 2024 race on the Highway World Championships additionally noticed him end as ‘first of the mortals’ in a one-day occasion, claiming silver behind a Pogačar on the rampage.
These outcomes are hardly to be sniffed at, but it surely’s curious that one-day racing hasn’t featured closely in O’Connor’s profession so far. His solely different win in that specialty got here when he outgunned breakaway specialist Jesus Herrada (Cofidis) within the low-key Tour du Jura in France again in 2022. There may be additionally a seventh place within the GP Montreal in 2023 and some different prime 15 finishes within the Italian semi-Classics knocking round in his palmares.
So though his angle in direction of the Ardennes Classics may politely be described as blended, O’Connor recognises that one-day racing does have its attraction for him, and thus potential for being a higher precedence sooner or later.
“Murcia was nice enjoyable – I beloved that, that was such a great race to do. There wasn’t the stress of positioning, and the concern, the large expectations: it was my first race and also you simply obtained to hit it.
“One-day racing is one thing my now former coach all the time believed I needs to be doing extra of, but it surely simply by no means aligned with what we have been doing. You must like that form of racing and relating to Amstel, Fleche and Liège – it is not like I really feel ‘I can not wait for this.’
“The World Championship is slightly completely different. It is a hell of a vibe with the nationwide equipment and with the Aussie boys, that is actually a particular factor.
“One factor I do like about one-day racing is that you need to lay it on the road, which is cool. Stage races – you possibly can wait to be the very best man over time, be it in a time trial, a mountain prime or within the win. However a one-day race you need to seek for it, you need to be considerably aggressive sooner or later, and that is a cool strategy to race.
“However total, one-day racing is a kettle of fish there that is able to open and attempt to exploit, so I assume you are proper,” he concludes. “It is one thing I ought to do extra of.”
Jayco-AIUIa in full battle within the group time trial at 2024 Paris-Good (Picture credit score: Getty Pictures)
Staff spirit
Whether or not one-day racing finally ends up that includes bigger or smaller on O’Connor’s hit checklist very a lot stays to be seen. However for now, each O’Connor and Jayco-AIUIa start working collectively to see how they mix within the stage racing area.
O’Connor himself has greater than proved his value in that specialty so far, and the identical goes for his new group, so it needs to be a promising match. The Australian squad will not be the largest hitter within the Grand Tour battles, however O’Connor is assured they will be capable to again him as a lot as he wants, and he factors to the best way that Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale stepped to the plate within the Vuelta as the best way to go.
“Though you won’t have a super-star group, you possibly can management a race, so we have been in a position to management the Vuelta super-well,” he says. “It is not like Decathlon was a group filled with superstars, however the boys have been good, they are not nobodies, both.
“You have a look at the UAE group within the Vuelta this yr – it was one thing else in comparison with what we now have. However our boys have been a few of the strongest guys within the race, too, as a result of that they had a set job, a set position and so they have been in a position to do it.
“It doesn’t matter what the state of affairs, if you happen to’re very clear about what you are able to do, the entire group can step as much as that mark.
“And Jayco’s been a group that is been on the entrance rather a lot, too [Simon] Yates has received WorldTour stage races, they’ve performed huge sprints with Dylan [Groenwegen] and Caleb [Ewan], they’ve received huge races with Gero’ [Simon Gerrans]. They know what to do. I do not suppose there’s something to be frightened about that rating.”
Nor can or not it’s forgotten that simply because it’s massively vital for O’Connor to be the primary Australian Grand Tour chief of Jayco-AIUIa, that feeling is one thing of a two-way road. For his fellow countrymen on the squad specifically, and for the group basically too, the prospect for them to assist O’Connor battle for GC is unquestionably massively motivating as nicely.
And in the event that they, like O’Connor, might help encourage some aspiring younger Australian racers to attempt to influence that bit extra within the sport – similar to Durbridge did with O’Connor again within the day – then a lot the higher.
