Again when he was chopping his enamel as a racer in Western Australia, Ben O’Connor mentioned he recollects crossing paths with Luke Durbridge, the longstanding professional who’s quickly to be his teammate at Jayco-AIUIa. Most likely the easiest way to explain the younger O’Connor’s response when he noticed ‘Turbo-Durbo’ was being star-struck.
“I bear in mind I used to be driving spherical Perth and seeing Durbridge and going – Oh my God! Durbo! GreenEdge!” O’Connor informed reporters throughout an interview at a latest 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 house Australian squad throughout his profession – “and he’d been in GreenEdge. That may have been large, as a result of he’d gained the Tour.
“I believe as a youthful bike owner, to have that attract for the Aussie group could be particular, as a result of while you’re youthful, you look as much as these guys, you need 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, not like his earlier group, Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale, absolutely 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 up to now. He even gently however firmly rebuts one journalist’s suggestion that he’ll have much less adverse 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 Photos)
In addition to clearly wanting 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 at the very least in addition to he did in his stand-out 2024 season. As he places it: “I do know there’s extra I can do.”
The most recent race content material, interviews, options, critiques and knowledgeable shopping for guides, direct to your inbox!
“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 amusing, referring to his prolonged spell on the prime of the Spanish Grand Tour GC final September, which culminated with second general 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 degree 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 could possibly 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 general. “I used to be sick as a canine within the closing week, I hated that week, it sucked, other than Bassano [stage 20] the place I began to really feel higher once more.
“You possibly can take a look at that and go: that was an enormous 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 way in which it’s, however what else are you able to do? Do not cry about it.”
It was an analogous story on the 2024 UAE Tour the place he mentioned he might have gained outright however as an alternative needed to accept second behind Lennert van Eetvelt (Lotto-Destny).
“Van Eetvelt did an important experience, however I additionally most likely did not do the most effective 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 degree in 2025 he’s reasonable about his possibilities of taking up Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike) and Tadej Pogačar (UAE Group Emirates). That mentioned, 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 at the very least in a single Grand Tour – “however the Tour is the head, you need to be there.
“Sports activities are filled with greats, that is half and parcel of it and you may’t win every part, you possibly can’t keep away from it, ‘cos that is skilled sport. You simply should get on and cope with it.”
Ben O’Connor takes his first win of 2024 at Vuelta a Murcia (Picture credit score: Getty Photos)
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 beneath 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, because of a gutsy late solo break. Then whereas that was a superb begin to the yr and helped him hit the bottom operating, O’Connor’s closing 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 up to now. 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 combined, 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 an excellent race to do. There wasn’t the stress of positioning, and the concern, the massive expectations: it was my first race and also you simply obtained to hit it.
“One-day racing is one thing my now former coach at all times believed I must be doing extra of, but it surely simply by no means aligned with what we have been doing. You must like that type of racing and in terms of Amstel, Fleche and Liège – it is not like I really feel ‘I am unable to wait for this.’
“The World Championship is just a little 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 must lay it on the road, which is cool. Stage races – you possibly can wait to be the most effective man over time, be it in a time trial, a mountain prime or within the win. However a one-day race you must seek for it, you must be considerably aggressive sooner or later, and that is a cool technique to race.
“However general, 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 struggle within the group time trial at 2024 Paris-Good (Picture credit score: Getty Photos)
Group spirit
Whether or not one-day racing finally ends up that includes bigger or smaller on O’Connor’s hit listing 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 up to now, and the identical goes for his new group, so it must be a promising match. The Australian squad is just not the largest hitter within the Grand Tour battles, however O’Connor is assured they will be capable of again him as a lot as he wants, and he factors to the way in which that Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale stepped to the plate within the Vuelta as the way in which to go.
“Although you won’t have a super-star group, you possibly can management a race, so we have been capable of management the Vuelta super-well,” he says. “It isn’t like Decathlon was a group filled with superstars, however the boys have been good, they are not nobodies, both.
“You take 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 number of the strongest guys within the race, too, as a result of that they had a set job, a set function they usually have been capable of do it.
“It doesn’t matter what the situation, for those who’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 so much, too [Simon] Yates has gained WorldTour stage races, they’ve performed huge sprints with Dylan [Groenwegen] and Caleb [Ewan], they’ve gained huge races with Gero’ [Simon Gerrans]. They know what to do. I do not suppose there’s something to be anxious about that rating.”
Nor can it’s forgotten that simply because it’s vastly necessary for O’Connor to be the primary Australian Grand Tour chief of Jayco-AIUIa, that feeling is one thing of a two-way avenue. For his fellow countrymen on the squad specifically, and for the group on the whole too, the prospect for them to assist O’Connor battle for GC is unquestionably vastly 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.
