Again when he was slicing his tooth 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. In all probability the easiest way 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 latest coaching camp in Spain together 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 dwelling Australian squad throughout his profession – “and he’d been in GreenEdge. That might have been large, as a result of he’d received the Tour.
“I believe as a youthful bike owner, to have that attract for the Aussie workforce could be particular, as a result of whenever 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 high 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 together with his new squad, getting familiarized and having fun with an environment which, in contrast to his earlier workforce, Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale, absolutely connects together with his Australian roots.
O’Connor is at pains to stress that he has nothing however reward for his former French workforce, 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 damaging 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 levels as race chief (Picture credit score: Getty Pictures)
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 possibly 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.”
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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 high 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 may well simply be about intelligence, being sensible. It is like on the [2024] Worlds, proper? I wasn’t the second strongest man there within the race, I used to be sensible, however I wasn’t second strongest. However I got here away with a silver medal.”
In relation to 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 ultimate week, I hated that week, it sucked, aside from Bassano [stage 20] the place I began to really feel higher once more.
“You may take 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 mentioned he may have received outright however as a substitute 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 perfect one. These two issues you possibly can say: hey, I received 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 lifelike about his probabilities of taking up Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike) and Tadej Pogačar (UAE Staff Emirates). That mentioned, he isn’t going to modify 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 probabilities of beating both the Slovenian or Dane. “You might be shut on sure days however I am not that bodily proficient.
“I assume I may 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 wish to be there.
“Sports activities are stuffed with greats, that is half and parcel of it and you may’t win every little thing, you possibly can’t keep away from it, ‘cos that is skilled sport. You simply need to get on and take care of 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 below wraps.
However when he talks to journalists in a lodge 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 wonderful begin to the yr and helped him hit the bottom working, O’Connor’s ultimate 2024 race on the Street 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’s additionally a seventh place within the GP Montreal in 2023 and some different high 15 finishes within the Italian semi-Classics knocking round in his palmares.
So though his perspective in direction of the Ardennes Classics may politely be described as blended, O’Connor recognises that one-day racing does have its enchantment for him, and thus potential for being a higher precedence sooner or later.
“Murcia was nice enjoyable – I cherished that, that was such a great race to do. There wasn’t the stress of positioning, and the fear, the large expectations: it was my first race and also you simply received to hit it.
“One-day racing is one thing my now former coach at all times believed I needs to be doing extra of, but it surely simply by no means aligned with what we had been doing. You must like that form of racing and relating to Amstel, Fleche and Liège – it isn’t like I really feel ‘I can not wait for this.’
“The World Championship is a bit of totally different. It is a hell of a vibe with the nationwide package and with the Aussie boys, that is actually a particular factor.
“One factor I do like about one-day racing is that it’s important to lay it on the road, which is cool. Stage races – you possibly can wait to be the perfect man over time, be it in a time trial, a mountain high or within the win. However a one-day race it’s important to seek for it, it’s important to be considerably aggressive sooner or later, and that is a cool solution 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 battle within the workforce 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 up to now, and the identical goes for his new workforce, so it needs to be a promising match. The Australian squad shouldn’t be the largest hitter within the Grand Tour battles, however O’Connor is assured they’re going to 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.
“Regardless that you won’t have a super-star workforce, you possibly can management a race, so we had been capable of management the Vuelta super-well,” he says. “It isn’t like Decathlon was a workforce stuffed with superstars, however the boys had been good, they don’t seem to be nobodies, both.
“You take a look at the UAE workforce within the Vuelta this yr – it was one thing else in comparison with what we’ve. However our boys had 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 had been capable of do it.
“It doesn’t matter what the state of affairs, should you’re very clear about what you are able to do, the entire workforce can step as much as that mark.
“And Jayco’s been a workforce that is been on the entrance loads, too [Simon] Yates has received WorldTour stage races, they’ve achieved 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 assume there’s something to be frightened about that rating.”
Nor can or not it’s forgotten that simply because it’s vastly 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 workforce normally too, the prospect for them to assist O’Connor battle for GC is definitely vastly motivating as effectively.
And in the event that they, like O’Connor, may 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.
