Australian general classification contender Ben O’Connor is set to put his focus on the Tour de France for next season as he joins Jayco-AlUla, according to team boss Matt White.
O’Connor’s race programme for 2025 is already taking shape, and he may also target several one-day races such as Liege-Bastogne-Liege and Il Lombardia.
The 28-year-old is making the switch to the Australian team after a successful season for Decathlon-AG2R la Mondiale, in which he finished second at La Vuelta a España and World Championships Road Race and also fourth overall at the Giro d’Italia.
“He’ll build back from the Tour de France, and that race will be the number one target for the summer,” White told Daniel Benson’s Cycling Substack.
“There will probably be a fairly traditional build-up from February and the rest of the spring, and then he’ll have a rest and build-up for the Tour. And then we might even see him backing up at the Vuelta at the end of the season,” he added.
O'Connor has ridden the Tour de France on three previous occasions, finishing fourth in 2021, pulling out of the race the following year due to a pulled glute muscle and was a disappointed 17th in the 2023 edition. His ambition is to improve on those results in future years with his new team.
"My ambitions are to stay aggressive, consistent, and hopefully one day change these fourth-place overall finishes at Grand Tours into overall podium placings. Victories are just as important, and throwing the hands up in the air as soon as I can is high on the list," said O'Connor in a team press release when his signing was announced.
Jayco-AlUla may have lost their long-time GC leader Simon Yates to Visma-Lease a Bike for next season, but they have strengthened their support options in preparation for O'Connor's arrival.
Koen Bouwman (Visma-Lease a Bike) and Paul Double (Polti-Kometa) are strong additions to their climbing group, while Jasha Sutterlin (Bahrain Victorious) add extra power to the engine room.
Until now, O’Connor has been seen primarily as a rider for stage races, particularly the Grand Tours given his previous success. This year, he also showed potential for one-day events through his excellent performance to come runner-up to Tadej Pogačar at the UCI Road World Championships in Zürich and may target multiple monuments next year.
“His coach thought he should concentrate more on one-day races because he put so little into it…so he will be pencilled-in for a few one-day races next year. For example Liege. It’s a race that suits his characteristics. Liege, Lombardia they look good for him.”
Team planning for 2025 is yet to be completely finalised at Jayco-AlUla, but the framework for their 2025 Grand Tour teams is already in place and will be confirmed over the coming weeks.
O’Connor is set to co-lead the Tour with one of Jayco-AlUla’s sprinters, while the team will also take aim at the General Classification in the Giro d’Italia.
“We’ll run the same model that we’ve had in the past in that we’ll be taking a sprinter to the Tour and Ben. That’s the template we’ve had with Simon [Yates] and Dylan [Groenewegen]. We’ve got a few other guys putting their hand up for the Tour, like Eddie [Dunbar], and Mauro [Schmid], so we’ve got a good group,” White said.
“The devil will be in the detail when it comes to the route for the Giro. We’ll have someone riding GC there. At the moment we’re thinking maybe Chris Harper for GC. It’s a race that suits his characteristics but we’re not going there to win. We’re going there for a top GC result, whether that’s top eight or something around there.”
