A devastatingly powerful, long breakaway by Ben O’Connor in the Vuelta a España produced one of the biggest upsets of recent years, as the Australian pole-vaulted ahead of leading favourite Primoz Roglič on the general classification to seize the overall lead by nearly five minutes.
O’Connor had much to celebrate as he crossed the finish line in the small village of Yunqueras high in the sierras of Málaga in southern Spain. This was his first win in the Vuelta to complete his set of Grand Tour stage wins, his first-ever Grand Tour leader’s jersey and an overall advantage, that after losing time on the Pico Villuercas summit finish, now makes the Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale racer a serious contender for overall victory.
Previously 23rd overall, O’Connor’s jump of 22 places on GC thanks to expertly infiltrating a mid-week break and then going it alone in the last 27 kilometres means he has become the first Australian to lead the Vuelta since Rohan Dennis won the opening TT back in 2018.
But the better comparison is surely that he could be the first Australian to take overall victory in a Grand Tour since fellow Perth-man Jai Hindley in the Giro d’Italia back in 2022.
The comparisons with Sepp Kuss in 2023 are inevitable, both in terms of how O’Connor made it into red, and his undoubted ability in the high mountains too. But unlike Kuss in 2023, O’Connor already has a significant track record in overall contention in Grand Tours, too, taking fourth in the Giro d’Italia this year and fourth in the Tour de France back in 2021, not to mention seventh in the Vuelta back in 2022.
Asked how he viewed his chances of winning, the 28-year-old smiled and said simply, “Maybe. It’s a good gap to have and I’m not so bad on long climbs.
"It’s going to be tricky, I didn’t expect to be leading this race and it’ll be a new experience for this team. So I’m not thinking any further than that. For now I’m going to enjoy this moment," he said.
“It’s an amazing opportunity and might only happen once in my career. So I’m going to love and enjoy every single moment and take it as far as I can. I’ve won a stage, I’ve got the jersey. So now I’ll just do best I can for the rest of this race.”
O’Connor admitted that far from looking at the GC, his initial objective when getting in the break had been to go for a win and complete his set of Grand Tour stage victories, and at the same time put his career tally of triumphs into double figures, too.
“That was my main goal, personally, to win a stage. I really wanted to have that bit of an ego trip, it was always on my mind. The way things played out today, it was an aggressive race and we had to take it from the front.”
It was a completely different scenario, he said, to the 2021 Giro d’Italia stage to Oropa, where he had tried to stick with future overall winner Tadej Pogačar when the Slovenian star attacked, and lost significant time as a result.
“It’s completely unrelatable, the Pogi day was one with the GC boys, I cracked and exploded. Today was the absolute opposite. It took ages for the break to form, it was a super-hard slog of a day, but I was chasing an opportunity and I wanted to test if the teams started chasing me down. If they didn’t, it was a great opportunity.”
Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe certainly had let it be known that they were happy for a break to go. However, as lead Sports Director Patxi Vila told Spanish TV, allowing O’Connor, a clear GC threat, to gain so much time, represented a serious under-estimation of the Australian’s strength.
By the end of the stage, O’Connor said, his goal had switched from simply going for the triumph of the day to seeing how much he could gain for a longer-term goal and his GC bid.
"All the way up the last climb I was thinking about how much time I could take on GC,” he explained. “I knew I was going to win the stage when I dropped the guy from DSM, and from then on it was all about maximizing time to finish line, what can I do all the way up.
"In any case,” he added with a grin and perhaps referring to Lennert van Eetvelt’s overly early victory celebration in the stage to Villuercas, “it’s always best not to celebrate at the end.”
O’Connor paid much shorter shrift to one question about the imminent exit of longstanding Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale boss Vincent Lavenu from the squad, saying, “The team have said enough about that, I just want to enjoy my win.”
O’Connor will in any case soon be leaving the French team next year, too, for Jayco-AIUIa. He was more forthcoming about his underlying condition and build-up to the Vuelta.
“I always knew I was good. I haven’t been racing much, but I was ready for this race, it was my second objective of my season to be able to fight for this kind of success. And this win just shows how much that hard work has paid off.”
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