Ben O’Connor rode himself into the red leader's jersey and completed the Grand Tour stage win hat-trick with victory on stage six of the Vuelta a España on Thursday.
The Australian was initially part of a 13 rider strong breakaway, but pushed on with Gijs Leemreize (dsm–firmenich PostNL) across the hilly terrain in Andalusia with 55 kilometres to the finish. O’Connor was evidently on superb form, and later distanced his Dutch breakaway companion with a stinging attack on the penultimate climb of the day, the category three Puerto Martinez.
