At the Giro d’Italia, the line between courage and recklessness is always a faint one. Ben O’Connor only realised he had crossed it a shade under 4km from the summit of Oropa on stage 2, as he watched Tadej Pogačar’s rear wheel disappear steadily and inexorably from his view.
It was hard to tell which was the greater ordeal for O’Connor, the ascent of Oropa itself or the long drop to his team bus in Biella afterwards. On the way up the mountain, the Australian had gamely tried to resist Pogačar’s stage-winning onslaught. On the way back down after the stage, he was haunted by the realisation that his bravery had spilled across the border into folly.
