“Anywhere but fourth” was how Ben O'Connor described his GC objectives in the Vuelta a España before the race and the Australian more than accomplished that goal with a second place overall in Madrid that crowned a milestone three-week performance in his career.
The Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale racer not only claimed a stunning solo stage win in the first week of the Vuelta, he then managed to defend the Vuelta lead he’d simultaneously captured for 13 days, only finally ceding it to overall winner Primoz Roglič (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) on stage 19 at the Moncalvillo.
But rather than throw in the towel after losing the lead, O’Connor continued in the Vuelta GC fight to the bitter end, and 11th on the final time trial stage, too, meant the man from Perth even ended the Vuelta with a strengthened overall advantage of 41 seconds over third-placed Enric Mas (Movistar).
Rewarded with his first ever Grand Tour podium at 28 for his tenacious and hard-fought performance in Spain, the 28-year-old will now head to new team Jayco-AIUIa in 2025 with renewed hopes he can fight for a Grand Tour victory in the future, too.
“It’s a bit of a dream, I have been close before but to get it now is such an amazing thing,” O’Connor, previously fourth overall in the Giro d’Italia and Tour de France before finally cracking a GC podium at the Vuelta, told reporters at the finish line.
Referring to how he had managed to fight his way second overall in the Vuelta, he argued that “It was perhaps unconventional, but I guess it was just in the spirit of grit to get through to it to today and finish it off with this TT today. So I’m pretty proud of how it went down.”
The final time trial itself had been the last piece of the Vuelta GC jigsaw, O’Connor argued, and although it could hardly have gone better in Madrid, he did point out that he’s done some solid races against the clock in the past.
“It’s definitely better compared to [the stage 1 TT in] Lisbon, I don’t know what happened there, so it was nice to put this one down to the fact that I believed I could,” he argued.
“I was nervous this morning, my coach actually flew in last night to be in the team car, I can’t thank him enough for calming my nerves a little bit. So it’s a lot of pressure off my shoulders because there’s always been the weight of personal expectation.”
Results apart, fighting for second overall and maintaining the leader’s jersey has been a major learning curve for O’Connor, he recognised.
“I have to trust the process, sometimes you don’t trust your gut, and other times you can probably be a bit smarter and not trust your gut as well. So I think it’s about picking your moments in Grand Tours and that’s probably the key takeaway,” he said.
Regarding the question of how he values his second place behind Roglič, O’Connor had no doubt that rather than a particular number, “For me second is a win.”
“I was really surprised I could get to stage 19 still wearing the red jersey, and it’s pretty nice to have the feeling that one day that you could maybe win a GT.”
“That’s something I’d probably have found unrealistic before, especially after the Giro. So to be so close here is pretty special.”
As for his prospects of finishing on the podium in the Vuelta, he said during the race he had thought that it was possible, “but I wasn’t convinced I was able to get through every single day. After Granada [stage 9] I had a lot of confidence, but in the second part of the second week, I suffered a fair bit.”
Losing the jersey at last to Roglič was he said, a moment that was “a long time coming. But I had no angry feelings, I didn’t expect to have the red jersey and to have it for two weeks, so in the end, as I’ve said in quite a few interviews, the dream was to get on a podium. Winning it, though, is something else to finishing second or third.”
There was no point where he hit a major crisis, he said. However, both the ultra-steep slopes of Ancares [stage 15] where he had a difficult day and on the Moncalvillo [stage 19], where Roglič turned in an exceptionally strong performance to reclaim the lead and O’Connor lost nearly two minutes, were extremely tough moments. Or as he put it with a wry smile, “Moncalvillo was where I hit reverse gear.”
“But there was never a moment when I completely exploded. But Primoz was a deserving winner and he deserves to win this Vuelta a España.”
O’Connor may be looking to fight for a Grand Tour victory in the future but he remains with his feet on the ground. Asked if he thought he could ever beat Tadej Pogačar or Jonas Vingegaard or indeed Roglič, he answered simply - ‘No.’
But as he had explained earlier about the Vuelta, “I really didn’t think I was going to win this race. I could see it [losing the red] coming for a while because in the end, I wasn’t good enough to win the race. But I was always good enough to be on the podium and in the end I was in the mindset of limiting my losses. That’s what the main objective was.”
“In the last two days, though, I’ve really put together a race which I think I can be really proud of, on both the climbs and in the time trial. It’s a really beautiful way to finish off the race being proud of your efforts.”
“So to finish on the Vuelta podium is a dream come true, it’s something I’ve been chasing for the last couple of years, and to get it at last is amazing.”
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