A team on fire - Ben O'Connor leads Decathlon AG2R's search for more success at Giro d'Italia
'If the boys believe I can perform and I am actually good, it goes a long way' says Australian
Out with the brown shorts and in with the wins.
2024 has marked a revolution at Decathlon AG2R2, with a new sponsor, a new race bike sponsor, a new look and a newfound knack for victory which has placed them among the top teams in the WorldTour peloton.
The big French retailer has come on board as title sponsor and the appearance of their galaxy-themed jerseys at the front of races has become commonplace. The win tally from 2023 has already been surpassed and Decathlon AG2R look set to better victory hauls from the mid-late 2010s, a time when Romain Bardet was in his heyday with the French team.
Decathlon AG2R have taken 12 wins so far in 2024, with a domino effect that has seen all 30 riders on the roster firing on all cylinders. It's the fastest they've reached that tally of wins since 2005.
With the momentum of a team on fire, the next goal is a Grand Tour podium at the Giro d'Italia with Ben O'Connor.
Such an important result has eluded Decathlon AG2R since 2017, when Bardet was third at the Tour, a year after he was runner-up to the dominant GC rider of the time, Chris Froome.
“I think the guys have got their mojo back and maybe got a bit of a whipping last year,” a relaxed O’Connor tells Cyclingnews.
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“Also me, not because I was lazy, but because I made too many mistakes, probably in my preparation as I've said before.”
With all the talk of the increased budget and new Van Rysel bikes, which have clearly been contributing factors, one rider who knows best just how much Decathlon has affected the team is O’Connor’s roommate from the Alps and also the Giro, Larry Warbasse, who is now into his sixth year at the French outfit.
“With Decathlon coming in, there's a real increase in motivation. We got new equipment, and after quite a few different changes, it’s almost renewed the spark in the team,” Warbasse tells Cyclingnews.
“Once things start rolling in the right direction, you catch momentum. I think we've always had super strong riders but now we're just utilising everyone better. We're riding better as a team and I think we're taking the race on more. It's cool to see, and it's nice to be a part of.”
The centrepiece of O’Connor’s 2023, the Tour de France, was a disaster as GC bids go – losing time on the first stage and falling to 6:10 down on the leader by just the sixth day after the initial mountain tests. Illness and a lack of shape meant he was a long way off from his podium finish at the Critérium du Dauphiné just the month prior and from his fourth-place finish at the Tour in 2021.
However, with two wins in 2024, backed up by consistent top-five finishes on GC at the UAE Tour, Tirreno-Adriatico and the Tour of the Alps, O’Connor is now riding the wave of both his and his teammates' successes.
“It helps when your leaders are good. I've been decent. Benoît Cosnefroy has been good and I think that really also helps because you have the guys who are meant to perform, performing,” says O’Connor.
“Because as soon as that doesn't happen, teams always look a bit average.”
Cosnefroy returned to winning ways for the first time since September 2022 at the Tour des Alpes Maritimes before he went on to claim Paris-Camembert and Brabantse Pijl. However, it isn’t only the Frenchman and O’Connor who are on top, winning form.
Joining O’Connor at the Giro will be Aurelien Paret-Peintre, who won a stage at the corsa rosa in 2023 and with his brother Valentin has been key to the Australian’s GC ambitions so far in 2024. The latter has proved a vital climbing domestique, highlighted best in his and O’Connor’s tandem attack in the UAE which scored them a stage win atop Jebel Jais.
Aurelien’s recent victory at the Tour of Alps makes him one of the five different victors at Decathlon AG2R in 2024 alongside those mentioned and the French pair of Dorion Godon and Paul Lapeira, who have found their career-best form and netted three wins at WorldTour level between them.
“It's great when the form disperses over the whole team, it just takes a touch off that heavy cloud over you, where it almost falls on you to perform,” O’Connor says.
“That's probably the main thing where we've been told that we need to, as a team, perform. Not just that one guy or those two guys because they should consistently perform but the rest of you need to step up. That's where the guys have actually taken it on.”
The connection between the Paret-Peintre duo, O’Connor and the rest of Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale’s Giro squad has been built throughout the season and a long altitude camp up at Mount Etna.
“All the races we’ve been mostly together, Tirreno was a similar group, UAE – there was a couple of the boys there – and then Etna it was me Aurelien, Larry and Valentin,” says O’Connor.
“So you grow a bit of a team spirit. I think it's just there you begin to trust who you're working for and that's the main thing.
“If the boys believe that I can perform and I am actually good, then it goes a long way. If you say you’re going to help out a friend, you're going help out a mate, but when you know that your mate's actually on top form, it goes a step further.”
Chasing a Grand Tour podium in the face of Pogačar
The cool, modest but quietly confident Aussie has become a popular figure among his teammates at the French squad, his willingness to attack even in the age of dominant superstar GC riders winning the favour of those riding in support.
“He's cool and It's nice to have an English-speaking roommate on the team. We just roomed together for three weeks at our altitude camp, we've been rooming together here, and we'll room together [at the] Giro,” says Warbasse.
“It’s a pleasure to ride for him and it's cool because he likes to take the race on. He likes to race hard and it's nice to race at the front and race from the front.”
Even with a certain Slovenian taking the start at the Giro, you can ensure Ben O’Connor won’t be afraid to use his best legs, should he have them throughout the tough three weeks of racing from Piemonte to Rome.
Much of the discourse in recent weeks has been about forgone conclusions and a certain level of predictability creeping into the sport as the likes of Mathieu van der Poel or Tadej Pogačar - continue to dominate the biggest races.
O’Connor believes the latter won’t be so foolish as to underestimate his main competitors at the Giro. No one can be that confident heading into the unpredictability of a Grand Tour, where chaos and form can come and go in a flash and at the worst moments.
“In any Grand Tour, unless you really are head and shoulders above everyone else, you work towards it but that doesn't mean that you start a race and be like ‘shit I'm gonna win’,” says the Australian.
“You'd have to be pretty confident man. I don't think even Pogi would go into a race thinking like that, because there are too many things that can go wrong.”
After all, Pogačar – despite his unrivalled ability to perform from January to October - hasn’t actually won a Grand Tour since July 2021. Granted, he’s won near enough everything else he’s wanted to in that time period, but he isn’t totally unbeatable.
O’Connor doesn’t necessarily have to drop Pogačar with a stunning attack on stage 2 to Oropa or stage 20 on the Monte Grappa double ascent. He wants to ride as if Pogačar had not decided to make his Giro debut.
“The superstar guys are always going to be there. It was always the same when Froomey was around and guys like [Alberto] Contador and [Vincenzo] Nibali,” O’Connor says.
“It’s the same question for the Classics guys against Mathieu – how do you plan your race? Well, you don't really change a lot, you just get on with it. Races still play out in very similar ways as they have done before.
“You can perhaps surprise and attack some aggressive stages, that can always be interesting, but you don't really do a lot more. You just go to the race and try to hold on. If you're good, you stay with him, and then you try to play your cards right.”
O’Connor’s Grand Tour experience started at the Giro in 2018 when he looked set for a debut top-10 finish if not for a crash on the 19th stage. Coincidentally, this year’s Giro starts in Venaria Reale, the same start location of the day where a broken collarbone ruined his maiden Giro.
He’s said in the past that there’s no unfinished business with the Giro despite that early missed opportunity, but perhaps it's because his goals are much higher than they were six years ago.
O’Connor won’t shy away from challenging for the win and a podium finish would be the best in his career after coming close at the 2021 Tour, where he took a brilliant stage win in Tignes and finished fourth overall.
“Oh, I think it'd be huge if Ben was on the podium,” says Warbasse, aware of just how much O’Connor has put into his preparation from their time at Mount Etna."
For any rider, that's a career crowning achievement, and I think he's capable. So if we could get him up there, that would be amazing.”
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James Moultrie is a gold-standard NCTJ journalist who joined Cyclingnews as a News Writer in 2023 after originally contributing as a freelancer for eight months, during which time he also wrote for Eurosport, Rouleur and Cycling Weekly. Prior to joining the team he reported on races such as Paris-Roubaix and the Giro d’Italia Donne for Eurosport and has interviewed some of the sport’s top riders in Chloé Dygert, Lizzie Deignan and Wout van Aert. Outside of cycling, he spends the majority of his time watching other sports – rugby, football, cricket, and American Football to name a few.
