The Australian secured his first Grand Tour podium at the Vuelta a España by tenaciously hanging on to second place after 13 days in the leader's red jersey. He closed out his final season with Decathlon–AG2R in fourth place on the UCI world rankings.
“They gave me the freedom not to do it and, to be fair, also our family had a baby due at that time, so it’s not like it was possible.”
A year without the pressure of “the boiler room of the Tour“ worked out well for the rider from Perth. But he will be back in France in July after making the switch to Jayco-AlUla.
“We have brief plans, but we don’t have any set kind of thing that we are going to jump into,” O’Connor said of his schedule for his upcoming first season with Jayco-AlUla.
“I’m definitely going to go back to the Tour though, that’s for sure. That’s probably the main aim, I'd love to give that race another crack and see how it ends up.”
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It will, however, be in changed circumstances as firstly “every team goes about things differently” said the rider who is now heading into the third WorldTour squad of his career.
The two-pronged approach, with a sprint group led by Dylan Groenewegan operating alongside the GC contender, generally taken by Jayco-AlUla, is an example of this.
“It’ll be new for me,” said O’Connor.
Change, however, has worked out pretty well for O’Connor in the past, with his first year of racing with AG2R delivering a Tour de France stage win and fourth overall in 2021.
Hard to beat
O’Connor may have been on the way out of Decathlon-AG2R La Mondiale in 2024, but there was certainly no easing off – even with the arrival of his first child mid-year – and no curtailing of his ambitions.
Not only was there the stage win at La Vuelta a España that completed the Grand Tour set for O’Connor and second overall but there was also a run of other impressive runner-up spots, from the UAE Tour, the Tour of Alps and also the silver medal behind Tadej Pogačar at the World Championships road race.
The consistency of his placings among the top ranks throughout the season was remarkable. The year started with a win at Vuelta a Murcia and a stage victory at the UAE Tour and on top of the long list of aforementioned runner up spots he didn’t once finish outside the top five overall in a stage race. He was fifth at Tirreno-Adriatico and fourth at the Giro d’Italia.
That consistency is what lifted O’Connor to fourth in the 2024 UCI rider rankings, only behind Tadej Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates), Remco Evenepoel (Soudal-QuickStep) and Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Deceuninck), while he was just ahead of Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin-Deceuninck).
“I think it'd be hard to beat as an overall season,” said O’Connor.
“To be fourth in the world, that ranking was a bit silly. I really didn't expect an overall season to be that good. That's a really honouring kind of number.
“I just shows this level of consistency throughout the whole year and that probably, for me, is almost the thing I’m most proud of for the year.”
Ben O'Connor has one last celebration with his Decathlon-AG2R teammates at La Vuelta a España
“Things just worked out as I always envisaged them,” said a contented O’Connor, amiable and chatty away from the stress snd intensity of racing.
“You know, I always saw my progress or the cohesive team spirit going along on this kind of pathway, and we finally got that all right this year and I think that was a really special thing.
"To have teammates that were absolutely 100% committed to you, but also to the team effort, to the team objective and they also have to be strong enough to be able to do that.
“That was another thing. This year it was really rewarding to have, you know, a teammate that could save your day, or at La Vuelta, the group of boys that I had was fantastic – they were selfless, they were proud and they were also really strong, and that team effort was really a special thing.”
His final race with the French squad, where he held the red jersey of the race leader for 13 days, could barely have turned out better.
“It was a cool period of my career, and now you turn the page to the next one,” said O’Connor.
The 28-year-old not only offers Jayco-AlUla a proven Grand Tour podium contender to replace the departing Simon Yates, but one that will help it rally a nation behind its home team, particularly when all eyes are focussed on the competition for yellow in July at the Tour de France.
“To be an Aussie GC guy, going to the Tour with an Aussie team; I don't know if they've really had that before,” said O’Connor.
“I think that's an exciting thing for Aussie cycling, to be honest.”
Look out on Cyclingnews for a feature on Ben O'Connor, with more on his hopes for the future and the move to the Australian team, in the coming weeks.
Simone is a degree-qualified journalist that has accumulated decades of wide-ranging experience while working across a variety of leading media organisations. She joined Cyclingnews as a Production Editor at the start of the 2021 season and has now moved into the role of Australia Editor. Previously she worked as a freelance writer, Australian Editor at Ella CyclingTips and as a correspondent for Reuters and Bloomberg. Cycling was initially purely a leisure pursuit for Simone, who started out as a business journalist, but in 2015 her career focus also shifted to the sport.
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