‘I’m not sure it will last that long’ – Ben O’Connor saves Vuelta a España lead but red jersey briefly lost on Lagos de Covadonga

The red jersey of the Vuelta a España was lost in the mists of Lagos de Covadonga, just not in the way anybody anticipated. Ben O’Connor did just enough to cling to first place overall on stage 16, but a breakdown in communication at the finish left the race organisation frantically trying to locate the Australian for the podium ceremony.

O’Connor’s fatigue was evident when he spilled across the line at the summit, 4:52 down on stage winner Marc Soler (UAE Team Emirates) but, crucially, just under a minute down on Primož Roglič (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe). That meant he would retain the red jersey by five seconds, but it wasn’t immediately clear from O’Connor’s body language if he was aware of that fact.

Then again, chasing shadows through rain and mist on the Vuelta’s most emblematic mountaintop tends to leave everybody, winners and losers alike, with a haunted kind of a look. It takes a while for sounds to solidify into words, and longer still for words to register as concrete information.

After O’Connor was helped into a raincoat by a soigneur, he turned and descended back down the mountain. The podium was a kilometre or so from the finish line, but O’Connor, it seemed, was never alerted to that fact. He rode on down the mountainside, past the Lago de Enol and down the twisting, forested road that led towards the team bus parking, some 14km away on the way to Cangas de Onís.

When O’Connor finally got there, he was informed that his services were required all the way back up the mountain for the podium ceremony, doping control and press conference. O’Connor later confirmed that he knew he was still the race leader at the finish line, but he simply hadn’t been given clear instructions about where he was supposed to go next.

Beside the podium, Decathlon AG2R's Michaële Cernela was liaising with Vuelta officials after establishing phone contact with O’Connor. She confirmed that O’Connor was sitting in a team car ready to climb to Lagos de Covadonga once again, and two police motorcyclists were dispatched to find the vehicle and provide an escort.

The journey was complicated, however, as the tail end of the bike race was still climbing Lagos de Covandonga. Once the last rider crossed the line, meanwhile, the multitudes who had gathered on the mountainside began to make their way back down again.

It was close to seven o’clock when the distant strain of police sirens eventually heralded O’Connor’s arrival. He emerged shortly afterwards from the passenger seat of a Decathlon car, still in his wet kit, and he clambered onto the podium for a brisk and very belated ceremony before the handful of spectators who had lingered even after Soler and the other jersey wearers had gone.

“I need to change, I’m fucking freezing,” O’Connor called out as he descended from the podium. A cabin was made available as an impromptu dressing room before he stood beneath a canopy and talked reporters through the stage and its unusual aftermath.

“I was told to descend down to the bottom and I descended all the way down to the bottom, but then I was told to come back up. That was a bit frustrating to be honest,” O’Connor said. “I could definitely do with a hot shower now, I’m absolutely freezing.”

Lagos de Covadonga

The stage itself must have seemed a distant memory by that point. O’Connor was first distanced when Enric Mas accelerated with a shade under 7km remaining, eventually bringing Roglič, Richard Carapaz and David Gaudu with him. Although O’Connor limited his losses well, it still looked as though he would lose his jersey on the upper reaches of the climb. He stuck resolutely to his task, however, and a late surge was enough to save red by five meagre seconds.

“Hard,” was O’Connor’s succinct appraisal of the climb. “I didn’t have any power [data] today, so I had no idea what I was doing, but I felt actually pretty strong to be honest – but clearly not strong enough.”

Even so, O’Connor did enough to extend his grip on the red jersey, and he paid tribute to the efforts of Valentin Paret-Peintre on the long haul to Lagos de Covadonga, where Mikel Landa was the first of the GC men to go on the offensive with 9km to go.

“I was pretty worn at the finish,” O’Connor said. “Valentin was really, really strong today, I’m grateful for him to be back like he was on the Giro. Everyone on our team is super proud, it’s been an experience that we really haven’t had before. To have 11 days in the red jersey already so far has been a pretty sweet experience for us all.”

There is every chance O’Connor’s presence will be required for the podium ceremony in Santander on Wednesday afternoon too, though he struck a note of resignation when asked about his prospects of fending off Roglič and company all the way to Madrid.

“I have the red jersey for tomorrow, so I’ll try to soak it up and enjoy it as much as I can because I’m not sure it will last that long,” O’Connor said. “I’ll probably keep it tomorrow, maybe the day after. I’d be surprised on Friday. But in the end, it’s been a pretty good spell in the red jersey. Eleven days so far, so hopefully I can have it for a couple more and try to maximise it to the best that I can.”

If O’Connor does retain red, one can only hope the pathway from finish line to podium is clearly indicated. 

“I’m not happy, I can tell you that,” he laughed when asked about the ordeal after the stage. “I’m trying to put on a brave face, but internally I’m a bit pissed.”

Even so, the red jersey isn’t lost just yet.

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