Ben O’Connor started Wednesday’s stage 4 of Paris-Nice well-placed in fourth overall and with a positive frame of mind after an impressive second for Jayco-AlUla in the team time trial, however the icy rain that caused a pause in the race may have also poured cold water over the Australian’s GC hopes at the eight-stage race.
O'Connor crossed the finish line at the top of La Loge des Gardes in 27th spot, 2:10 down on stage 4 winner João Almeida (UAE Team Emirates). That result sent him tumbling down the general classification 16 spots to 20th, and he is now sitting 2:30 down on new race leader Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike), who came second to Almeida on the stage.
"Yesterday was a great day for us, today not so good," said sport director Matthew Hayman on a Jayco-AlUla social media post. "But there is still a lot of racing here and the guys are going well.
"It was pretty unfortunate but we are not done with this Paris-Nice."
O'Connor had headed into Wednesday's stage happy with his position on the overall, just 21 seconds behind the top spot, and encouraged by the team time trial.
“We put in a great performance as a team but personally I felt like I was in control of my race within that TTT so it was a good sign," O'Connor had said before the start in an interview put out by Jayco-AlUla. "If I can just go off that then today [I'm] thinking I can do a good ride.”
That, however, was before the stage was turned upside down after heavy rain, hail and sleet fell and with the safety risk of descending on icy roads and the race was then paused and neutralised for a time at 46km to go.
“We were struck with a pretty heavy hail and ice shower there in the middle of the stage," said Hayman. "It came out of nowhere. Really not knowing what was going to happen, the bunch was stuck on the side of the mountain ... got pretty cold during that period."
After the pause and plenty of confusion over the continued stops and starts the race got underway again at 29km to go but the toll the weather, uncertainty and extreme cold had taken was clear. Soaking wet riders struggled to try and warm up and get going while Steff Crass (Total Energies) even had to withdraw due to hypothermia.
That made for an unpredictable scenario when the race exploded on the final climbs, the category 2 Cote de La Chabanne with 13km to go and the seven kilometre long category 1 La Loge des Gardes which delivered the summit finish. A number of riders who would normally be expected to do well as the road turned up quickly drifted away as the circumstances meant the body didn't react as it normally would.
There was no sign of O'Connor in the leading fragment of the bunch that would contest the podium places as the race entered the final five kilometres and he was not alone in shedding considerable time with others among the GC hopefuls including Neilson Powless (EF Education-EasyPost) who dropped 2:16 and Felix Gall (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale) who shed 1:56.
Jayco-AlUla didn't release any comment from O'Connor after the stage but the disappointment couldn't have been clear when he crossed the line 2:10 down with a shake of the head.
