Ben O'Connor annihilates field on Stage 6 to take red jersey by almost five minutes at Vuelta a Espana
By Felix Lowe
Updated 22/08/2024 at 19:17 GMT+1
Anyone have Ben O'Connor down to lead the Vuelta a Espana by nearly five minutes during the opening week? The Australian produced one of the great Grand Tour solo rides of recent memory as he catapulted himself into the red jersey, wrestling it away from pre-race favourite Primoz Roglic with a stunning victory in the mountains on Stage 6. He leads the GC by 4'51" from the Slovenian.
Highlights: O’Connor blows Vuelta open with solo win on Stage 6 to take red jersey
Video credit: TNT Sports
Ben O’Connor (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale) completed his grand slam of Grand Tour stage wins with a ride for the ages in Stage 6 of La Vuelta, as the Australian established a huge lead in the red jersey standings in a day that could come back to bite Primoz Roglic and the other general classification favourites.
O’Connor now leads the triple champion Roglic (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) by 4’51” after he soloed to glory at Yunquera to become the 111th rider to take stage wins in all three of cycling’s Grand Tours.
In slightly cooler weather but over lumpy, demanding terrain, O’Connor proved to be the strongest of a 13-man breakaway that finally went clear towards the end of the first climb of the day after a ferocious opening two hours of racing in southern Spain.
An initial attack from the 28-year-old saw O’Connor go clear with the Dutchman Gijs Leemreize (Team dsm-firmenich PostNL). He then pushed on alone on the penultimate climb of the day inside the final 30km as a crash involving Marco Frigo (Israel-Premier Tech) hindered the Italian’s attempts to bridge over to the lone leader.
O’Connor was all smiles as he soaked up the applause at the finish, crossing the line over four-and-a-half minutes clear of Frigo, with Leemreize caught by a group of chasers just ahead of the line. But with the peloton coming home a whopping 6’31” down, O’Connor will start Friday’s seventh stage with a mammoth lead at the top of the standings.
Roglic and his Red Bull team-mates did not seem overly concerned by the development, despite the climbing credentials of O’Connor, who finished fourth in this year’s Giro d’Italia to match his fourth place in the 2021 Tour de France.
Indeed, before O’Connor made his move, Red Bull were in control of the narrative having placed Florian Lipowitz in the break. The young German was the best-placed rider on GC of the 13 escapees and, once the gap edged above the two-minute mark, he took over virtual control of team-mate Roglic’s red jersey.
But things all changed with 66km to go when O’Connor used the intermediate sprint at Ronda as a springboard for his power-grab - first by taking the bonus seconds that saw him draw level with Lipowitz on the standings, and then by kicking clear with Leemreize in pursuit of glory.
It all came after a competitive opening two hours of racing saw a strong group of around 30 riders go clear on the Cat.1 Puerto del Boyar - a move which O’Connor missed but which never got much headway from the peloton given the plethora of talent within.
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'Pretty special to crush it like that,' admits O'Connor after Vuelta stunner
Video credit: TNT Sports
“I felt a little bit in my own world today,” a serene O’Connor said after what was arguably the best performance of his career. “When the group of 30 went I was a bit disappointed because I felt it was a good opportunity.
“When the race opened up again, I kind of just went for it. I felt today was a day to just seize my opportunity. I just laid it all out there. I felt like I could win today’s stage from the start, so it’s pretty special to go out there and crush it like that.”
O’Connor is the first Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale rider to lead a Grand Tour since Rinaldo Nocentini in 2009. He delivered his team's 30th win of the season after losing ground in the GC battle on Tuesday's summit finish after suffering in the heat.
“Today was noticeably less hot. Still hot, but not 42 degrees,” said O’Connor, who will join Jayco-AlUla for two years at the end of the season.
“I was looking at the list of triple Grand Tour stage winners before this race started, and I’m proud to put my name down on that list. I guess I have the red jersey as well. It’s going to be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity so I’m going to enjoy it, savour it as much as I can. It’s kind of cool.”
When the day’s break finally stuck, it included O’Connor and his team-mate Clement Berthet, as well as Leemreize, Lipowitz and Frigo. Also in the mix were Jay Vine (UAE Team Emirates), Mauri Vansevenant (Soudal Quick-Step), Luca Vergallito (Alpecin-Deceuninck), Pelayo Sanchez (Movistar), Christian Rodriguez (Arkea B&B Hotels) and team-mates Urko Berrade and Pablo Castrillo (Equipo Pharma Kern).
Another Australian, Chris Harper (Jayco-AlUla), bridged over shortly after Sanchez led the break over the summit of the Puerto del Boyar to take the numbers up to a baker’s dozen.
The gap then ballooned to five minutes, putting Lipowitz in virtual red and seemingly cementing Red Bull’s grip on proceedings. But then came the turning point, with O’Connor putting in a dig at the intermediate sprint to go clear with Leemreize and force a reaction from the break ahead of the Cat.3 Puerto del Viento.
Frigo led the chase with Spaniards Sanchez and Berrade - and although they came to within 20 seconds of the leaders, O’Connor’s strength eventually saw the elastic snap.
Clearly on one of his good days, O’Connor ditched his Dutch colleague on the penultimate climb, the Cat.3 Puerto Martinez, by which time the gap back to the peloton has stretched to over six minutes.
With both Red Bull and the UAE team of Joao Almeida seemingly content to let O’Connor ride off with all the spoils, the chase was left to the Bahrain Victorious team of Italy’s Antonio Tiberi, the white jersey, as well as Enric Mas’s Movistar team.
Frigo’s crash with 20km remaining ended the hopes of the only rider who looked capable of reeling in O’Connor, the incident coming on the same slippery corner where Britain’s Adam Yates (UAE Team Emirates) would also hit the deck some minutes later.
Yates eventually finished the stage over two minutes behind the rest of the peloton, which was led home by his UAE team-mate Isaac Del Toro. Whether Roglic and the other GC contenders will live to rue the day they gave a rider of O’Connor’s capability a five-minute cushion at the top of the standings remains to be seen.
It is worth remembering that it was in the corresponding stage last year when the American Sepp Kuss took the win and laid the foundations for his successful run on the red jersey. Kuss held a 2’50” advantage over his then Jumbo-Visma team-mate Roglic after Stage 6 whereas O’Connor, one year on, has the best part of five minutes over the Slovenian.
The Vuelta continues on Friday with the 180km Stage 7 from Archidona to Cordoba, where a punchy Cat.2 climb in the closing 30km should distance the sprinters and act as a launchpad for whoever takes the win. Such is his strong advantage, O’Connor could lose time and still be sitting pretty atop the standings given his exploits on Thursday.
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