Ben O'Connor on injury, bouncing back and a 2023 Tour de France podium challenge

Four months ago, back in the middle of the cycling summer, Ben O'Connor  abandoned the Tour de France just as the race hit the Alps, suffering from a torn glute muscle.

The injury, sustained in a crash early in the race and worsening as the stages passed,  wrecked the big goal of the Australian's 2022 season, a year on from his impressive fourth place overall.

O'Connor, AG2R Citroën's GC leader, fought on to the second rest day before pulling out, the withdrawal a disappointing conclusion to what had been a successful campaign during the spring and early summer. With seventh, sixth, five and third overall at Andalucía, Catalunya, Romandie and the Dauphiné, all had looked set for another top-five fight in France. 

Despite the disappointment, the 26-year-old from Western Australia believes he took another step up this year.

"I think it was really good. I can't fault the season, really," O'Connor told Cyclingnews at the recent Rouleur Live event in London. 

"I think I did everything I could have for it to be a good season. I was top 10 in pretty much every single race I did. That's already quite a good achievement.

"Although at the Vuelta I was expecting more. I really wanted to be in the top five. I just wasn't good enough at the time. I tried the GC way and I just couldn't reach that peak like I had done earlier in the year at the Dauphiné and heading into the Tour.

"I'm happy with it. I can only say that I wish I was more aggressive at one or two races like at the Tour of Romandie. Otherwise, I think I took my chances pretty well. Got two wins in the year, which is good."

O'Connor's wins came at Catalunya and Tour de Jura one-day race, but it's his progression in stage race GC results that stands out. Now, he said, he feels he is a name among the top contenders, rather than a rider who gets mentioned in passing as a challenger on the fringes of the top 10.

"You have to remember that last year it was only Romandie, Dauphiné and the Tour that I was in the top 10," he said. "Romandie [2021] was my first top 10 in a WorldTour stage race and now I can do it in every WorldTour stage race. So, I think that shows that I've kind of made it.

"Even in a race I DNFed like Paris-Nice with whatever that nasty bird flu was that was going around, I was in the front echelons and I'm proud of that. Even if I didn't get the result in the end, those days were actually a success because you braved it out and actually learned a new skill really."

After the Tour DNF, attention turned to the Vuelta a España, where O'Connor was admittedly not at his best. He finished eighth overall, taking a handful of top 10s along the way, though not quite able to challenge for a stage win as he might have hoped for.

"I went all-in for it and I wanted to see with the preparation that I had how I could maximise it," he said. "It wasn't my objective at the start of the year and then it turned out to be quite a big objective.

"There were some days I was good. Arensman was so strong on the Sierra Nevada stage and that was a day I really looked to try and do well in. He took the win, and I was a bit sad that I couldn't give it a go. On the last day, I was really keen and motivated, but I didn't have the legs. That was the essence of it."

The Tour injury, which he said left him with a huge leg strength imbalance of 8%, had healed up well before he headed to Spain. However, despite a podium challenge eventually not materialising he could still end the year on a high at his home Worlds in Wollongong, the first time he had visited Australia since 2019.

"I think we actually rode like a perfect race," he said of he and his Australian teammates, who helped Michael Matthews to a bronze medal. 

"That's actually one of the most fun team races I've ever done. Every single one of us did our job perfectly.

"On the personal side it was a DNF for me, but I left all my cards in the first 50km. I used everything early and it felt nice to be sacrificial and work the team plan for Bling.

"All year I raced for myself and the team races for me, so it was a really nice change. I can't tell you how much fun I had with that group of boys. I loved every moment of it, and it was a great way to end the year."

Now, attention is fully on 2023. O'Connor has returned to training, getting in a week's worth of work before heading over for the brief visit to London. It's no surprise that he has one major goal on his mind, with unfinished business left from the summer just gone.

"I am on a French team, and I think that I had a really perfect build-up this year but it just didn't work out well," he said, referring to the Tour. 

"So, I'm definitely not done with it. I really want to keep on smashing it and trying to relive what happened last year at the Tour and see if I can finish again in the top five.

"That's where I believe I'm sitting at now, but whether you can actually do it is very different. I'll set out with that aim and if you can't do it, you can't do it. At the Vuelta I was eighth and I deserved to finish eighth because I wasn't good enough."

The route for the race was unveiled late last month and with just 22km of time trialling and plenty of climbing it's well suited to O'Connor. It's no surprise, then, that he's keen to get back there.

"It's a great route," he said. "I think actually in a way it's sad that there's not enough time trialling because I do actually like the discipline. The time trial is bloody hard. It must be around 600 metres of climbing. It's really, really hard.

"I think the race is really cool. It actually reminds me of maybe a route the Giro would do. Less traditional as in you don't have these stages through the north or through the area south of Paris where it can be real easy. It's not like that at all. I like the way it looks, though, with the big mountains. It's more or less like a big Dauphine almost in a way.

"Obviously for me, I love that big mountain day, so the Col de la Loze, to Courchevel, will be really cool. That's probably the one I'd really love to do well in. Also, the stage to Bettex maybe isn't perfect for me but that could be a really good one to be aggressive on.

"And then the stage to Morzine as well – I remember the climb from the Dauphine when I felt really good, and you descend down so that always changes the game and it opens up to go for the launch."

The race will be O'Connor's third Tour with AG2R Citroën, having moved to the French squad off the back of his breakout year at the disintegrating NTT team in 2019. 

He's now fully settled there on a team which is settled itself with little turnover for next season, and he's already raring to get back to racing next season.

"I think it's a group of like mates and boys and I think we've just got a few neo-pros coming in actually. Change isn't always better," he said.

"I think we can actually work better as a team and as our group to improve, to gel and then be even more clear with how each of us go about our roles within a race. Look at who we have now – we still have Greg [Van Avermaet], Benoît [Cosnefroy], Ollie [Naesen], Aurelien [Paret-Peintre]… I mean, these are some really good riders.

"I think that we're all where we should be in a race and there's no reason why we shouldn't perform.  I'm here to 2024 and I'm enjoying it. I'm just ready to start next year now."