Winning the hardest stage of the Tour de France will surely remain a major highlight of Ben O'Connor's career long after he has retired. But globally, injuries and crashes and subsequent GC setbacks meant that overall the Australian could not enjoy or do the racing the way he wanted - and at the Vuelta a España the Jayco-AlUla leader is feeling far more upbeat all round.
As the runner-up overall in the 2024 Vuelta sees it, compared to the 2025 Tour, in the Spanish equivalent event, he's able to do what he calls "some straightforward racing."
So far, O'Connor has quietly kept himself in the GC battle without any standout moments, but without any disasters, either. After shedding a little time in Andorra but then staying with the main group at the second Pyrenean summit finish of Cerler, he's currently lying 17th at 3:53 on leader Torstein Træen (Bahrain Victorious).
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But for any Vuelta challenger like O' Connor, the key element is that he is only 1:20 down on the top favourite overall, Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike). And after what he agrees has been a cagey affair of skirmishes rather than all-out assaults on GC in the first week and a bit of the Vuelta, the big days of fighting for la roja are only just around the corner.
"Yesterday [Friday] was good, much better [than Thursday], the final climb wasn't as hard as we probably expected, so it was a shame not to get more out of it, but there's plenty more to come," O'Connor told reporters at the stage 8 start in Monzón.
Regarding the major GC battles, he said, "I think just purely the nature of the course has been pretty straightforward, and ultimately not that technical – but it's going to come."
"The stage in Bilbao [stage 11] is a really tricky one and one where chaos will start to reign and show itself.
"That's often the best moment, so probably wait till then if you want to see huge fights. But until that point, I think you'll see a lot of drag races."
O'Connor has already looked at the Bilbao stage in the route book. It's a route with a certain degree of similarity to an Ardennes Classics, with over 3,000 metres of vertical climbing, and seven classified ascents. Last amongst them before a descent into the city are the ultra-punchy Alto del Vivero and Alto del Pike, both of which featured as the last climbs in the 2023 Tour de France opening stage around the Basque seaport.
But rather than get nostalgic about the Tour de France, O'Connor views the Bilbao stage as one which will allow him to continue to put some distance between himself and July out on the roads.
"It's a curious stage, and it's not ideal for me, but it's a stage where you get some really hard racing," O'Connor said.
"But don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining, it's been nice to do some straightforward racing after what was just like the roughest July, it sucked actually, that whole Tour de France. It was a constant fight day in day out, so it's a pleasure to have a bit more of a straightforward run."
If the shift from Tour to Vuelta has been very welcome for O'Connor, he is also very satisfied with his move from the French squad Decathlon to his home WorldTour squad Jayco-AlUla. Although it has been a transition year, it has worked out very well for him.
"It hasn't been too much of a struggle because you fall into your natural self and the culture you grew up with, rather than making it work in another team culture. I'm enjoying it all at Jayco," he said.
Praise for UAE Team Emirates-XRG
Having raced with African, French and now Australian teams, O'Connor has had plenty of chances to compare different squads and racing strategies over the years. At the Vuelta, UAE have opted for a strategy of claiming stage wins while they can, rather than building an entire team around a leader, as Visma have done with Vingegaard.
But if the startling contrast between Ayuso's performance on Thursday and Friday - losing massive amounts of GC time on one Pyrenean climb, only to go for the stage has surprised many, O'Connor is not amongst their number.
"I think it's smart, I think it's almost a good idea – someone like Ayuso, he's clearly been able to do GC in the past, and he either can't be bothered to do it here, or doesn't think he can scrape up to his standards, so why not go for stages and rack them up," O'Connor asked rhetorically.
"You're still a quality bike rider, and you're going to be able to get a good day out, it just doesn't mean you need to do GC day in day out. So I think it's a good idea," he reflected.
Far from UAE needing to be all-protecting of their now sole GC leader João Almeida, O'Connor argued, the relatively easy racing in the opening Vuelta stages meant that an 'all-for-one' approach was not yet necessary.
"It's been quite straightforward already, it'll be different once we're in trickier days," O'Connor concluded. "When there's a one or two-hour breakaway fight, that's when you really need the boys around you."
Those tougher stages will definitely arrive in the Vuelta, particularly towards the end of the second week from Bilbao onwards. But as O'Connor sees it, for now neither UAE nor he need to get overly stressed: there will be plenty of time further down the road for that in this year's Vuelta a España.
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