Even when Ben O’Connor (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale) still had the red jersey on his shoulders this week, he held a clear-eyed view about the overarching goal of his Vuelta a España. “My main aim is to be on that podium in Madrid,” he said in Vitoria on Thursday. “Whatever place that is, that’s the aim.”
And yet wearing the leader’s jersey of a Grand Tour is a funny thing. Some riders are inspired by the experience, while others are inhibited. Few are unmoved, including O’Connor. At times during his tenure as race leader, the Australian found himself lured by the jersey into efforts he perhaps shouldn’t have made.
When O’Connor finally lost the jersey to Primož Roglič (Red Bull-Bora Hansgrohe)on the Alto de Moncalvillo on Friday afternoon, his faint hopes of winning the Vuelta went with it, but the goal of a podium finish remained resolutely intact. Now unburdened by the maillot rojo, O’Connor was free to race a little differently on the road to Picón Blanco on stage 20.
The final mountain of the Vuelta was a brutal one, and the pace was fearsome, but O’Connor cut his cloth to measure the occasion. Without the red jersey on his back, he felt no instinctive compulsion to track accelerations from Roglič, Enric Mas (Movistar) and Richard Carapaz (EF Education-EasyPost).
Unlike at Cuitu Negru or Lagos de Covadonga, O’Connor felt able to allow gaps to drift open and then steadily stitch them back together at his own tempo. The tactic served him well on a stage won by future teammate Eddie Dunbar (Jayco-Alula), as O’Connor placed 6th, only seven seconds behind Mas and four down on Roglič.
With just the final time trial in Madrid to come, O’Connor remains second overall, now 2:02 behind the unassailable Roglič but still nine seconds ahead of Mas. Most importantly, he still has a 58-second buffer over the fourth-placed Carapaz after coming home just two seconds behind the Ecuadorian. O’Connor, as ever, was refreshingly frank when asked how he did so.
“By being smarter than I was the other days,” O’Connor said. “The power was always there, but maybe I fell into the trap of the red jersey. It was nice to put it together today, and we were perfect in the end.”
When O’Connor conceded two minutes to Roglič on the Puerto de Ancares on stage 13, his best climbing lieutenant Felix Gall was inexplicably given the freedom to race in defence of his own overall placing. Long since out of the hunt for a top 10 finish, Gall delivered a pitch-perfect mountain domestique display on Picón Blanco, helping O’Connor gauge his effort on the climb.
“The boys were great, they surrounded me all day and Felix did a great job to pace the climb, as I probably should have done the whole race,” said O’Connor.
“Thanks to all the boys these last 20 days. I love them to bits. They always stepped up when I needed them. Quite a few teams tried to make it hard today, I’m proud of all the boys and proud to finish these 20 days with a good result today.”
O’Connor knows, of course, that the task isn’t completed just yet. There is still the matter of a 24.6km time trial in Madrid on Sunday evening, where Mas might well have enough to overhaul his deficit. Carapaz, meanwhile, gained exactly a second per kilometre on O’Connor in the opening time trial in Lisbon, and he will have to pick up more than 2.3 seconds per kilometre to overtake the Australian in Madrid.
“Tomorrow is just me against the clock, and I’ll aim to do my best to be on this podium,” said O’Connor. “I’m confident, but it’s cycling. I still have to recover and be at my best tomorrow.”
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