'By just being angry' - Ben O'Connor hopes mentality shift will offer return to top form in 2026 after 'annoying year'

Twelve months ago, Ben O'Connor had just closed the chapter on the best season of his career to date.

The Perth-native, who joined Jayco-AlUla at the beginning of 2025, was a standout performer at the 2024 Vuelta a España, clinching second in the overall standings after winning stage 6 and holding onto the maillot rojo right up until the second-to-last day of the Grand Tour. He backed that up with a silver medal in the UCI World Championships road race in Zurich, the best of the rest behind an untouchable Tadej Pogačar.

In the year that followed, O'Connor faced ecstatic highs and deflating lows as he chased another season that matched his 2024 achievements. A stage 18 Tour de France win proved to be his only victory of the campaign, though. An unfortunate crash checked his GC ambitions in France before the opening day's racing had even concluded - he would eventually finish a respectable 11th, two minutes down on the top-10 - and his Vuelta a España campaign came to a premature end altogether for the same reason.

Now, as the Australian heads into 2026 and returns to both the Australian National Road Championships and the Tour Down Under this month, he's hoping to take lessons from these tests of his mentality into the new campaign and aim for a renewed level of momentum akin to the one that delivered those major achievements two seasons ago.

"You don't even need to sugarcoat it," the Australian said when comparing his 2025 season to the one before during an exclusive interview with Cyclingnews late last year. "[It's] certainly not the same, it's very clear.

"At least the Tour de France stage win was the kind of crowning moment in realising that you can always turn races around when things go wrong," O'Connor added, clearly having had time to contemplate the contrasting highs and lows of the past two seasons.

Keen to surge on with the successes that arrived in the second half of 2024, O'Connor was determined not to let an early-season illness get in the way, but when it lingered throughout the spring, he conceded that he should have cut his losses and looked at the bigger picture.

"[This illness] just lingered for ages, and I couldn't shake it until pretty much the Tour de Suisse," he said of his first event back after "he finally cut himself off for a break after the Ardennes and then reset.

"It's surprising how much it can kill you sometimes, not applying a bit of flexibility," he explained, summing the year up as "annoying."

Despite being in his first year with an Australian team, the 30-year-old didn't cite new surroundings and people to impress as the cause of his overexertion.

Clearly impacted by his ambition to match his red-hot form of late 2024, O'Connor admitted that he's a "criminal offender" when it comes to trying to make amends by applying more.

"Often, it can actually just be the case where you can be so consistent and good in training, it can actually be better off just pulling it, letting the body try and have a bit of a reset and then come up again.

"Hopefully, I can have the same kind of level [as 2024 again], I know it's there. It just never really played out, and you're always left wanting, but there's always a new context to every problem. And that's the most frustrating thing. You can't just copy and paste."

Knowing when to be angry and when to reset

This journey to rediscover his top level has brought out a ruthless streak in O'Connor, one that isn't afraid to get worked up in the wake of setbacks.

When the Australian was thrown over his handlebars with 5km remaining on the opening stage of the Tour de France, inflicting more than a few scratches, his route back to stage victory 19 days later was one spurred on by "being angry" at himself.

"I was just furious. It's really depressing. It just makes you angry when things unravel where it's not your fault, which is what cycling is, but knowing that you still can perform and do something in the race, the framework was there, and you just throw it away," he recalled.

The Jayco-AlUla rider switched up his approach and targeted stage wins via breakaways, something he defines as "by far the most enjoyable way to race the Tour."

In comparison, targeting the overall classification, in O'Connor's eyes, "actually sucks" because "it's a fantastic race, until it's not".

He continued: "If you left the race having only that one opportunity and you blew it, it would be so frustrating. What a failure it would be at the Tour, and that's kind of how I see it now, to set yourself expectations. Going into things tooth and nail, and by just being angry."

It's this fired-up approach, paired with ensuring he carries momentum when it arrives but not blindly chasing it, that O'Connor hopes will steer his 2026 in the right direction.

Speaking off the back of an introspective few months, O'Connor said: "The main thing for next year is keeping momentum, carrying it throughout. I think in general, I stay quite consistent. So once you get to that point, just take it with you.

"If that doesn't happen, you reset, and actually reset fully, so your body is ready to then get back to that point. Objectives, then aims, will follow."

From an environment point of view, the Australian has naturally settled in quickly at the WorldTour's only Australian-licensed team. And while O'Connor credits the impact of the characters in the team car at Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale, what had taken a few years to foster at the French squad has already blossomed at Jayco.

"There's emotional, and there's understanding of emotions and people, how they work. It's been great this year, at least on that side of things," O'Connor added, while highlighting the value of having compatriot Mathew Hayman in the team car.

Having only signed a two-year contract with Jayco-AlUla, it makes 2026 a contract season, but O'Connor seems unfazed by the topic.

"It's just part and parcel of cycling, it comes around. It doesn't really change what happens. I know my calibre as a rider, so it's not really something that you need to think about."

"It's not like I'm going to struggle for a job, and that's not really what I'm thinking about either," he remarked.

Putting his key motivation down to that winning feeling over contracts and financial gain, O'Connor added: "Success is what carries the contract allure, that's why I train and work. I actually have huge credit for domestiques, for hard-working people who are not race winners, because your career is based on hard work and selflessness towards others. That's a huge, huge sacrifice to make, knowing that you can't actually put your hands up in the air, in most instances, in races.

"I have been lucky enough to have that opportunity. So you just don't want to waste it, because to do that is just such a waste," he added, clearly fired up and keen to make 2026 a year that truly counts.

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