Ben O’Connor (AG2R-Citroen) was his typical open self in the lead-up to the opening stage of the Vuelta a España.
The West Australian talked of racing simultaneously for the general classification and maintaining his aggressive style to also try and win a stage.
“I don’t really want to roll into Madrid finishing 10th having just hung on every day, that’s not how I want to try and race it here,” said O’Connor. “It would be a dream to finish on the podium, that’d be super, super cool.”
“It was nice doing it at the Dauphiné, that was already a big achievement. The next thing, for sure, is to try and do it at a Grand Tour.
“If a stage win happens, I’ll also be super proud. If one of those two [stage win or GC podium] can pass, I’d be extremely happy.”
O’Connor was the French team’s leader at the Tour de France, along with all the pressure and attention from the home race press that entails. Crashes and subsequent injury in the early stages saw O’Connor having to abandon the race after Stage 10.
“It’s just one race, it’s a bit cruel. I’ll probably do another one, it’s okay,” said O’Connor. “Obviously, it’s a bit anti-climactic because you aim for it and you have Netflix there and blah, blah, blah.
“But it doesn’t really matter; it matters for the team but personally, there’s always another chance, another race. To focus just on the Tour de France can be a bit too much. So, it’s nice being here at the Vuelta and far more chill.”
After recovering from his torn glute sustained during the Tour de France, O’Connor said he was back to full fitness. He spent most of August training at altitude a team training camp but he hasn’t raced since pulling out of the French Grand Tour.
O’Connor wasn’t too concerned about his preparation with some hard training behind him.
“If I can already get through those, there’s no reason to be scared,” said O’Connor. “As for the [stage 1] TTT, we haven’t done a lot of practice, barely any teams have.”
“For sure, I come here with some GC ambitions, but the race will play out how it does. I’m pretty confident I can be up there with the guys. I’d like to just race how I did in the Dauphiné and every other race this year, that’s the main objective.”
O’Connor is hoping to reproduce the racing style and form that saw him finish fourth overall and win a stage in the 2021 Tour de France, putting aside the notion that it was too hard to go for stage wins while maintaining a GC bid simultaneously.
“The objective is always to win, just because you do GC doesn’t write you off from winning a stage,” said O’Connor. “It probably makes it a bit more difficult because you have less freedom and chances. But if you do take a risk, sometimes it pays off.”
“I think it suits an open way to approach a hilltop finish in general because there are ten of them; GC guys won’t win them all, but you will have to try to win a lot of them.”
“But just being able to race a grand tour at the front with guys like Primož (Roglič), (Enric) Mas and Yatesy (Simon Yates) would already make me proud.”
Watch La Vuelta a España on SBS and SBS On Demand, with the broadcast LIVE and FREE as well as daily highlights, clips and updates from the Spanish Grand Tour from August 20-September 12.
