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 come to a premature end altogether for the same reason.
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