Fair Dinkum, and So Forth

So, uh, Ben O'Connor has an enormous lead now

Photo Credit: Sprint Cycling Agency

I haven’t played Pro Cycling Manager in a while, but there’s a tic in the game where if you get a gap on the favorites’ group early in a stage with multiple climbs, sometimes you can put just enormous amounts of time into the field. I remember attacking very early on the last stage of Tirreno-Adriatico once, a parcours that was basically all either climbs or descents, no flat ground. And I won by like 14 minutes or something ridiculous like that.

It’s been a while since that’s happened in real life in a big race, but Ben O’Connor just won Stage 6 of the Vuelta by four and a half minutes.

As expected, Primož Roglič had taken red on Stage 4, stomping everyone on a steep uphill finishing sprint, putting 28 seconds into Sepp Kuss and more than a minute into O’Connor. He didn’t quite dust everyone, though, and might not even have won the stage but for Belgian youngster Lennert Van Eetvelt celebrating too early.

How the Frig Does This Keep Happening

I mean, what the shit, Lenny! You gotta play to the whistle, especially against a guy who owes one of the biggest race wins of his career to pedaling through the line while Julian Alaphilippe experienced a terminal amount of Frenchness at the worst possible time. This was going to be your first grand tour stage win! And you fucked it up because you stopped trying a meter too soon! You silly goose.

Anyway, as happy as Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe must’ve been to put Roglič in the lead at the first opportunity, I doubt the plan was ever to have him stay in red all the way to the finish in Madrid. Retaining the race lead would obligate Red Bull to set the tempo and manage the breakaway, and doing that for two and a half straight weeks is not easy. So this stage, with the first climb of the day being the biggest¹ and nothing higher than a Category 2 thereafter, would be a good day to make someone else pace, and if the red jersey goes, it goes. They can get it back later. Moreover, Red Bull had Florian Lipowitz in the break most of the day, and if the first group on the road got any ideas, Lipowitz could sandbag and slow them down.

I think that was the plan.

And yet, with 27 kilometers to go, with two kilometers left on the second-to-last climb, Ben O’Connor was almost six minutes ahead of the peloton and already dropping his last breakaway companion.

That’s a long way to go for one solo rider, but that’s also a lot for a team to pull back in 27 kilometers. Except, Red Bull didn’t, or couldn’t, and by the time O’Connor was two kilometers from the last climb, he had almost seven minutes on Roglič and his buddies.

The final gap ended up being 6:32 to the peloton, which means that even after getting cooked in both the Stage 1 time trial and the Stage 4 climb to Pico Villuercas, O’Connor now leads the Vuelta by some four minutes and 51 seconds over Roglič.

So, look, I have my doubts about O’Connor as a grand tour leader. His temperament, his time trialing ability, his consistency over three weeks. His Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale team is a solid mid-table outfit, and if Felix Gall goes on full-time domestique duty he won’t give up much to the best support riders on Red Bull, UAE and Visma-Lease a Bike. But AG2R doesn’t have the depth of the richer teams, so holding on to this lead for two weeks will be, as I mentioned, difficult.

O’Connor has two career fourth-place finishes in grand tours, including at this year’s Giro. But can he beat Roglič over three weeks?

Probably not under normal circumstances, but if you spot him a five-minute head start, yeah, I think that’s a distinct possibility.

I’m interested to see what the favorites’ teams do from here. Because this is no longer about Roglič controlling the race. His eight-second lead over João Almeida made all the difference in the world when they were first and second. Now it’s basically immaterial, so how much will UAE exert itself to bringing O’Connor back? Will they squander further opportunities by playing a game of chicken while AG2R rides O’Connor safely from stage to stage?

The next two stages aren’t that imposing, though Saturday’s concludes on a short climb that gets steeper as it goes, culminating in a final 800 meters that clocks in at basically a 10 percent gradient.² That feels like a prime opportunity for Roglič to take a bite out of O’Connor. Sunday features three Category 1 climbs, including a double ascent of the Alto de Hazallanas. Could AG2R control an attack over multiple mountains better than Red Bull and UAE did on Thursday?

Either way, barring a calamity of some kind, O’Connor is going to lead this race on the first rest day. Most likely by several minutes.