Ben O’Connor rode himself into the red leader’s jersey and completed the Grand Tour stage win hat-trick with victory on stage six of the Vuelta a España on Thursday.
The Australian was initially part of a 13 rider strong breakaway, but pushed on with Gijs Leemreize (dsm–firmenich PostNL) across the hilly terrain in Andalusia with 55 kilometres to the finish. O’Connor was evidently on superb form, and later distanced his Dutch breakaway companion with a stinging attack on the penultimate climb of the day, the category three Puerto Martinez.
After dropping Leemreize, O’Connor didn’t relent and continued to thunder towards the finish knowing that his lead in the red jersey would be huge at the end of the day.
O’Connor will leave his current team, Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale, at the end of the current campaign after agreeing a move to Jayco-AIUla. But in what will be his last Grand Tour outing for the French registered team he became the 111th man to win stages in all three of professional cycling’s biggest races.
He punched the line with delight as he crossed the line, knowing that he had turned the Vuelta upside down and made a huge statement of intent to his rivals. O’Connor now leads the race by 4:51 ahead of Primož Roglič in second.
More to come…
