Ben O’Connor drew a line under his own ambitions and buried himself for teammate Felix Gall in a role reversal that delivered AG2R Citroën a stage win at the Tour de France on Wednesday.
O’Connor had entered the Tour as team leader, aiming for a top ten finish but dreaming of more, but abandoned that plan after a tough start in the Basque Country where the Australian couldn’t pinpoint what had happened to the form that saw him finish third at the Critérium du Dauphiné.
But the 27-year-old rebounded on the queen stage of the Tour on Wednesday, working not for himself but tirelessly at the front of the breakaway to help set up Gall for his solo stage win in Courchevel.
“He’s clearly the guy that is flying the most, he had the GC objective too, to gain places and put the hurt on the other guys,” O’Connor said about Gall. "I honestly couldn’t be more proud to play a part in that because it’s actually a role that I haven’t done before, and I took so much pleasure out of reversing roles. I really, really loved it today.
“You always want to win yourself, but at the moment I’m not good enough and he’s absolutely flying. To win like that, chapeau. I think we played it as a team perfectly and I loved every moment.”
Speaking outside the team bus post-race, O’Connor admitted he almost cried upon seeing the result at the end of a hugely-tough day – in which even Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates) cracked – days out from the conclusion of an immensely challenging Tour.
“It’s emotional, it’s the Tour. It’s been a hard two weeks for me so far, but to finally come good on the hardest stage of the Tour and then for us to actually win as well, it doesn’t really get any better,” O'Connor said. “The only better thing would be me winning but that’s not possible, so I’m so, so happy that Felix has won today.”
O’Connor and Gall have both been in the mix for stage wins since AG2R Citroën revised its general classification ambitions.
O’Connor, 27, was in the breakaway that survived blistering heat on stage 10 to finish third behind Pello Bilbao (Bahrain Victorious) and Georg Zimmerman (Intermarche-Circus-Wanty).
Gall, 25, had a crack at stage five, placing third behind Jai Hindley (Bora-Hansgrohe), who was the best of a large break in Laruns, but it was the Austrian who stayed away in the Alps.
“The aim was to be in the break and Felix was keen from the start to see if he could jump in and see if we could move up in the GC,” O’Connor continued.
“I don’t think we all believed that the stage would go to the breakaway, but I guess from Notre-Dame-Du-Pre to Meribel we rode super, super well … we did the descents super-fast, and it was nice to play a part in Felix’s win today.”
For Gall, the triumph, which saw him jump two places to eighth on general classification, was the culmination of almost two years of work and a nice reward for multiple days of hard racing in the Jura and Alps.
“I can’t say it’s a childhood dream but one-and-a-half years ago, I could never have imagined to be in this position now,” said Gall, who joined the French team last season.
“I hadn’t much confidence before joining this team. This team, they saw something in me, which I didn’t see any more. They really gave me the confidence again. It’s not that you gain confidence overnight. [It’s a] slow process, successful process that lasted one-and-a-half years.”
