Ben O’Connor has had a rocky first years with Team Jayco AlUla but mentally he is in a good place after many years ‘abroad’. The Australian rider is starting his season early on next year, as he has already expressed clear interest in racing the national championships in early January – which could be combined with the Tour Down Under potentially.

“I’ll go back to Australia and do the nationals in Perth. A home race, it’ll be cool. I wanted to do it last year, but it just was going to be too difficult to fly home with my newborn daughter in the end,” O’Connor shared with Cyclingnews. “It’ll be great to do it this year. I actually can’t wait. It’s just aggressive, it doesn’t really matter, it could be pan flat and you’d still have a good race, to be honest”. 

O’Connor is a climber but also a rider who can thrive on hilly and tactical races, proven on several occasions and perhaps most clear at the 2024 World Championships where he finished second behind Tadej Pogacaar. “They can even make a criterium as a road race, if they wanted to, like a true Belgian kermesse, and it would still be a great race. I wouldn’t want to be left to a sprint, but it’s just aggressive racing. In national championships, anything can happen,” he says. And with Jayco not having a sprinter but having big numbers, it means that the team will have to race aggressively to try and recover that title. Luke Durbridge won the title this year, with teammate Luke Plapp finishing second.

And O’Connor could be next… “Being on Jayco will definitely make it a lot simpler. You actually have a teammate. The last time I did this race with a teammate was Dimension Data days, and that was just one, Lachlan Morton, so it was a completely different thing back then.”

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O’Connor in the Australian jersey at the 2024 Worlds. @Sirotti