Ben O'Connor enjoyed one of the rides of his life on La Vuelta 2024 today, winning the stage with great authority and going into the race lead. And just 24 hours after losing the kind of time that suggested he would not challenge for the overall, the Australian is now a real contender to win this race overall.
As the Decathlon-AG2R-La Mondiale stage winner powered his way to a brilliant victory - after attacking the breakaway with 66km remaining - Eddie Dunbar (Team Jayco AlUla) was taking care of business back in the reduced bunch.
And though Dunbar's ride today - finishing in a 30-strong group 6:31 down - will be a footnote in his career, it may prove the day he steadied the ship. After imploding on yesterday's first summit finish, Dunbar (Team Jayco AlUla) was at least steady today.
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And the hope for him is that steady will be the order of the day over the stages to come before he perhaps gets a stage win in his crosshairs and has the legs to pull the trigger and bring it home. But, Ireland's Dunbar aside, this to Yunquera belong to the likeable West Australian O'Connor.
On the 185.5km stage from Jerez de la Frontera to Yunquera, with a cat 3 uphill finish of 8.9km, O'Connor got clear in the large breakaway before attacking with 63km to go alongside Gijs Leemreize (DSM-Firmenich-PostNL).
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O'Connor soon distanced the last man standing with him - from the breakaway reduced to 13 riders - and far from being reeled in by the peloton, the Australian rode out of his socks all the way to the line. He opened his gap despite the half-hearted efforts of race leader Primož Roglič's team, Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe.
And though O'Connor - 4th in Tour de France 2021 - has lacked the consistency in recent years to mark him out as a clear favourite for Vuelta victory this year, he has carved out a real chanced today. Inside the final 10km, about 30 seconds was trimmed off his gap, but he still won by 6:31 from the reduced peloton.
There were seven riders - all from the original breakaway - between O'Connor and the remains of the peloton. Marco Frigo (Israel-Premier Tech) was 2nd at 4:33, the Italian having chased O'Connor for a long time but a crash not helping his cause.
Florian Lipowitz (Red Bull-Bora-hansgrohe) led in a four-man chasing group at 5:12, before well over one minute elapsed by the time the general classification group arrived. It contained the race leader, who may yet regret allowing O'Connor get just so far ahead today.
Dunbar was in that group - a steady Eddie today - in 31st place while Darren Rafferty (EF Education-EasyPost) was 85th at 17:01. O'Connor now leads overall by a whopping 4:51 over Roglič and it's very much 'game on' at La Vuelta.
