Ben O’Connor heads trio of Australians in Critérium du Dauphiné top five

Ben O’Connor (AG2-Citröen) headlined a notable performance for Australia at the Criterium du Dauphiné, as the rider from Perth repeated his 2022 finish of third overall ahead of Jai Hindley (Bora-Hansgrohe) and Jack Haig (Bahrain Victorious).

Hindley is currently building his form towards a Tour de France, debut while Haig has just completed the Giro d’Italia, finishing 19th on GC despite suffering a number of crashes that knocked him out of the overall battle, but clearly with something left in the tank.

O’Connor’s third place overall sets him up nicely for the Tour de France, where he took a breakthrough fourth place overall and a stage win in 2021. But prior to July, the Australian expressed his pleasure at claiming a podium spot for the second year running in his team’s ‘home race.’

However, he also warned that defending Tour de France champion Jonas Vingegaard’s performance in the eight-day race, winning two stages and the overall, placed the Jumbo-Visma in a Dauphiné class of his own when it came to building up for the summer.

Regarding his third place overall, which came partly courtesy of one of his strongest ever time trials last week, where he took fifth, O’Connor said: “I’m just proud, really, to be honest. I’m really happy with the boys and the confidence from the team, they backed me since my up and down period since the start of the year.

“In the race you can take away that a lot of us are in  quite similar form and really not far apart on our levels, except Jonas.

“So it’s kind of cool - not so much you know you’re fighting for, but you’re definitely aware of how you’ll approach the race, especially the Tour de France. Because if Jonas is racing like this - good luck!”

“We can be very satisfied with Ben’s result, because if you’re not at a very good level here, then at the Tour the challenges are even harder,” added team manager Vincent Lavenu. “So finishing third in the Dauphine is anything but trivial, it’s a great performance, and even more so that Ben has repeated the same result as last year. Even after losing a climber, Geoffrey [Bouchard] because of a crash, the rest of the team really stepped up to back Ben in the mountains.”

Bora-Hansgrohe were equally satisfied with Hindley’s fourth place in his Dauphiné debut, which also included a third place on the toughest mountain stage to the the Croix de Fer on Saturday. The Australian’s successful race came despite his team line-up mainly consisting of sprinters and all-rounders so not able to provide him with much cover in the mountains.

“Unfortunately, I couldn’t take a podium in the end but overall I’m happy with my race,” Hindley said in a statement released by his team. “Looking at the Tour de France I am where I wanted to be at the moment, with still a few weeks to go. I’m heading back to an altitude camp before I take a few days of rest at home ahead of the Grand Départ in Bilbao.”

Last but not least, if Mikel Landa (Bahrain Victorious) provided a below-expectations performance following his super-consistent spring and prior to heading to the Tour de France, his teammate Haig rounded off his first half of the season with a fifth place overall.

While Haig said he was “really satisfied” with his result, Landa, 22nd, insisted that he remained on track for july.

“Before coming I knew I wasn’t in the best of shape, but I really needed this race to get myself into top condition ahead of the Tour de France,” Landa, twice fourth overall in the Tour, explained.

“It was a hard week, I suffered quite a lot, but overall, I think I’ve done a good job, and it will set me up for the Tour.

“I’m also happy for Jack. He did a great job, and the team were motivated to support him, so overall it’s been a good week for the team.”