It has been a mix of rain and hailstones on the top of the Col de la Loze for the past half an hour. The entire summit of the mountain is shrouded in clouds, and the bike riders who are still crossing the finish line are only just visible thanks to their jerseys making a fuzzy blur of colour in the white skies. As Ben O’Connor, the winner of stage 18 of the Tour de France stands on the podium, however, the sun starts to peep through the fog. The race’s podium music chimes out over the soggy Alps and the O'Connor's sports director, Mat Hayman, watches the scene unfold with a glint in his eye.
“Seeing him on the podium now, that’s special,” Hayman tells Rouleur. This victory is the sunshine that Jayco-Alula have been searching for in a stormy Tour de France so far. They have come close – very close – to this feeling before with Eddie Dunbar, then Mauro Schmid, then Luke Plapp, but they have also experienced the darker side of professional cycling over the last few weeks. O’Connor himself crashed early in the race, ending any hopes of a general classification result, then Dunbar was forced to abandon with a fractured wrist. Remaining focused, Hayman says, has been key to finding the light.
“We had to change plans a little bit with Ben after his crash. He lost a bit of time, and even though you take yourself off the general classification, there's no guarantee that you're going to go up the road and win a stage,” Hayman continues. “Every team wants to win at the Tour and you don't always get a chance. We’re all about process and about doing what we could control. We've been close and we just had to keep doing that.”
O’Connor himself is no stranger to weathering tempestuous skies. His career has been one of very high highs and the lowest lows – big wins but also heartbreaking losses, many of them when the eyes of the world were watching. In an era of bike racing where riders like Tadej Pogačar and Jonas Vingegaard – currently first and second place overall in the 2025 Tour – appear to be a level above the rest of the peloton, the Australian rider has had to cling on to the belief that days like he had on the Col de la Loze are still possible.
“He's ready to go out there and keep trying. Sometimes it's actually part of my job to hold him back a little bit because if you go really deep every day, you lose that edge, but he's used to racing GC and he wanted to go after any opportunity,” Hayman explains. “The whole Tour, he's been up for anything. Even days that don't really suit him, he just wants to race, that's nice and refreshing.”
The 29-year-old’s stubborn strength of character has, according to Hayman, been an essential part of his rise to cycling’s top table: “I think he's brutally honest with himself. He puts the most pressure on himself. There's no amount of pressure that I could put on him that he hasn't put on himself. He's a perfectionist. He works hard and at times he gets emotional, but you can accept that for somebody when it is directed at himself, not externally. He is a professional in every way and a good example to the other guys and sometimes it's just about hard work.”
Making the move to Jayco-Alula for the 2025 season after four years with the French outfit, AG2R La Mondiale has clearly paid dividends for O’Connor this year. Working with Hayman — a former professional rider and fellow Australian — and being part of the laid-back culture that Jayco is known for has granted O’Connor both freedom and familiarity.
“It is a new experience racing with this team. I get to race and chat and be around Aussies again which at Decathlon was not that,” he said in his post-race press conference a few minutes after taking the second Tour stage win of his career.
“It was a completely different situation [last year] — not that it was bad — it was just a different group of people, a different attitude and atmosphere. I’ve been loving my time at Jayco-Alula and it’s about time I finally get a big result on the board as an Aussie rider on an Aussie team, this goes out to everyone on the team. All the boys and girls, thank you very much.”
O’Connor also pointed out that his relationship with the Tour de France, like much of his career, has been complicated. It’s been a torrid love affair with the sport’s biggest race which has hurt the Australian as many times as it has shown him mercy.
“It’s a cruel race, I have found myself on the deck the first two days for a few years – never really because of my own fault. On stage one this year it wasn’t my fault and I was just taken out, in Copenhagen it was the same thing with a sprint finish. The first few days haven’t treated me well at all in this race in the past. But I’ve also won here, I’ve also been fourth here and I’ve come close to winning again in the last few years. Getting it done today means a lot to me, I’m proud of myself and the team.”
O’Connor describes stage 18 as the “perfect scenario” for his trademark solo stage win. The race had been hard from the beginning and O’Connor found himself in the right breakaway, before choosing to disappear up and into the clouds alone, taking victory in the way he knew best: “I pretty much always win solo so I have a good knack now of figuring out when to go or not,” he smiled.
He also credited the man in the team car behind him who helped it all come together. As Hayman watched O’Connor be awarded one of the greatest prizes in this sport in that rare, beautiful moment when the rain subsided atop the Col de la Loze, he knew that he had played his part. Sometimes the Tour de France grants teams their perfect ending.
“Me and Hayman in the car had a discussion on the descent of the Madeleine, figuring out how I was going to win from that position,” O’Connor smiled. “I had nothing to lose and I knew I had to go from the bottom of the valley. From the top to Col de la Loze it was a straightforward affair, you either had it or you didn’t. I had it.”
