Ah, no. Here’s the current Alltime PCS rankings for active riders:
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Historically he’s better in the TT than Mas and. Carapaz so barring incident or a real off day he should hold 2nd.
The crazy thing is with the food poisoning taking out half of Bora today, Ben was a one bad bite of chicken away from winning the Vuelta.
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While true that O’Connor has better historic TT results than carapaz and mas the opening tt of this Vuelta would beg to differ. There’s also historically higher variance in TT results for everyone after three week tours.
Overall fatigue for comparatively poorer climbers tends to degrade TT performance for non specialists the further into a GT you get
All that said, I think O’Connor has a podium spot locked in, but wouldn’t be shocked if he slips to third
There is a massive difference between a stage win and being a good GC rider. O’Connor is a Top 10 GC rider, but well down on time in any of his higher GC places……and that is what matters, time…not placing.
Yes, he has been 4th in the Tour, but how far down was he, and how much time did he gain because he was allowed to go up the road because he not really a threat?
“Jay Vine looks like a blue cow” --CVV
Thanks Christian, someone had to say it out loud 
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All hail Roglic, king of the Vuelta 
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I don’t see anyone making that mistake with O’Connor again. 
Top 10 GC riders are good GC riders. But I agree that there is a big step between the top 10 favorites and serious contenders for the over all. R/V/P have won 10 of the last 15 grand tours. The other winners were a mix of serious top-step contenders and people I think of as one-time winners. What’s the right term to describe these incredible athletes who aren’t in the group of repeat (and potential) repeat GC winners?
Too early for a whole season assessment but with all three grand tours in the books I’m looking at the GC riders a bit
All three GT were won by the favorite with the giro and Vuelta really only having one top level GC rider present
I think it’s safe to say pog and Jonas should be viewed as a class above and any talk of the top four (as we saw going into the Tour) is a bit premature. Remco and roglic are a step below those two but that gap feels smaller than the gap between them and whomever you have as the fifth best GC contender
Best GT GC excitement for next year seems likely to come if both pog and Jonas can get a clean run into and through the tour. I’d love to see remco and rog face off in the giro as an aperitif, but it’s hard to imagine them skipping the Tour to do a true giro peak
Will probably be another season where the most exciting GC racing is in the one week races, but that’s so often the case it’s hardly worth specifying
Agree with this. Hard to imagine that the gap from Pog and Vin to Rog is going to do anything other than increase though given he’s about to turn 35. Remco took a big step up this year I think, he already had a GT win under his belt but his Tour performance was a big improvement in terms of how consistently and maturely he raced and gave hope he can narrow that gap to the top 2.
Bit disappointed that none of the young guns really took a big step this year. All the guys slated to be the next GT big thing either stood still or maybe moved backwards a bit - had hoped at least one of the likes of Rodriguez, Ayuso, Uijtdebroeks, etc might have grabbed a podium and looked capable of moving up to challenge the top guys. Or maybe that one of the other pool of GC contenders who have been consistently around that top 5 level like Almeida might have narrowed the gap. On paper only really O’Connor did anything that we haven’t seen from him before, and even there in reality he only got that 5 minute gap because he wasn’t deemed a threat (which isn’t to say it wasn’t a great ride).
Those guys like Ayuso are still very young and have time to develop. So could be that the narrative we were led to believe with riders like Bernal, Pog, Remco, Vingegaard (though he was a bit older when he made his debut) looking ready to win GTs almost as soon as they arrived in the Worldtour was a bit misleading and most riders need a bit more time to develop. Or maybe those guys are going to join the likes of Mas, Carapaz, Yates, etc as solid GC riders who can pick up a podium or even a win when the big guns aren’t there but can’t really challenge a fit Pog, Rog, Vin or Remco.
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But that is my point…it wasn’t a mistake. It was a strategic decision because Red Bull correctly assessed that O’Connor was not a threat for the win.
Now, perhaps the leash got a little too long (at least from the perspective of Movistar and EF), but if I’m someone like Pog or JV in the future, I would not fear O’Connor going up the road, as long as the gap is kept in check. 1) He will probably already have lost some time and 2) they know he will fade as the race progresses. From the time that O’Connor took the jersey, he lost ~8 minutes to Rog. That just isn’t a guy who represents a threat to the GC win.
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Until he does and wins a GT! I like to think everyone is capable.
Perhaps the statement should be something like: the other podium contenders won’t make that mistake again
O’Connor isn’t a threat to win a GT to pog, Jonas, remco, or rog, even given five plus minutes of breakaway time.
IMO, absent those five minutes he isn’t a threat to the next tier down, but given those five minutes they have to worry about him
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Yeah, I agree with that…the big strategic mistake was from Movistar and EF, waiting for Red Bull to ride after O’Connor. They should have started to chase on their won.
From my armchair, it also looked like Bora and Roglic did just enough to win the race. They managed the gaps and the eventual winning margin carefully. Seemed to not do more than they needed to.
Perhaps that was smart and careful tactics, or perhaps Roglic didn’t have the legs to do more than what was needed.
2025 will be an interesting season for Roglic and Remco.
Am sure Roglic wants a TdF win, but I don’t see him beating Remco, Vinnegard or Pogacar at le tour. His TdF ship has likely sailed for good. Could focus on a Giro + Veulta double, or perhaps some monuments or other significant races that he hasn’t won yet. He has 80+ wins, which is tremendous. But he entered pro cycling later than most top riders and is closing in on 40 years of age.
Remco will need to up his game to go a full three weeks against top competition. Remains to be seen if he’s going to evolve into a major three week GT winner or might be better off having different objectives.
With worlds still to come, and I think we might see some surprise TT and road race winners, 2024 has been a remarkably entertaining year. The crashes and sickness that scrambled the fields were unfortunate, but the racing as a fan has been fun to watch.
An aside - the conversations in this forum are a nice addition to watching the races.
-Darth
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The irony is that this year played out almost exactly like last year save that Roglic wasn’t on Ben’s team and therefore didn’t get called off.
We had a non-podium-threat GC rider take a lot of time on a Stage 6 breakaway, get written off by everyone, then be inspired by the jersey and outperform everyone’s expectations in its defense.
For the sake of entertainment, I hope that the peloton makes the same mistake for the 3rd year in a row next year too.
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This just harkens back to the old days when teams gave away the leader’s jersey to someone they thought wasn’t a serious contender for the overall win so they didn’t have to control Grand Tours the entire race
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I think the fact that Remco has won a “major three week GT” (Vuelta 2022) might suggest he’s more than capable of that evolution
Honestly I feel that this year’s top level racing has been sadly low on drama. I know this isn’t a new take, but all monuments except MSR and all GTs had clear pre-race favorites and those favorites won in fairly dominant fashion. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed watching and there were of course lots of story lines within the GTs that made them interesting. But with the exception of the brief blip of hope when Vini won his Tour stage there was never much doubt about who would win any of these. “But you’re watching greatness/history!” is less interesting to me than watching an actual exciting tight race.
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Agree. It’s really cool to see them, but it’s kind of boring. I must admit that I loved seeing MVP winning those monuments. His power, bike handling, ability to keep 30/40/50km by himself smashing 300/400/500 (who knows) watts is something.
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Wout signs career-length deal with Visma. While not surprising, it is at least interesting given his Red Bull connection.