"I want to win a stage of the Tour de France" - Oscar Onley opens up on goals for 2025 and childhood hero Andy Schleck

2025 was another good year of progress for Team Picnic PostNL's Scottish climber Oscar Onley. With the start of the 2025 campaign looming and a return to the Tour Down Under, where he won a stage last year, Onley has opened up on his goals for the coming year.

"I want to win a stage of the Tour de France I think. I got the experience from the Tour last year, and I hope to step up a level and hopefully be a bit closer to the front end in those races and those high level races," the 22-year-old Brit says firmly in conversation with Cycling Weekly. "If I could win a stage there then that would be a really satisfying goal to achieve."

In his debut Tour de France campaign this year, Onley came closest on stage 17, finishing 5th. Having had that taste of it though, the biggest cycling race on the planet is again at the forefront on Onley's mind for this summer. "I had a few days, a few days in the break last year, but only really one day competing for a result. In the end I was fifth but I had a few days where I was getting into the break, but I didn't really have the legs to finish it off," he says. "So that's now the next part of the puzzle, continuing in the break and making it to the end of the race."

When asked for his cycling heroes, Onley also turns his eye to the Tour de France. "Probably Andy Schleck. I guess when I first started watching the Tour de France, it was him and Contador that were going for it. For some reason I took more of a liking to Schleck than Contador and I always wanted him to come out on top in their battles," he recalls. "I guess the first memory I have of the Tour was actually on the Tourmalet when they were going head to head in the mist. That's something that kind of sticks out in my memory actually."