"It's good for Simon and for us that he's changed teams" - Jayco AlUla manager confident Ben O'Connor will fully replace Simon Yates
Cycling
Team Jayco AlUla made some big moves at the transfer market this winter, aiming to shine in their brand new purple outfits. One of the headline changes was the swap of leaders with Ben O'Connor coming to replace the departing Simon Yates. In general, the Australian WT formation made several strong signings and so the goals are naturally to do even better than in 2024.
"All good things must come to an end," says sporting director Matt White when asked in conversation with In de Leiderstrui. "It's been a long time with him, without a doubt. He was there from the start of this team, but it's good for Simon and for us that he's changed teams."
That's rather surprising statement. White goes on to explain: "After 11 years he was maybe a bit stagnant, so this is a good change for him. If he had stayed we would have been happy to continue with him, but very few riders stay with the same team their entire career."
"Ben is a different type of rider, there were a number of reasons why we were interested in him," said White. "His style of racing is very attractive to us and a lot of other teams and he had a great year in 2024, from February to September. He was very consistent, whereas in previous years we had only seen flashes of that. Last year was a near perfect season for him, it couldn't have been much better."
"And of course it's great for us that he's going to be our first Australian leader in an Australian team. We've always had a lot of international leaders, so this will excite the fans," he continued. "Ben was very excited to come here. He knew a different route to the top and was looking for a new challenge."
Read also
Just in
Popular news
Latest comments
- “jonas will not race the giro.” thank god.OCexile14-01-2025
- In the end it doesn't matter, if the guy at the front is doing 7,5w/kg it doesn't matter whether he's yours or from a rivalvappaxbipmv14-01-2025
- A few weeks ago Matteo was talking about trying for GC and then he ends up being a domestique in every single stage race he does in 2025. Confusingvappaxbipmv14-01-2025
- yeah, i’m kinda bummed out that mathieu chose this year to blow off the Tour, just because of those Week 1 parcours. but he’s had stages that profile the same in previous tours i guess, and with the lone exception of the Mur de Bretagne stage when he took the yellow a few years back, he just doesn’t get up for much of anything at the tdf, other than leading out jasper. so if the Giro would light his fire in some way the Tour doesn’t, then cool. i guess i figured that if he disliked racing the Tour (which he clearly does) then he probably just didn’t like doing grand tours AT ALL. he’s a complicated guy, though. maybe there’s just some weird thing about the tdf that bugs him and other things about the Giro he digs. he certainly was animated through the whole race when he rode the giro in ‘22 (?), winning the combativity award by getting into break after break and charging up big mountainsides day after day. we’ll see.OCexile14-01-2025
- He meant for GCvappaxbipmv14-01-2025
- You know how you can tell BOTH of these two are phenomenal? If either hadn’t existed, they’d be going for either tying or breaking the official number of TdF wins this year.Mistermaumau14-01-2025
- Dozens and dozens. Adam Hansen 6 years in a row, Sepp Kuss even won one of them. Title sounds politicalMistermaumau14-01-2025
- yeah, exactly, i think he’s still more of a track racer by nature. his TT performances were off a bit last year, too, though. dunno. as far as the pain and suffering of Roubaix goes, i get the distinct impression it’s NOT the kind you get pushing your VO2max and feeling lactic acid building up in your muscles. more like the kind you get when 25 Marines stick bars of soap in their socks then beat the living crap out of every square inch of your body while you lay helpless in your bunk, or on your bike…OCexile13-01-2025
- Warning I have a limited data subscription for my phone so no Youtubing and stuff but I’m still sometimes surprised how fast I reach my limit. Have been testing and it’s mainly this site, no idea how it’s built but it just gobbles up data and often loads badly. Just in case anyone else doesn’t subscribe to unlimited procrastination. Purposely off topic, had enough TP news for one day, next time stuff it all into 1 article pls.Jumpyjohn13-01-2025
- Big news, Important news? Is someone behind the scenes here a Pidcock supporter or is he sponsoring this website?Jumpyjohn13-01-2025