Ben O'Connor was able to narrowly hang on to his red jersey on Lagos de Covadonga. Five seconds of advantage over Primoz Roglic isn't something the Australian will jumping from happiness about, but what happened after the stage is probably going to stick in his mind tonight.
The Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale rider was fined 1000 CHF for "failing to attend official ceremonies' 10-minute deadline after stage finish", losing 20 UCI points in addition to the financial penalty. Now, what exactly happened after the finish of the stage?
German journalist Daniel Friebe informs that the Australian, in contrary to what was initially believed, didn't "flee" the scene thinking that he had lost the red jersey.
O'Connor claims that he was informed that the podium ceremony would take place at the foot of the Lagos de Covadonga climb and thus slowly descended to Covadonga. However there was no podium in the the small village. In fact the ceremony took place on top of the mountain, 500 meters from the finish line. Not 15 kilometers as the 28-year-old thought.
Thus O'Connor had to be escorted back up the mountain, this time in a team car. At least he did not have to pedal up the steep ascent again. We can only imagine he wasn't particularly happy about it. Neither was the race jury who heavily fined the Australian for delaying the ceremony.
A bit more clarity: O’ Connor says he DID know he had kept jersey but thought podium presentation was 15km & not 500 metres from Covadonga summit, hence descended all the way (& then had to be driven back up). He wasn’t thrilled.
Ben O’ Connor appears to have gone AWOL…or at least apparently didn’t realise he still had red jersey & descended to team bus at bottom of final climb, bypassing podium. Hence, podium presentation delayed.
