"You'll probably see some guys explode" - Ben O'Connor expects steep climbs and brutal heat to have 'huge effect' on stage 4 of Vuelta a Espana 2024

The 2024 Vuelta a Espana moves takes on its first day with a potential general classification shake up on stage 4. One of those riders hoping to be on the right side of any potential gaps, is Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale Team leader, Ben O'Connor.

"With this heat, it'll have a pretty huge effect, it's going to be close to 40 degrees and you've got nearly 3 km at 13, 14%," O'Connor previews of the first summit finish of the Spanish Grand Tour in quotes collected by Cycling News. "You're not moving quickly, and you just get super, super hot, so that can make for a pretty huge gap."

Whilst the likes of O'Connor, Primoz Roglic, Adam Yates, Joao Almeida and Sepp Kuss won't be able to win the 2024 Vuelta a Espana on stage 4, they could potentially lose any Red Jersey hope if they have a particularly bad day. "Relatively you're coming in fresh, so you won't get there with a ton of fatigue. But it doesn't really matter when it's 40 degrees all day," the Australian continues. "You'll probably see some guys explode, just because of that fact. Hopefully one of them isn't me."

O'Connor, who finished 4th at the Giro d'Italia earlier this year, saw a similar climb at the Italian Grand Tour. As happened on most summit finishes at that race, Tadej Pogacar blitzed the field on that occasion and whilst the sharp nature of the Oropa is similar to today's Vuelta climb, O'Connor doesn't expect a similar dominance from one man this time around. "It's a completely different climb to Oropa," he says, "Because Villuercas is so steep, you're riding at the pace you can do and that's kind of it. Oropa was very different, it was fast, Pogi' launched his move, I doubt there will be attacks like that, though, at more than 10 per cent you just can't do that."

"If it's that steep, in any case, these are not really climbs you actually attack on. It's more a watts per kilo, all pure power and weight set up," O'Connor concludes. "It'll probably make for some big differences. We'll see a lot going on."