Ben O’Connor began Wednesday’s stage 4 of Paris-Nice well-placed in fourth total and with a optimistic mind set after a formidable second for Jayco-AlUla within the group time trial, nevertheless the icy rain that brought on a pause within the race could have additionally poured chilly water over the Australian’s GC hopes on the eight-stage race.
O’Connor crossed the end line on the prime of La Loge des Gardes in twenty seventh spot, 2:10 down on stage 4 winner João Almeida (UAE Team Emirates). That consequence despatched him tumbling down the final classification 16 spots to twentieth, and he’s now sitting 2:30 down on new race chief Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike), who got here second to Almeida on the stage.
“Yesterday was an awesome day for us, at this time not so good,” stated sport director Matthew Hayman on a Jayco-AlUla social media post. “But there may be nonetheless numerous racing right here and the blokes are going nicely.
“It was fairly unlucky however we aren’t carried out with this Paris-Nice.”
O’Connor had headed into Wednesday’s stage glad together with his place on the general, simply 21 seconds behind the highest spot, and inspired by the group time trial.
“We put in an awesome efficiency as a group however personally I felt like I used to be accountable for my race inside that TTT so it was signal,” O’Connor had stated earlier than the beginning in an interview put out by Jayco-AlUla. “If I can simply go off that then at this time [I’m] considering I can do experience.”
That, nevertheless, was earlier than the stage was turned the wrong way up after heavy rain, hail and sleet fell and with the security danger of descending on icy roads and the race was then paused and neutralised for a time at 46km to go.
“We have been struck with a reasonably heavy hail and ice bathe there in the course of the stage,” stated Hayman. “It got here out of nowhere. Really not figuring out what was going to occur, the bunch was caught on the aspect of the mountain … obtained fairly chilly throughout that interval.”
After the pause and loads of confusion over the continued stops and begins the race obtained underway once more at 29km to go however the toll the climate, uncertainty and excessive chilly had taken was clear. Soaking moist riders struggled to try to heat up and get going whereas Steff Crass (Total Energies) even needed to withdraw because of hypothermia.
That made for an unpredictable state of affairs when the race exploded on the ultimate climbs, the class 2 Cote de La Chabanne with 13km to go and the seven kilometre lengthy class 1 La Loge des Gardes which delivered the summit end. Various riders who would usually be anticipated to do nicely because the street turned up shortly drifted away because the circumstances meant the physique did not react because it usually would.
There was no signal of O’Connor within the main fragment of the bunch that will contest the rostrum locations because the race entered the ultimate 5 kilometres and he was not alone in shedding appreciable time with others among the many GC hopefuls together with Neilson Powless (EF Education-EasyPost) who dropped 2:16 and Felix Gall (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale) who shed 1:56.
Jayco-AlUla did not launch any remark from O’Connor after the stage however the disappointment could not have been clear when he crossed the road 2:10 down with a shake of the pinnacle.
