Ben O’Connor will be leading the charge for Jayco-AlUla at the Santos Tour Down Under in January, delivering a powerful contender for the Australian team at the opening WorldTour race of the season.
The squad last won its home tour in 2019 with Daryl Impey, however with the four-time Grand Tour stage winner on hand, 2026 presents a strong opportunity for the team which O’Connor joined at the start of 2025.
“The challenging course for next year’s TDU will suit his climbing abilities and we expect he will be joined by a really strong Jayco AlUla team with him to target the Santos Ochre Leaders Jersey,” said the race director of Tour Down Under, Stuart O’Grady of the first headline rider announced for the 2026 edition of the men’s race.
“It’s one of the best races of the year, a lot of people can back that up being centralised in the middle of the city with this big festival atmosphere as well so I love it,” said O’Connor in the race media release. “And riding with Team Jayco AlUla there is a responsibility to perform there, so I want to be ready and switched on.”
“I think the main stage will be the Uraidla day when you go up the Corkscrew and turn left, it makes the climb 2km longer and it’s quite different going from a 5-8 to a 10-13 minute effort, so it does suit me a bit better,” said O’Connor.
“And that final day in Stirling is pretty relentless, nothing is too steep but I’m thinking things can get pretty out of hand later in the laps, because there will be some fatigue and it’s a pretty unforgiving circuit. So it definitely opens the race up to be more aggressive, especially on that last stage because you can just lay it all out there.”