Ben O'Connor annihilates GC favorites with 5 minute lead

Ben O’Connor (Decathlon-AG2R La Mondiale) stormed to stage 6 victory from the breakaway to take the red jersey with a lead of nearly 5 minutes over GC rivals at La Vuelta

The Australian had lost time to the other GC favourites on the first mountain stage, but today he went with the early break, before soloing to the finish in Yunquera on Thursday, taking the red jersey from three-time winner Primoz Roglic.

O'Connor and Gijs Leemreize attacked from a breakaway group before O'Connor later left the Dutchman behind with 27 kilometres to go.

O'Connor opened up a significant and defendable lead of four minutes 51 seconds in the general classification ahead of veteran Roglic, as the peloton came in well over six minutes down.

"I felt a little bit in my own world today... I just went for it, I felt today was just a day to seize my opportunity and I laid it all out there," O'Connor told the media, "I felt I could win this stage from the start -- it's pretty special when you can just go out and crush it like that."

O'Connor is the fifth Australian to win stages at all three Grand Tours after winning at the Giro in 2020 and at the Tour de France in 2021.

"I enjoyed today a lot, it was beautiful racing all round," he continued, "Wearing red at La Vuelta is going to be a once in a lifetime experience maybe, so I will enjoy every moment... it's an excellent opportunity and I will savour it as much as I can."

O'Connor finished four minutes 33 seconds ahead of Italian Marco Frigo while Florian Lipowitz came in third, with the German rising to fourth in the general classification.

UAE Team Emirates' Joao Almeida is third overall, trailing Roglic by eight seconds, while defending champion Sepp Kuss languishes six minutes 31 seconds behind new leader O'Connor.

O'Connor finished fourth at the Giro d'Italia this year and also recorded a fourth-place finish at the Tour de France in 2021.

"Yes it's worrying because in the end O'Connor isn't just anyone, he took five or six minutes out of us, but at least we had some minutes of advantage," said Almeida, "It will be hard to take back those minutes... it was very tough, very fast today and very hot, so now we have to recover."

Three riders left the race, Jon Aberasturi, Kenny Elissonde and also Rigoberto Uran, whose team said he suffered a crash.

The stage began inside a supermarket, started quickly and the peloton was forced to reel in multiple breakaway attempts.

Eventually a strong group featuring O'Connor and Lipowitz escaped up the road never to be seen again.

Friday's hilly seventh 180.5km stage takes the peloton from Archidona to Cordoba.

VIDEO: 2024 La Vuelta Stage 6 Highlights

2024 La Vuelta Stage 6 Top 10

1  O'CONNOR Ben Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale Team 4:28:12
2  FRIGO Marco Israel - Premier Tech 4:33
3  LIPOWITZ Florian Red Bull - BORA - hansgrohe 5:12
4  BERTHET Clément Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale Team 5:12
5  RODRÍGUEZ Cristián Arkéa - B&B Hotels 5:12
6  LEEMREIZE Gijs Team dsm-firmenich PostNL 5:12
7  VANSEVENANT Mauri Soudal Quick-Step 5:35
8  BERRADE Urko Equipo Kern Pharma 6:02
9  DEL TORO Isaac UAE Team Emirates 6:31

2024 La Vuelta GC after Stage 6

1 - O'CONNOR Ben DAT 23:28:28 
2 -  ROGLIC Primož RBH 4:51 
3 -  ALMEIDA João UAD 4:59 
4 -  LIPOWITZ Florian RBH 5:18 
5 -  MAS Enric MOV 5:23 
6 -  RODRÍGUEZ Cristián ARK 5:26 
7 -  TIBERI Antonio TBV 5:29 
8 -  VAN EETVELT Lennert LTD 5:32 
9 -  GALL Felix DAT 5:38 
10 -  SKJELMOSE Mattias LTK 5:49