Oscar Onley: Before some Tour stages I thought I'd be lucky to stay in race
'This is sometimes normal for him but the way he was riding recently, he's been quite dominant,' Onley tells The Times, 'so I sensed that maybe he wasn't on his best day.'
The 22-year-old from Kelso increased his pace and forced the Portuguese rider to chase. No one in the select group could hold Onley's wheel except the two-times road world champion Julian Alaphilippe who soon dropped back into the pack. Almeida had to attack out of the group in order to bridge across — a stage win of the Tour de Suisse was up for grabs.
'When he caught me I just focused first on keeping up with him and then just trying to save a little bit for the sprint at the end,' Onley says. And it worked. With about 200m to go to the line, the Scotsman launched and Almeida, having been forced to exert himself in the chase, could not quite answer. Onley had won stage five ahead of one of the top riders in the world and a key lieutenant of Tadej Pogacar for the Tour de France — he had played it perfectly.
'I'm always quite consistent but now I felt like I made that next step up,' Onley, speaking from Andorra days before heading to Lille for the start of his second Tour de France on Saturday, says. 'I know Almeida's level quite well so it was good to be a bit closer to him this time. That gave me confidence that I was getting closer to these top guys.'
Onley finished the race in third place overall, 1min 58sec down on Almeida, and, as well as his stage win, took four further podiums. A good omen, then, before the Tour, where he will lead his team, Picnic PostNL, and a sign that perhaps a new British stage-racing talent has arrived.
Like so many others, it was the Tour de France that got Onley into riding. His mother would watch it every year on TV and when he was old enough Onley wanted to take part in the ten-mile time trials hosted by local cycling club Kelso Wheelers, conveniently starting practically outside his house.
Having made friends at the races he began to ride at weekends before competing around Scotland at under-12 to under-16 level before taking his racing national.
'I was never very good when I was a youth,' Onley says. 'When I turned junior and started going to Belgium and France is when I first started to get more results.'
This was something the 5ft 8in Onley put down to his size. 'Obviously I'm still quite small now,' he says, 'but I was a lot smaller than some of the other guys when I was younger. There weren't many courses that suited me.'
But someone of his size was made for climbing and as a junior Onley would find success in the lower levels before stepping up to Development Team DSM in 2021.
Just two years later he was in the elite version of the squad now known as Team Picnic PostNL and in 2024, perhaps only a decade after watching the Tour de France on TV and deciding to try a time-trial, Onley lined up in Florence for the start of his first Tour.
There had been glimmers of performance throughout that season, including a stage win at the Tour Down Under and several top-ten finishes, but injuries had plagued him throughout and he would ultimately finish the Tour in 39th place, but with a strong fifth-place finish on a mountainous stage 17.
'The process of racing for three weeks was quite different to a one-week race,' Onley says. 'You're never going to feel good, that's what I realised last year. There were some days I woke up and I thought I'd be lucky just to make it through the stage, but then what you don't realise is everyone is thinking the same and as soon as you get on the bike suddenly you're out the front trying to get in the break and you can be competitive even if you feel minutes away from pulling out.'
This year he has had a cleaner run without injury getting in the way of racing or training. His form at the Tour de Suisse was not a surprise to him; he knew if he had better luck then he would be in excellent shape.
'I'm more confident but I know how much bigger and just how much harder the Tour is compared to the Tour de Suisse or any other race you do in the year really,' Onley says. 'I'm not going in expecting to be fighting for top five on the general classification [GC]. I'm quite realistic. I'm confident in the shape that I have now and everything I've done so far this year.'
So, then, the young Scot will be hunting for stages. However that is something easier said than done in the modern age of cycling. Not so long ago, the peloton was less interested in stage victories, GC was all that mattered and so breakaways took more wins than they do now. But with the all-out, full-speed racing style ushered in by the likes of Pogacar, Jonas Vingegaard and Remco Evenepoel since 2020, fewer and fewer breakaways make the distance. If a peloton is moving at full speed, how can anyone get away from it?
'You're not really in control of which days the breakaways are allowed to win,' Onley says. 'That's what I realised last year. There were days [UAE Team Emirates-XRG] decided that the break could win and that's how it went. You've just got to go all out, every day and hope it sticks at some point.'
But if a rider goes all out, every day, there is no guarantee when they make it into a breakaway they will have the energy to fight for victory. Onley says sometimes you often have to go on days that do not suit you and you also have to sit days out — a gamble but a necessary one.
'If I'm realistic there's 21 stages and 170-odd riders all trying to go for stage wins so obviously that is a goal,' he says. 'But if I can say at the end of the tour that I gave it everything and still come away without a stage win . . . I won't be happy but I won't be disappointed.'
Onley has a lot of time to consider what sort of rider he will be, but his early career suggests an excellent climber and a rider who races intelligently. Working out that Almeida was on a bad day is part of what it takes to be a great stage racer, so is being brave enough to strike at that point. The path for Onley is perhaps an obvious one, then, from watching the Tour de France with his mum, Sharon, to attempting to win it — but he is in no rush.
'At some point for sure I'll give it a go in a grand tour,' Onley says. 'I'll probably start with the Giro d'Italia or Vuelta a España first. To try it in the Tour is a big step but there's time to figure it out.'
In the meantime, there are two riders who reign supreme over the Tour de France and look set to do so again this year: Pogacar and Vingegaard, winners for the past five editions.
'The way Pogacar's looking, it's going to be hard for anyone to beat him,' Onley says. 'But Vingegaard is also on a very high level. I don't think the other races in the season reflect his level. When he comes to the Tour de France, he always manages to step up. But a lot can happen in three weeks so it's never over, especially before it's started.'
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