'A really big moment' - Oscar Onley's breakthrough fourth at Tour de France

Oscar Onley (Picnic PostNL) secured fourth place overall at the Tour de France as the race concluded on Sunday with stage 21 in the French capital. In the process, he became the eighth British rider to finish in the top 10 in the general classification at the Tour and the youngest to do so, at only 22 years old.

After a captivating battle, Onley finished the Tour in fourth place, 12:12 behind the race winner Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) and only 1:12 behind Florian Lipowitz (Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe), with the duo locked in a battle for the third step of the podium on the white jersey. 

After crossing the finish line in a rain-soaked Paris, Onley reflected on his three weeks of racing with joy, speaking to ITV.

"Yeah, I guess it's a really big moment in my career," Onley admitted. "I don't realise it yet, but just from talking to other riders in the bunch, I think going forward we have something to build on and an exciting project for the future," he added. 

On the final stage into the French capital, the rainstorms threatened to ruin the celebrations but there was still a party-like atmosphere on the slopes of the Montmartre, which was tackled by the riders three times, and this was something that Onley acknowledged.

"That was a pretty crazy circuit, it's a good job that the [GC] times were neutralised," Onley said about the race organisers' decision to neutralise the general classification times from 50.3km to go due to the adverse weather conditions.

"It was really nice, and the last time up Montmartre, I could kind of soak it in a little bit with the guys around me, which was quite cool," 

Even on the final stage, Onley and Lipowitz couldn't help but race one another, and this is something that the British rider enjoyed.

“Yeah to be fair, that was more, I was told to follow some moves, I had to cover for Tobias [Lund Andresen], I saw Quinn Simmons going and yeah he’s a dangerous rider to go, and Lipo[witz] came over the top of me and I had nothing left, I couldn’t even close the gap, but it was good fun," he said. 

Coming into the race, the brief from Picnic PostNL was to take the race day by day with a focus on individual stage results. For Onley, the GC wasn't even the main priority, but the British rider proved his capabilities over three weeks of racing this July.

"It's definitely sparked a bit of a dream, I guess. To be honest, I've never even thought about a top five in the Tour before, so to get it on my first try in GC is quite something, and I'm pretty excited for the future," Onley explained, demonstrating the magnitude of his achievement, that it was beyond his dreams.