Ben O'Connor loving life with Dimension Data

Eight months into his first season with Dimension Data and Ben O'Connor is loving life in the WorldTour. So much so that the 21-year-old has no qualms to say that "I don't think there is anything else I'd rather be doing."

The West Australian hit the ground running at the Tour Down Under, helping teammate Nathan Haas to fourth overall and toiling away on the front of the peloton. It got better at the Tour de Langkawi where O'Connor was eighth overall with teammate Ryan Gibbons taking the overall win. There was more team success with Serge Pauwels winning the Tour de Yorkshire before his season highlight of a stage win and fifth place overall at the Tour of Austria.

"The first pro win in Austria. That stage was absolutely amazing. The fact that it was such a special day with massive mountains, and plus, the day before I was shocking," O'Connor told Cyclingnews of his season highlight. "I won't lie. I did want to win a stage [of Austria] but I went there wanting to be top three overall. I didn't think that would be the case after day four because I had a really bad day on Kitzbüheler Horn and I was super disappointed there. The next day, I completely turned it around on one of the longest, most climbing kind of days I've done before. That was pretty cool.

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"Tour Down Under as well. Your first WorldTour race, that was also up there because it was the first and it will always be special to me."

Making the win even sweeter was the fact that O'Connor had specifically targeted the Tour of Austria for a result and was able to deliver with a win.

"It was a yearlong target as it was slightly lower than a WorldTour race and I knew I could perform when you get to those really big mountains," he explained. "I wanted to be good for the Dauphine and then be at my best in Austria. I think that was purely because I knew I could achieve a result there. While in Dauphine I knew I would be helping Serge and Eddy win those stages so that's how my mind was set."

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