Viewers scanning the Tour de France general classification will see a mix of wholly expected names and some comparative unknowns.
Tadej Pogacar leads the standings as his era-defining dominance continues; Jonas Vingegaard sits second behind his longtime rival. But accompanying the rider sitting fourth in the overall standings is a British flag: not former Tour de France winner and veteran Geraint Thomas, but the up-and-coming youngster Oscar Onley.
The 22-year-old has been enjoying a breakout season and is in action in just his second Tour de France. He and his team came in targeting a stage win but are on course for a top-five finish at the sport’s biggest race. With every passing stage he has surpassed both his own expectations and that of all observers.
So who is Onley, and what’s behind his meteoric rise?
Onley grew up in the Scottish Borders town of Kelso and was inspired to start cycling by the fact that the time-trial route for his local club, Kelso Wheelers, went right past his house.
The youngster was soon hooked, and while he could have had a future as an elite cross-country runner, he eventually opted for two wheels instead. He raced in Europe as a junior before joining the development team of his current squad, Picnic PostNL, in 2021.
His breakthrough win came in 2022 at the Giro Valle d’Aosta, an Italian stage race, before he finished third at the CRO Race - a stage race in Croatia - and he made the step up to WorldTour racing in 2023.
Onley picked up a few top-10s in his debut WorldTour season, including at major stage races the Tour de Romandie and the Criterium du Dauphine, but his Grand Tour debut didn’t go to plan. The youngster was part of DSM-Firmenich’s win in the team time trial on stage one of the 2023 Vuelta a Espana, but he crashed and broke his collarbone on stage two and was forced to abandon the race.
But 2024 was to prove a standout year. He kicked it off in style with his first professional win at the Tour Down Under, the season-opening stage race in Australia, on the famous Willunga Hill climb, and finished fourth overall. He was 39th in his first full Grand Tour - last year’s Tour de France - with his best result a fifth place on stage 17 to Superdevoluy, a tough mountain stage won by Richard Carapaz.
He finished second overall at the Tour of Britain, winning the best young rider classification, and was the highest-placed British rider in the gruelling World Championships road race in Zurich.
This year he has built on those experiences: he was fifth overall at the UAE Tour - won by Pogacar - then ninth at Itzulia Basque Country and third overall at the Tour de Suisse, a phenomenal race for the 22-year-old.
He took a stage win on Stage 5, beating overall winner Joao Almeida on a stage featuring four category-one climbs, and clearly rode into his best form at the perfect time with the Tour de France on the horizon. Having moved from the rolling Scottish hills to the mountains of Andorra, the 22-year-old is most at home when the gradient kicks up.
So far in this Tour he has finished third, fourth, fifth, seventh, and sixth twice, with three of those fine results coming on gruelling back-to-back Pyrenean stages. While Onley is a pure climber, his seventh place on stage 13’s mountainous time trial indicated that that sort of terrain against the clock also suits him well, which bodes well for a future as a serious GC contender.
He was distanced by the likes of Vingegaard and Pogacar at the toughest gradients on the road stages to Hautacam and Superbagneres, but has shown he can ride his own pace to limit his losses, and has ridden a very mature race to rise to fourth overall.
After stage 16’s race to Mont Ventoux he sits 2’01” behind Florian Lipowitz, the current third-placed rider and leader in the best young rider classification, and 38 seconds ahead of five-time Grand Tour winner Primoz Roglic, Lipowitz’s Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe teammate.
By the end of the second week, it looked as though the Scot himself was starting to believe he is real deal. He told ITV4 on Monday, “It’s something I wasn’t expecting. It’s really been a successful week, the Hautacam stage gave me a lot of confidence on the first climb, when I saw Remco [Evenepoel] being dropped and [Matteo] Jorgenson in trouble and I still felt really good. That was my first real test in the mountains with multiple climbs.
“The last day in the Pyrenees [stage 14 to Superbagneres] was the hardest stage for sure. I didn’t feel super good that day but looking around, no one felt that good. Each stage that passes I’m gaining more confidence.
“The team have a lot of confidence in me, and maybe sometimes I need to have a little bit more confidence in myself. But that’s starting to come now and I’m starting to see my place in the peloton and finding my way.”
The team have insisted throughout this Tour that Onley is riding a “relaxed GC”, without any pressure on his shoulders, and that voyage of discovery of what exactly he’s capable of continues this week as the race hits the Alps.
And with the retirement of Romain Bardet, Picnic PostNL’s veteran climber and GC rider, Onley is coming of age at just the right time - along with fellow 22-year-old British talent Max Poole, who represent a bright future for British GC hopefuls.
Picnic PostNL’s sports director Matt Winston told Velo this week, “I think he’s an incredible talent. He works hard, he’s a quiet guy. But he is very thoughtful, very reflective. And he’s doing a really good job.”
Onley’s ambitions of winning a stage at this Tour have been somewhat thwarted by his lofty position in the general classification, meaning that Pogacar and his UAE Team Emirates-XRG outfit will never let him go in a breakaway.
That means that in order to win a stage the Scot will have to stick with Pogacar, Vingegaard, and the GC group in the high mountains and overhaul them.
It’s a daunting task for anyone, but he has already demonstrated he can at least stick with them. And regardless of the final outcome in Paris, Onley has marked himself out as a huge name to watch for the future.
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