A few days before the Grand Départ of the Tour de France in Lille, Oscar Onley sat opposite me looking remarkably calm. Ours was the very last of five back-to-back interviews that the British rider had done in the last hour, something he admitted felt like a necessary chore in the lead up to the race. Once it was all done, he told me, he’d be going straight up to his hotel room for a long nap and was “really looking forward to a lie down.”
The numerous requests from media to speak to Onley, though, are only a product of what the 22-year-old has managed to achieve on two wheels in his professional career so far. After his breakthrough first WorldTour win in the queen stage of the Tour Down Under last year, Onley has risen through the ranks and can now firmly place himself in the top-10 climbers of the current professional peloton. His most recent stunning performance before the Tour was in Switzerland where the Team Picnic PostNL rider finished in third place on the general classification in a key warm-up to the biggest race of the season in July. Onley himself could scarcely believe his meteoric rise to the top.
“Three years ago, I was doing a national race in the UK, or five years ago, I was in school. It's quite crazy to think,” he smiled. “I just kept going. There was never any point where I doubted that I could become pro or do these races, because I think it happens quite naturally. It's not like you go one day from being a junior to suddenly riding the Tour. It all happens in a natural progression.”
Onley’s answer told me what I needed to know about his character. The aura of calm that he exudes is a result of his unique and admirable ability to stay level-headed, despite the fact that everyone is talking about his potential. It was this, he believed, that would be key to Tour de France success.
Onley after winning the 2024 Queen stage of the Tour Down Under, his first WorldTour victory (Image: Zac Williams/SWpix.com)
“I don't see any reason to feel the pressure. I'm not the favourite to win yellow. I don't even feel that nervous,” he said. “I definitely feel more nervous going into races where I know that I have a good chance of winning and there are more expectations on me. Here, obviously, you put a lot of pressure on yourself, but I think there are 150 other guys that can also win stages, and you have to also remember your place.”
The other striking thing about Onley is his modesty. He assesses his performances with a sort of clinical dissection and appears to constantly be surprised by his own abilities. 2025 is his second Tour de France, and he believes that the learnings he has taken from his debut last year will make all the difference this season.
“I think the main thing I learnt was that no matter how much you're suffering, everyone else is suffering as well,” he said. “There were some days I woke up and sat on the bus thinking that I was going to struggle just to get around that day, and then suddenly you find yourself in the break, and then you realise that everyone's suffering. It doesn't matter how bad you're feeling. Everyone's feeling like this. You've just got to remember that.”
He credited his team, Picnic-PostNL, for helping him to achieve the steadfast mindset that has got him to cycling’s top table. The Brit has been with the Dutch squad since 2021, a graduate of their development programme and stepping up to the WorldTour set-up in 2025.
“The team has been really good. Because when I joined in 21, I was pretty hopeless. I had come out of COVID, and I hadn't raced for a year,” Onley remembered. “That first year, if you look at my results, I was nowhere. The team could probably see something in me that I couldn't see myself, and they had a lot of belief in me. They always say that it's step by step and to trust the process. But actually it makes sense. If you look now, it's a plan paying off.”
As the first stages of the Tour de France have rumbled on, Onley has been steadily living up to the hype that surrounded him on that day of interviews a week ago. His fourth-place finish on stage four, behind the trident of supertalents Tadej Pogačar, Mathieu van der Poel and Jonas Vingegaard, was a breakthrough result in his career and a promising sign that he could be in with either a stage win as well as a potential strong general classification finish in Paris.
Onley during stage four of the Tour de France 2025 (Image: Getty)
His sports director, Matt Winston, told Rouleur after the stage that he has seen this potential in the young rider for some time.
“We’ve known since we took Oscar on the team as a young rider that we were building towards this. We have seen glimpses of it like with his breakthrough ride at the Tour Down Under last year. If you look at Oscar’s results over the last 18 months he is very consistent in the one-week races so we knew we were making steps,” Winston explained.
“Oscar is a calm guy, doesn't like much stress, we give him the facts, the time gaps, the race situation, we keep it calm and he’s a guy that knows how to race a final too, so we trust him to do that. Oscar is a leader, and he brings his message to the guys in a polite but meaningful way. We will keep racing with these young talents, we have nothing to lose, no pressure on us, we are the underdogs, and we can also enjoy that.”
Characteristically humble, Onley himself admitted after the stage that he had to dig deep to stay in touch with the likes of Pogačar on the series of punchy climbs in the finale of the race: “It’s not really sunk in yet. It’s always nice to be racing against these guys. I really get a kick out of racing against them, so it’s always good fun.” he grinned.
“It’s cool. I don’t want to get ahead of myself. I still know my place, and it’s a different story on other climbs. It’s always nice to be with these guys. I’m just trying to get a result, whether that stage or overall in the end, we’ll see in the three weeks. It’s really just picking the days that suit me and going all in for them and trying to relax on the days that aren’t so important.”
When I spoke to him ahead of the Tour starting, Onley explained that he had bookmarked particular stages to try and go for a result. He cited stage seven, which concludes atop the Mûr-de-Bretagne, as well as stage 10’s punchy terrain to Le Mont-Dore Puy de Sancy.
“The first week, Mûr-de-Bretagne, suits me really well. Obviously, that will be from the bunch, so then I have to compete against Pogačar and Van der Poel and all those guys, but that excites me,” he said. “Stage 10 as well around Clermont-Ferrand. I went to ride that with Romain [Bardet] a few months ago, and doing that was really valuable. Obviously, he knows these roads like the back of his hand. He could tell me a lot.”
Onley spoke about the likes of Pogačar and Van der Poel ahead of this race as if he believed they were in an utterly different class to him, but he has, so far, managed to stay within touching distance of the sport’s superstars. He is understandably trying to manage expectations, but it’s clear that Oscar Onley is going to keep surprising us.
“I want to say that as long as I give everything and even if I don't get a result, then I'll be happy,” he explained. “But I know deep down that even if I do give everything and I'm coming away after three weeks without any success, I will want more.”
Cover image: Getty
