Dramatic racing on stage 4 of Ruta del Sol culminated in a mass attack by the GC favorites, making it one of the most memorable days in recent race history.

O'Connor, who finished ninth, moved up to eighth overall, just 21 seconds behind race leader Wout Poels (Bahrain Victorious), ahead of Sunday's most demanding stage.

In the non-stop attack over the last 50 km, 15 riders battled for the overall and stage wins.

The 26-year-old launched one of the more dangerous attacks from the winning move before Wout Poels (Bahrain Victorious) and Alexey Lutsenko (Astana Kazakstan) went clear. Poels, Lutsenko, and 2021 Giro d'Italia second-place finisher Damiano Caruso (Bahrain-Victorias) all launched powerful three-man attacks throughout the 5km.

But O'Connor said, "The problem with that move was that I was higher on GC than Lutsenko and Caruso.

"I picked a good move, but it wasn't the right move.

O'Connor proved fertile ground for dropping former race leader Alessandro Covi (UAE Team Emirates) when the breakaway group crossed two first-class mountains early on, breaking up the race.

"On the first climb, everything was lit up hard and I knew I had a chance to keep pushing.

"It's a shame we didn't win today, but it was really hard with so many people." Unlike Astana Kazakstan and Bahrain Victorious, who each had three or four riders, O'Connor was the only AG2R Citroën rider. There wasn't much else I could do," O'Connor said. But that's the way it is."

Still, as he said, the Ruta del Sol peloton put on a memorable show on a stage that, in theory, seemed destined to end with little GC action. On top of that, although his three-up was caught, O'Connor fell at full speed late in the race as he tried one more attack to chase Poels and Lutsenko.

"Yeah, but I almost died at the end," he said. But I'm not ready for the Tour de France right now."

"But I felt pretty good today and everyone was on the limit. It was nice to have a super aggressive race today."