‘Even if I muck it up we’ve got someone else’ – Jay Vine returns to Tour Down Under with Narváez as not-so-secret weapon

Plenty of water has passed under the bridge for Jay Vine (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) since he claimed that Tour Down Under crown in 2023, including a ‘life-changing’ crash, but there is no question of his place on the favourites list, not given how powerful his recovery to date has been.

The Australian returned from that horrific Itzulia Basque Country crash in April last year to finish the season with a win a time trial stage at Vuelta a Burgos, the mountains classification at La Vuelta a España and a mixed team time trial gold medal at the Road World Championships. What’s more, he has just started the Australian summer racing with a close-run second place in the race against the clock at the National Championships. Vine, however, was still understandably circumspect when asked what, for him, constitutes a good Tour Down Under this year 

“I’m less than 12 months out from a life-changing crash, so I’m just taking every race in my stride, really looking forward to enjoying my time here,” he said in the pre-race media conference on Monday. ”It’s already been a really, really nice summer in Australia but this is January – this will be six days of a 70-odd race day calendar. So to not blow everything in the first six days. That’d be good.”