Jay Vine has experienced the most successful seasons to of his career capping it all off with a silver medal in the elite men’s individual time trial on Saturday in Kigali, Rwanda. The Australian said his podium performance was ‘redemption’ after he finished fifth in the discipline at last year’s championships race in Zürich.
“It’s a big redemption from last year, where unfortunately, I was not able to bring home a medal. I’ve been targeting this Worlds for 12 months, ever since the course was released. This sort of heavy climbing and aero climbing, altitude, heat, and all that combined was perfect for me,” he said in a post-race press conference at the Kigali Convention Centre.
The men’s field took on a 40.6km course, at 1,450 metres of altitude, that included four climbs; twice over the Côte de Nyanza with 2.5km at 5.8% on the way out and 4.1km at 3.1% on the way back toward the finish. They had another climb over the Côte de Peage and then the last climb of the cobbled Côte de Kimihurura, which is 1.3km at 6.3% and will also be used on the city circuits during the road races later in the week.
“I think we saw at the Tour de France that you can get close to him,” he said, noting Evenepoel’s stage 5 victory at this year’s Tour de France, where Tadej Pogačar finished 16 seconds behind him. The Belgian also won stage 7 time trial, beating Pogačar by 12 seconds in last year’s French Grand Tour.
Vine explained that he had a roundabout way of preparing for the 2025 UCI Road World Championships with an unexpected and late call-up to race the Vuelta a España with his trade team UAE Team Emirates-XRG.
While he went into the event feeling somewhat out of…
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