Everything about... Jai Hindley - The Giro d'Italia champion and pure climber
Cycling
Jai Hindley is an Autralian professional cyclist who currently races for BORA - hansgrohe. He is the current reigning champion of the Giro d'Italia after he dramatically put on the pink jersey in the final days in the mountains of the 2022 edition. You can check the biography at all times by clicking here.
Name: Jai Hindley
Born 5 May 1996:
Birthplace: Perth,Australia
Turned Pro: 2018
Height: 1.75m
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Jai Hindley was born on the 5th of May 1996 in the Australian city of Perth and has developed to be one of the peloton's best pure climbers. He is, unlike many of the recent Grand Tour winners, not a superstar in the peloton or a rider which catches media attention throughout the entire year, but under the radar has grown into one of the best stage-racers in the World Tour.
Hindley is part of the wide and successful development ranks of Australian cycling. His salary with BORA - hangrohe currently is believed to be around €500.000 euros and it stands until 2024. In the 2020 Giro d'Italia, Hindley is estimated to have ridden the Piancavallo ascent at 6.38W/Kg for 38 minutes, his FTP is assumed to be around 6.2-6.3W/Kg.
At 20 years of age, Hindley turned pro with the Taiwan-based Attaque Team Gusto where, as an under-23 rider, he began showing his talents as a climber. That year he won the GP Capodarco, finished second in the Irish An Post Ras but most importantly he showed form at the Tour de l'Avenir - the under-23 Tour de France - where he had a strong performance in the mountains and finished fifth in the overall classification, in the year where David Gaudu took the overall win.
In 2017 he moved into Mitchelton Scott, the development team of the current Team BikeExchange - Jayco. A Chinese-based team, however where six of his teammates were compatriots and would go on to join the World Tour later, including the likes of Michael Storer and Lucas Hamilton who developed as very similar riders to Hindley. This was his second year as an under-23 rider, where early in the year he finished second at the Herald Sun Tour behind Damien Howson. He won the Toscana Terra di Ciclismo Eroica stage-race, soon after finishing fourth at the Rhône-Alpes Isère Tour. His breakthrough win came at the under-23 Giro d'Italia soon after where he won the final stage and finished third in the GC.
He only rode to 10th at the Tour de l'Avenir, but compensated towards the end of the season by winning the 2.1 Tour of Fuzhou alongside the queen stage, his first UCI wins. He had proven his worth and in 2018 he signed with Team DSM, who frequently bring up young riders to the top of the cycling world. It was a calm year however, focused on development. He showed talent by finishing 5th at the queen stage of the Tour of California, but lacked any meaningful result in the year, having an 11th at the Innsbruck under-23 Worlds to show for too.
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2019 was his first year as a full Elite rider. There, he made his debut in a Grand Tour at the Giro d'Italia where he rode to 35th position. He finished second at the World Tour Tour de Pologne after making it into the winning move on the queen stage, and that was virtually his only result to show for in the season. 2020 saw him win for the first time in the Dutch team's jersey as he won both mountain stages and the overall classification at the early-year Herald Sun Tour. Following the pandemic break he built towards the Giro once again, riding into 13th place at Tirreno-Adriatico, and entering the Corsa Rosa as a domestique for Wilco Kelderman.
Throughout the first week of the race Hindley showed form, and remained inside the Top10 alongside the Dutchman. On stage 15 to Piancavallo Sunweb famously set an incredibly high pace to drop race leader João Almeida, and Hindley led almost the entire climb, making big differences in the overall classification and despite working, climbing from 10th to 3rd position. On stage 18 as INEOS attacked the race, Hindley followed the wheel of Tao Geoghegan Hart and won his first Grand Tour stage at Laghi di Cancano, with both now within touching distance of the new race leader, his teammate Kelderman.
On stage 20 as INEOS and Hart attacked again, Kelderman was dropped and Hindley did not wait. The Australian rode in the wheel until the end, he couldn't take the stage win but jumped into the pink jersey - albeit with 0 seconds separating himself from Hart. In the time-trial he could not defend his jersey, finishing the race in 2nd place. 2021 was a year to consolidate his talent, but he had a complicated run-up to the Giro and ended up abandoning the race on the 14th stage, with little to show for. It was an almost absent season for Hindley, with a mere 7th place at the Tour de Pologne the only result to show for.
2022 hence started with questions over his capacity. He got back to good form however, riding into 5th place at Tirreno-Adriatico, and entering the Giro once again as an outsider. On the first real mountain stage into Blockhaus on the 9th stage however he announced himself as more than that, as he won the sprint from the small group of favourites to take the stage win. On stage 14 BORA raided the race, with Hindley finishing second and climbing from 4th to 2nd spot on the GC. What followed in the final week was a battle with Richard Carapaz, with the mountain stages to Aprca, Lavarone and Santuario di Castelmonte seeing no differences on the road.
Stage 20, into the Passo Fedaia, is where Hindley broke through to greatness. Fearing another 2nd place, he attacked the brutal final ascent into the Alpine pass to drop Carapaz who exploded on the slopes, and he flew into the pink jersey as he dealt unrecoverable damage to the competition, putting 1:28 minutes into his rival and jumping into the pink jersey. In Verona on the next day, he consolidated it.
Hindley finished his season by riding into 7th place at the Vuelta a Burgos, and later on riding into 10th place at the Vuelta a Espana. It was his first time riding two Grand Tours in a season and he didn't find the same form, however took two 4th places in the final week further proving his incredible capacity to ride a strong third week.
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- No, it didn't. It has been debunked by the team that there was anything wrong with his feeding. Pogacar went too early and paid the price.maaiikeen31-12-2024
- Strong team around Jonas and pray each day that Tadej forgets to eat in the decisive stages (col du Granon). It also happened this year, stage 11 when Jonas won the sprint (incredible! Tadej was empty).
maria2024202430-12-2024 - Not quite yet I’d say but she could reach and surpass. You probably forgot Vos’ 2 track WC titles that outweigh the total and it has to be said more of PFPs MTB titles are a bit far fetched than Vos but yes they are comparable. It’s strange that with her consistent participation in xc she’s never ever managed to win even one race, Marie Schreiber can at least retire with that achievement ;-)Mistermaumau30-12-2024
- He may be known as “The goat” but I can’t realistically consider him a top ten candidate taking together all forms of cycling. Vos had 28 UCI WC wins, Absalon 33, Schurter 34, MVDP 41 and counting. As far as world championships they are all ahead too Longo, MVDP, PFP, Merckx, de Vlaeminck, TP and at least a half dozen others from long ago are surely higher up, or what criteria are you privileging other than a nickname?Mistermaumau30-12-2024
- and yeah, i’m a ridiculous blowhard for writing THAT MUCH. seriously, f me…OCexile30-12-2024
- this has diverged from being a per se cycling discussion, but that’s cool with me. so i live in the united states. for background, i grew up in southern california, educated at UC Irvine and UC Berkeley, and except for chunks of a 22 year Navy career i’ve lived here most of my life. there are things about this country, the way its social, political, and economic institutions function that IN MY OPINION fail considerably in comparison to other developed democracies. BUT, one thing that i think the US does excel in is that we have an extraordinarily high level of freedom of speech. now, that certainly opens the door for the alex joneses of the world to weaponize/monetize speech in utterly disgusting ways that do actual damage. it also gives freedom to politicians to say that the press is corrupt and should be jailed, like in russia, iran, or venezuela. these are DANGEROUS uses of freedom of speech. but as much as that freedom may imperil the well being of individuals and ideas — like the idea of liberty itself — it’s that freedom that has, over time, marked the SLOW movement toward greater equality and well being. this extreme level of free speech is certainly the primary fundamental right in the united states that has functioned, over time, to actively drive social progress. i mean, quack quack quack, right? the kind of speech that MOST needs protection is UNPOPULAR SPEECH. we KNOW this. but if you can only engage in unpopular speech IN PRIVATE, as you suggested, and be BARRED from a public platform to share those unpopular ideas, then your freedom to speak means very little and the whole project of social change and social progress grinds to a halt. “YES, you can talk about all races being equal to your friends, but you can’t publish any articles making that argument.” “YES, you can say that homosexuality isn’t a dangerous perversion that must be legislated against so long as you ONLY say it to your friends, but you can’t say it on a radio show.” so the problem is, if there’s going to be prior restraint of speech, the only person I’M gonna trust to decide who can say what before they say it is ME. if somebody wants to let me and my friends make all those decisions, then i’m IN. i’d expect a little pushback on that idea though. alex jones would probably like that job, too. lance would love that kind of power i bet. sooooo…. maybe it’s better to just leave things like they are. it’s ugly and messy and people get hurt, but once you SURRENDER that nearly unlimited freedom you’ll never get it back. and yes, society has drawn lines: still can’t threaten to blow up a mosque or share child pornography, etc. — that’s a pretty good idea. but erring on the side of freedom rather than censorship has been critical in preserving valuable free speech rather than seeing it slowly winnowed and legislated away. so yeah, there WILL be another alex jones, neonazis get to deny the holocaust, and lance gets to talk about cycling all he wants. and if you don’t like the source or the content then YOU are free to rail against it, or just not listen. as always, totally appreciate and respect YOUR perspective, brother. and i do get where you’re coming from. there are individuals in the US who have (or are about to have) the biggest platform there is who say things that drive me mad because i find them so dangerous and misleading, but the american version of democracy, with all its notable failings, has survived by preserving freedom of speech in the face of these types, not by limiting it.OCexile30-12-2024
- There is a cyclist, recently retired who raced as a Junior in 1997, and is known as 'The Goat'. Downhill legend, Greg Minnaar......wipperman9530-12-2024
- The road bias of this site shows up as PFP isn't mentioned - who is as successful as Vos, and from memory has more World titles.wipperman9530-12-2024
- his wife was surprisingly accurateabstractengineer30-12-2024
- Its the wrong thing to do the Vuelta after getting exhausted in the TDF. This is going to reduce his career potentialabstractengineer30-12-2024