Hindley thankful of "committed and great teammates" crucial to Giro success

Still on the high from a glorious triumph at the Giro d'Italia, Jai Hindley has talked about the importance of BORA - hansgrohe in this win and how the team's quality had positively influenced him.

“The team morale throughout the whole race was incredible. Everyone was on point from day 1 until the last stage...I didn’t feel intimidated by any other team," he said in a press conference on Tuesday. “I felt really confident in our team and I knew we had a really strong lineup. The guys were just phenomenal throughout the whole race.”

Without the pressure of having to lead the race and put BORA into the wind, it were only on a select and few days that the team attacked the race. The decisive move though came in the third week, once again, after in 2020 he showed his best performance the later in the race. “I always feel like I come into my best in week three, and that’s my main strength, and it gives me a lot of confidence to know I can still ride consistently into the third week,”

"...I was pretty nervous going into that second to last stage, because you ever had it or you didn’t, and we knew whoever had the jersey at the end of that day would probably win the Giro," he added. “I was nervous and not feeling super great, and everyone is on the limit. When it gets to that point of the race, it’s almost more mentally challenging than physically. I was mentally more ready to fight and it paid off.”

Hindley has also benefited from the strength of BORA. The team attack on stage 14 was a good instance, with the likes of Wilco Kelderman and Ben Zwiehoff putting in strong and collective-focused performances: “It’s also very dependent on how the guys are also, and the good thing was the other two guys are not big ego guys. They’re committed and great teammates, so when Wilco had his mechanical and lost his GC chances, to have a guy like, of course he was devastated, for the rest of the race he was super motivated to help me and everyone saw that on the Torino stage, he was on fire that day."

He concluded: “Wilco was more than happy to help me and when you have a guy who’s been on a grand tour podium riding as a domestique for you, you don’t get that often.”