Jai Hindley turns to extreme surgery in bid to keep Grand Tour winning hopes alive: “You are spitting up a lot of blood all the time"

A former Giro d'Italia winner and wearer of the Maillot Jaune at the Tour de France, Jai Hindley has found big results a lot harder to come by over the last couple of years. In search of a return to his best, the Red Bull - BORA - hansgrohe star has now turned to an extreme surgery at the request of his team doctor.

“It basically started after Tirreno (2024 ed.), I just had this run of illness. It was not normal at all,” the Australian details of his past run of bad luck in conversation with Velo, from the 2025 edition of Tirreno-Adriatico. “You put in the work, put in the time, sacrifice everything and then you still go like shit, basically. It was pretty frustrating.”

Even more frustrating was the fact that the issue still remained relatively unknown. At least that was until an ENT specialist diagnosed Hindley with a deviated nasal septum. “We came to the idea that potentially can be the reason why I’m getting so sick. My nose is quite narrow and it’s just easy for bacteria to get stuck in there,” Hindley explained.

With a diagnosis of the issue found, now Hindley and Red Bull - BORA - hansgrohe doctors set about trying to find a solution to the problem. They hope, that has come in form of an extreme and bloody surgery. “They make a cut inside your nose, take out the cartilage. And from what I understand, they hammer it flat on a table or something, and then they put it back in. I think it’s a bit more scientific than that, but I think that’s the general way of working,” Hindley says of the fix proposed by his team's doctors. “It’s pretty rough. For two weeks your nose is really out of action and feeling really grim. You are spitting up a lot of blood all the time, and just feeling really blocked. The nose is really swollen too — if you look at the team photos, my nose is pretty big…”

Although it's probably still too early to tell if the problem has been solved for good, Hindley took a creditable 5th overall at Tirreno-Adriatico 2025 and is hopeful for the future. “Basically our team doctor was pretty convinced that if I got this surgery, then it would help a lot. You have got to do everything you can," says the Aussie. “In theory it should help the breathing a lot, and also should reduce the amount of sickness during the season. If it can help even a little bit, then it’s worth doing, in my opinion.”

The big question though, is whether or not Hindley can get back to the kind of form that saw him win the Maglia Rosa at the 2022 Giro d'Italia. “It’s hard to say. I think Tirreno was good last year, and it was also going in the right way. Maybe not like my best, best shape, but I think I was pretty good. I also felt like I was pretty competitive," he assesses honesty. “Since then, I don’t think so. I don’t think I really hit top shape. Also in the Canadian races, I was feeling good again, but that top shape, I don’t think so, no. It was quite hard to get back there. I hope the operation will help.”