Jay Vine on life-changing Itzulia crash, becoming a father days before the Vuelta, 2025 Tour Down Under and World Championship goals

Jay Vine is one of the most talented riders in pro cycling but also one of the unluckiest. His career thus far has been heavily marked by heavy crashes, two of them this season have carried big consequences. But the Australian keeps bouncing back and enters the 2025 as ambitious as he's ever been.

"We definitely learned a lot about ourselves, and I really want to continue that into 2025. The worry was, was she going to be able to keep carrying and was there going to be any problems there as well," Vine said in an interview with ABC. "So, there was lots of stress for the next six weeks, while I was sort of not able to move around. But when I was in a really hard patch. I never really looked back and went 'well at least I got over the first three days' … it never really clicked that it could've been worse."

Whilst most eyes were on the seriously injured Jonas Vingegaard, but also Remco Evenepoel and yellow jersey Primoz Roglic - rightfully so - there were other seriously injured riders in the Itzulia Basque Country accident, four of which needed medical attention on the spot. Vine fractured several vertebrae and spent two and a half months off the road in a key part of the season, most of which in a neck brace.

"That week was shaping up to be a really good week for me, I really liked racing in the region, I think I was like fifth or sixth overall going into that day. The injury was definitely not something I had on my bingo card."

A brutal set of injuries that would end the career of many, or at least the season of one in terms of results. But that didn't stop him, even if Vine became a father within only days or even hours of travelling to Portugal for the start of the Vuelta a España, he tells: "We had to get him out, because two days after his due date, I was off to a grand tour for three weeks. I don't know if I really got to enjoy his birth in the sense that it all wrapped up so quickly and I was off on a plane". 

Four days after returning to the peloton, the Australian took an impressive win at the Vuelta a Burgos' time-trial. Through his growing form and freedom in the mountains, he managed to secure the KOM jersey at the Vuelta a España. He was nowhere near the climbing level he's shown in the past, but still through good tactics and a good TT setup he continued to achieve big results.

He looked to take that into the World Championships, but left the race full of blood and with a missed podium likely because of the fall. He crashed in a descent, but still raced to fifth on the day only 30 seconds off the podium.

"I've reconned it a bit too slow and then by that stage I was already halfway through the corner and had too much speed and came off on the exit. Looking back on it, it's probably better to come fifth with an accident than come fourth by a second." Similar to a rider like Wout van Aert, it's been a setback after setback kind of year, but it doesn't stop him. 

Vine continued to race all the way into October, and will start his season in Australia, where he aims for the Tour Down Under where he's won the overall classification back in 2023. "Winning a stage and being able to post up would be nice in South Australia, but the goal is to take the win out for the overall."

In 2025 his goals are still rather vague. There are talks of him racing the Giro d'Italia, but the truth is there aren't many spots left and the Australian has proved to be more effective in the one-week races. He does intend on racing a three-week race however, and also has special attention to the World Championships where he eyes a potential rainbow jersey in the very hilly time-trial.

"World Championships in Rwanda in the time trial is definitely something I want to focus on. Apart from that I want to do well in a grand tour and hopefully either get a result myself or help the team to bring back a leader's jersey in one of the Grand Tours," he concluded.