"The actual damage was me freezing to the core" - Jay Vine loses GC hopes on hellish day at Giro d'Italia

Jay Vine is currently racing at Giro d'Italia where he tried to fight for the general classification, but after stage 10 is already down 14 minutes after today. With his GC hopes over, Vine will now focus on stage hunting and support of his leader - Joao Almeida.

"Well, there’s no two ways about it. I saw today going differently in my mind, and that was not how I wanted it to go. I just got way too cold, simple as that, I think that was the coldest I’ve ever gotten, I was miserable," Vine said after the stage in an Instagram post. "Complete loss of feeling in the fingers and the body didn’t respond well to it. Yeah, I had a small off, but that wasn’t big, (I just came to a halt and proceeded to fall over on the slippery part). That wasn’t a problem, the actual damage was me freezing to the core."

The cold temperatures took a big hit to several riders, combined with the heavy rain that was present throughout the day. The long and technical descent saw a few riders crash, whilst many struggled to remain on the bike in such conditions. The day was not cut as initially thought, and the Australian was perhaps the worst off from the day. Aleksandr Vlasov abandoned the race with illness, but the Australian has lost the possibility of fighting for the overall classification, coming down 10 minutes behind the peloton.

"Just one of those days where everyone freezes. There was a reason they were looking at shortening the stage. The boys dropped back to help me, and we rolled turns holding the gap for a bit there, but not long after the body had nothing left, we made the tough call and just rolled in. Yes, obviously I’m disappointed, but at the end of the day, it’s not the end of the world. And there are more opportunities to come," he concluded.