VIDEO | Jay Vine crashed due to a kangaroo at the Tour Down Under - "They wait and they hide in the bushes and they jump out at you"

It would almost sound like a joke, but it happened today at the Tour Down Under. The kangaroos are one of Australia's most iconic animals, but today they have jumped out on the road and into the cycling race's peloton. This led to a crash that involved race leader Jay Vine who had his race and overall victory at risk due to the unlikely incident.

This happened early in the stage and led to a fall in the peloton that took down several riders, including Mikkel Bjerg of UAE Team Emirates - XRG who was forced to abandon, as did Jhonatan Narváez and Vergard Stake Laengen the day before. Jay Vine also went down, but luckily didn't have his race end on the ground, and he went through the finish line in Stirling inside the peloton to then conquer the overall classification. Matthew Brennan won the final stage ahead of Finn Fisher-Black and Tobias Lund Andresen.

"Everyone always asks me what's the most dangerous thing in Australia and I always tell them it's kangaroos because they wait and they hide in the bushes and they jump out at you," Vine said in a post-race interview.

"Point proven today, two of them blasted through the peloton at 50Km/h. One stopped and went left right left right... And I ended up hitting its backside when it was flaying around in the ground. It's one of those things, bad luck, but luckily I'm ok and luckily held on to the jersey".

Vine won the overall classification of the race following his triumph in Uraidla, fruit of his attack on the climb to the Corkscrew. Jhonatan Narváez followed him on that day and the duo were set for overall victory, however the team's second half of the race was struck by a lot of bad luck.

You can watch the clip below: