“We haven’t been able to really show what we are capable of" - Jay Vine blames illness in UAE camp for unsuccessful stage 20 challenge of Vingegaard at La Vuelta

Jay Vine will leave the 2025 Vuelta a Espana with the polka-dot jersey of King of the Mountains, but the Australian admitted his emotions were bittersweet after teammate João Almeida fell short in the battle for the red jersey on the penultimate stage at the Bola del Mundo.

While Vine sealed the mountains classification outright, the overriding priority for UAE Team Emirates - XRG had been overall victory with Almeida. In the end, it was Jonas Vingegaard who rode away to stage glory and all but secured the red jersey, leaving Vine with mixed feelings about his own triumph.

Speaking candidly at the finish, Vine was clear that his own jersey win had taken a back seat to the team’s GC ambitions. “Winning the polka dot jersey is a bittersweet victory, I guess. The goal was to try to win La Vuelta. Personally, it's really nice, but today I didn’t really care about the points, it was all-in to try and win this race. Unfortunately, we came up short.”

Vine had set a relentless tempo on the lower slopes of the Bola del Mundo in a bid to launch Almeida into position for a decisive attack. But while the Portuguese star pushed hard against Vingegaard and Jai Hindley, the Dane proved unshakeable before striking out himself inside the final kilometre.

Vine also revealed that Almeida’s challenge – and the team’s wider strength – had been compromised in recent days by illness within the squad. “Unfortunately, the whole team has been struggling with some sickness for about 10 days now,” Vine explained. “We haven’t been able to really show what we are capable of like I think we did earlier in the race, but we came out swinging, we put it all on the line and we tried.”

That sense of frustration was evident in UAE’s approach on stage 20, where the team rode aggressively from the start, determined to make life as difficult as possible for Vingegaard. Yet even with Vine’s efforts on the front and Almeida’s repeated accelerations, the Danish leader of Visma proved untouchable.

For Vine, the mountains jersey is still a significant achievement. His aggressive riding in the high mountains and consistency across the three weeks brought him a prize that many climbers covet. But as he made clear, it was not the goal he or the team had set when they rolled out in Barcelona three weeks ago.