"You shouldn't want to risk your life to create a gap in a race" - Jay Vine finds new perspective on cycling after rollercoaster year
Cycling
During last week's Vuelta a Burgos, Jay Vine made return to racing after his heavy crash in Itzulia Basque Country earlier this spring. This week, he's already racing his fifth grand tour. He has good memories of winning two stages at Vuelta a Espana, but the Australian also failed to complete the race on his last two appearances.
After a long rehabilitation, the climber from UAE Emirates made his comeback to racing during the Vuelta a Burgos. There he managed to surprise with a stage win in the individual time trial. Still, Vine finds it difficult to always remain positive about his rehabilitation. "I try to do everything step by step. It was a serious injury, so I first had to be able to walk again and then be able to cycle indoors on the trainer."
Still, the step from training to racing is perhaps the biggest. "But it is completely different now to go from training back to racing at such a high level. But it has been a long road and hopefully I will continue to improve," Vine indicates after the opening time trial in which he clocked the 14th best time of the day. He lost 24 seconds to winner Brandon McNulty.
The crash and the birth of his first son have made the Australian look at professional cycling differently. "I came late from a non-professional cycling world, of course. So I always knew there was more than cycling, but the crash has definitely put everything into perspective even more. You shouldn't want to risk your life to create a gap in a race. But others may think differently about that of course. Now that I have a child and have seen what my wife has had to go through in the past year, you automatically become a lot less selfish," Vine concludes.
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- yeah, that’s a more fair assessment. “reaching mathieu’s level” doesn’t mean you’re planning to replicate his whole career. the former IS doable, potentially. it’s just the latter that likely is not.OCexile25-12-2024
- That’s not entirely true. Every person follows their own development path and peaks differently. Remco and Primoz had hardly started cycling before elite level. Jonas was pretty much under the radzr until he unexpectedly had to take over responsibility at JV. Some guys only get real good in their thirties others have peaked mid-twenties. You can’t tell in advance how and upto what level they will progress, obviously his career might not have MVDPs length but nothing says he could not end up doing a few seasons at his level.Mistermaumau25-12-2024
- well, del grosso is 21 right now. when mathieu was a year younger than that, he was already winning elite level world championships, not U23. i think del grosso will be a very good pro for years, but if he was really going to be the next van der poel someday, he’d already have to be at that level right NOW. van der poel was showing signs of true greatness when he was 15-16. THAT’S what generational talent looks like.OCexile25-12-2024
- Yeah.... gear 😅.mikolajjj24-12-2024
- It shouldn’t be about expectations in the first place should it? Besides, if you look at everyone’s calculations as a whole they don’t add up in the first place. There’ll be 2-3 riders with a 50% chance, a dozen with 10 or 20% and dozens more with a 5% so we’re expecting at least 2 if not 3 winners. Remind me again who won before her? Says it all about using data to decide on participation.Mistermaumau24-12-2024
- Ok, happy I’m not too interested in this team coz’ the account of what happened is really hard to follow.Mistermaumau24-12-2024
- The UCI is worse than USA CyclingVeganpotter24-12-2024
- It's not like they wanted her to not win😅 She had an outstanding Olympics. But there's a reason why she wasn't expected to win the road race and that's ok. Things like this happen and it's great...better than seeing expected winners win.Veganpotter24-12-2024
- Bruyneel ? The man with a lifetime ban from cycling...why do you keep giving him and his doper mate, Armstrong, a platform?DJ24-12-2024
- yeah, agree. on the subject of being a “complete rider,” i do think that’s getting more interesting. mathieu seems to have decided he wants to get much better at climbing the the high mountain passes. he appears to be looking for new challenges, which should be interesting to watch. in most cases you’d dismiss a goal like that at age 30, but it’s mvdp. he’s never going to climb with the real climbers, but if he can improve enough it could open up stage wins when the parcours isnt just purely toothy and punchy.OCexile24-12-2024