{"id":434801,"date":"2026-01-24T16:37:13","date_gmt":"2026-01-24T16:37:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/434801\/"},"modified":"2026-01-24T16:37:13","modified_gmt":"2026-01-24T16:37:13","slug":"jay-vine-hopes-for-a-helping-hand-from-visma","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/434801\/","title":{"rendered":"Jay Vine hopes for a helping hand from Visma"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ethan Vernon<\/a> and Jay Vine<\/a> had strong mornings on Saturday, but both riders also found themselves thinking about teammates they lost along the way after Stage 4 of the Tour Down Under<\/a>. Both NSN and UAE Team Emirates\u2013XRG lost two riders each due to crashes during the stage, though that didn\u2019t ultimately stop Vernon and Vine from riding strongly.Vernon took victory in the heavily shortened stage \u2014 raced without the Willunga Hill climb but finishing on a rise into the town of Willunga. That was a notable achievement, especially considering his sprint train was effectively dismantled by earlier crashes. \u201cWe lost Corbin at the start, and Jake crashed too, so we had very few riders left,\u201d Vernon said, referring <\/a>to Corbin Strong<\/a> and Jake Stewart<\/a>.<\/p>\n

NSN didn’t have the best sprint preparation in stage 3 on Friday, but a day later everything fell into place. \u201cThese guys got up and were truly incredible. If you think back to yesterday’s stage, we completely turned things around in 24 hours. They kept me cool, which allowed me to stay calm because I wasn’t suffering as much as the riders around me.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI played around a bit and it paid off,\u201d smiled Vernon<\/a>, who knew exactly what to do in the final 600 meters. \u201cWe looked back at previous editions of this finish and saw that it was always won from a jump. I was still feeling pretty comfortable 250 meters from the finish line, so I went for it and got a gap. I then held on.\u201d<\/p>\n

Continue reading below the video<\/p>\n

Vine loses Narv\u00e1ez but holds strong GC leadFor Vine, the day was a mix of highs and lows. The Australian safely crossed the line and now defends a healthy 1 minute and 3-second lead over new second-placed rider Mauro Schmid (Team Jayco AlUla) in the overall classification. However, teammate Jhonatan Narv\u00e1ez<\/a> was forced out of the race after a heavy crash early in the stage. At the time of his crash<\/a>, Narv\u00e1ez was just six seconds behind Vine on GC.<\/p>\n

\u201cCycling is a team sport, and on a day like today even more so than on a hilly stage,\u201d Vine said, reflecting on seeing Narv\u00e1ez go down and Vegard Stake Laengen withdraw with a rib injury after a fall behind the peloton. \u201cIt\u2019s disappointing, and we hope both recover well.\u201d<\/p>\n

The last stage features another rolling parcours, and Vine acknowledged that UAE Team Emirates\u2013XRG will need to manage the race if they want to protect the leader\u2019s position. \u201cToday we did it smart by letting the right group go up front. I\u2019ve got a big gap to second, so I\u2019ll race smart and let others chase their own places in the standings,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ethan Vernon and Jay Vine had strong mornings on Saturday, but both riders also found themselves thinking about…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":434802,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[569],"tags":[64,63,227190,784,67910,68748,89775,219358,85,198973],"class_list":["post-434801","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-corbin-strong","tag-cycling","tag-ethan-vernon","tag-jake-stewart","tag-jay-vine","tag-jhonatan-narvaez","tag-sports","tag-tour-down-under"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/434801","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=434801"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/434801\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/434802"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=434801"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=434801"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=434801"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}