Jay Vine has come agonisingly close to the greatest time trial win of his career and a hat-trick of stage wins at this year’s Vuelta a Espa\u00f1a, with the Australian star missing out by less than a second in Valladolid.<\/p>\n
Producing a scintillating, lung-busting effort over the flat 12.2-kilometre course, Vine ended up losing out to Italian time trialling great Filippo Ganna by just 0.9 of a second.<\/p>\n
“To come second to Ganna is incredible, just beaten by one of the best time triallists in the world. Nothing more that I could do,” Vine said after covering the course in 13 minutes and 1.79 seconds at a staggering average of 56.179 kilometres per hour.<\/p>\n
A fraction quicker, he could even have been celebrating his third win of what has been a fantastic Vuelta for the 29-year-old Queenslander, who is set to win the King of the Mountains classification with just three stages left.<\/p>\n
Vuelta time trial cut by half over safety reasons<\/a><\/p>\n Organisers shortened the individual time trial over safety concerns as pro-Palestinian protesters have lined stages of this year’s race.<\/p>\n It was not such a good day for fourth-placed Australian Jai Hindley, as he lost three more precious seconds to Briton Tom Pidcock in their battle for the last step on the podium.<\/p>\n Britain’s Olympic mountain bike champion Pidcock, who is enjoying a huge breakthrough Grand Tour, finished 22nd on the day, one place ahead of Hindley, to push his lead over the West Australian to 39 seconds.<\/p>\n Realistically, there is only one big mountain test for Hindley to try to leapfrog Pidcock in the standings, a mountainous 20th stage that finishes atop the Bola del Mundo.<\/p>\n That should be the stage where Vine wraps up his King of the Mountains triumph in the blue polka dot jersey worn by the race’s top climber, but he still has a big job to do to assist UAE Team Emirates-XRG leader Joao Almeida, who is only 40 seconds behind leader Jonas Vingegaard in the overall standings.<\/p>\n Almeida trimmed Vingegaard’s lead by 10 seconds with a fine ride for third place in the time trial, seven seconds behind Vine.<\/p>\n What made Vine’s effort so impressive on Friday was that it came off the back of so many major efforts in the mountains over the past two-and-a-half weeks, but ultimately the 2023 Australian time trial champ just could not quite match Ganna’s remarkable late burst.<\/p>\n