A star has been born at La Vuelta, but what are we to make of double stage winner, Jay Vine?

Although you probably ought to have heard of Jay Vine before Thursday, it’s okay if your familiarity with him was more in passing than in detail. Your knowledge of him, such as it will have been, is more likely to have been a product of his exploits off the road, than on them. To address the “Primoz Roglic used to be a ski jumper” in the room, you will have known him as the graduate from the Zwift academy 2020, which earned him his first professional contract.

Ad Although the numbers an athlete can hit are an (increasingly) reliable indicator of performance potential, they are no guarantee that a rider can compete in the cut and thrust of the professional peloton. His mountain bike background should have probably told us more than it did. Vuelta a EspañaEvenepoel hails ‘perfect day’ after surviving Stage 82 HOURS AGO Vine arrived in Europe at 25 with — to put it generously — limited real world racing experience.

His most recognizable result for the New South Wales based Nero Continental race team had been a 5th place stage finish in the Jayco Herald Sun Tour, before Covid put the kibosh on, well, everything. Nothing on his recent — or less recent — record hinted at what he would achieve in the first week of the 2022 Vuelta. Prior to Vine’s victory on Pico Jano, he had completed a total of 81 days as a professional road rider.

His highest placed finish in his freshman season was 2nd on a stage of the Tour of Turkey. On his Grand Tour debut, at last year’s Vuelta, he recovered from an incident with his own team car to finish 3rd on the stage to Pico Villuercas. Impressive, sure, but perfectly within the realm of the ordinary.