Aussie Focus

Giro winner Hindley sharing leadership duties at Vuelta

Jai Hindley will look to build of his Giro d’Italia triumph at the upcoming Vuelta a España, the first time he has attempted two Grand Tours in the one season.

105th Giro d'Italia 2022 - Stage 20 Jai Hindley kisses the pink jersey

Jai Hindley of Bora - Hansgrohe kisses the pink jersey after moving into the race lead on Stage 20 of the 2022 Giro d'Italia. Credit: Tim de Waele/Getty Images

Watch La Vuelta a España on SBS and SBS On Demand, with the broadcast LIVE and FREE as well as daily highlights, clips and updates from the Spanish Grand Tour from August 20-September 12.


It has been a quiet second half of the season for Jai Hindley after his Giro d’Italia triumph earlier in the year, the West Australian emerging to take the overall win at the Italian Grand Tour after a tough battle with Richard Carapaz.

Now he comes into the Vuelta a España with more attention, and he was asked in a pre-race press conference if there more expectation on his shoulders or if it was a nice feeling to be welcomed as a Grand Tour winner.

“A bit of both. It was really cool to win the Giro, my first year and Grand Tour with the team,” said Hindley. “But at the same time, the expectation is to be able to back up that performance. I’m up for the challenge.

“I don’t think it’s changed me too much, but maybe just my own personal expectation or standard has been risen. I always want to do the best I can and it’s the same here.”
Hindley played down the question of aiming for a historic Grand Tour double, if he were to win it would be the first time a rider has won two Grand Tours in a year since Chris Froome won the Tour de France and the Vuelta in 2017.

“You never know, it would be pretty nice,” said Hindley. “I’m not really thinking of winning two, I’m just focused on trying to do the best result possible.”

Hindley evaluated the differences between the Vuelta and the other Grand Tours, his only previous appearance at the race coming in 2018 when he finished 32nd overall in his neo-professional season.

“I’d say it’s a lot more unpredictable than the Giro or the Tour – a lot of days where you have 20 guys going up the road and the GC can flip on its head whenever,” said Hindley. “There’s a real mixed motivation in the peloton. A lot of the stages don’t look super hard on paper, but turn out to be really hard.”
Hindley’s Bora-Hansgrohe squad comes to the 2022 Vuelta a España with a team packed with talent including another three-pronged approach in the GC battle. There are three potential riders for the overall win, with Wilco Kelderman and Sergio Higuita joining Hindley, along with star sprinter Sam Bennett.

Hindley said the course of the race and the riders’ performances would decide who would end up the leader, in similar fashion to the Giro where Hindley emerged the leader after some early misfortune for Kelderman.

“I think it’ll probably play out similar to the Giro,” he said. “More or less, let the road decide, like we did there.

“It worked out; that’s not to say it’ll work here, but the guys we’ve brought are really good. And no one in the team has a crazy ego or something like that.

“If I lose time in the first week, for sure I’m going to do the best I can to help whoever we do have on GC, and vice versa, I know the guys will support me if that’s the case.”

Hindley’s warm-up for the Vuelta has been a slow build after some extended time off after the Giro d’Italia, then doing an altitude camp in Andorra in July before building back to racing with three events in Spain preceding the Vuelta with his best performance seventh overall at the Vuelta a Burgos.

“San Sebastián wasn’t super great, I think it came down to not racing for such a long time and also doing a long altitude camp and not going super hard directly after the camp,” said Hindley of his recent form. “Then Getxo and Burgos following were a bit better.”
The taste for racing in Spain is one that Hindley enjoys, and the 26-year-old is looking forward to the upcoming three weeks of racing.

“The weather, the fans, the terrain: I really enjoyed it and I’m really excited to be back,” he said, recalling his memories. “A lot of hard days on the bike. In general, the Vuelta is a really cool Grand Tour.

Watch La Vuelta a España on SBS and SBS On Demand, with the broadcast LIVE and FREE as well as daily highlights, clips and updates from the Spanish Grand Tour from August 20-September 12.

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5 min read
Published 18 August 2022 11:54am
By Jamie Finch-Penninger
Source: SBS


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