Jai Hindley became the first Australian to win the Giro d’Italia last year, and just the second Australian to win a Grand Tour after Cadel Evans’ 2011 Tour de France success. This year, Hindley will head to the Tour de France, and anticipation is already building for his debut at one of the world’s biggest sporting events on the back of winning the second-biggest race.
To give a flavour of the sort of attitude the Australian brings, during the Giro, in the wake of a mountain stage win, Hindley was asked whether he’d be pushing on to contend for the overall win.
“I’m not here to put socks on centipedes,” was the answer Hindley gave with a wry grin, and it’s that laid-back yet focused style that Hindley has harnessed to great effect. It also means that the West Australian isn’t getting to far ahead of himself when terms like role model and pressure get thrown around.
“Nah, I mean maybe at a race you have more self-expectation about what you can do and what you can achieve,” said Hindley in an interview with SBS Sport. “I’ve just tried to stay me, that’s what I do best. If people want to look up to me then that’s great, if not, no worries.”
The life of a Grand Tour contender can be a monastic one, especially as more and more is learned about the interaction of physiology, training and nutrition. Everything is channelled into being the best possible rider for a brief window for a race, a process that has had a mental toll on Grand Tour winners like Bradley Wiggins and Egan Bernal in the past.
“For me I think it’s finding the right balance,” said Hindley. “For sure, there’s times as a professional athlete when you have to be super dialled in with your training, your sleep, recovery… everything. But it’s not always like that. I do enjoy that aspect of it, but I enjoy just being a normal human being.”
Hindley was talking just after a stage of Tirreno-Adriatico, where he ended up as a super-domestique for his BORA-hansgrohe squad, often on the front of the peloton on the final climb to set up teammates Lennard Kämna and Alexsandr Vlasov, though he still managed to finish 15th overall and take fourth on Stage 5.
Vlasov and Kämna are both carrying superior form in anticipation of starting the Giro d’Italia, to which Hindley will not be returning to defend his pink jersey victory from last year.
“For sure, it was really tempting,” said Hindley. “It would have been nice to go back to the Giro and start with the number one on the jersey. At the same time, it’s nice to focus on some different goals and focus on the tour. It’s a race that I’ve never done before, the biggest bike race in the world. For sure, I want to be there.”
This Tour de France appears to suit Hindley well, his time-trialling has improved in recent years, but it remains a weakness against the other top Grand Tour contenders. The 2023 route limits the time trialling to just a very hilly 22-kilometre course that should suit the 26-year-old and focuses more on mountainous stages to decide the winner.
“Actually for me, that parcours doesn’t get much better,” said Hindley. “There are quite a lot of hard mountain-top stages, quite a lot of hilly stages and a time trial that is also quite hilly.
“I’m excited for the whole three weeks and I think the hilly start in the Basque Country will make for exciting racing straight out of the gates.”
Yet to record a victory in 2023, Hindley was been knocking on the door with good performances at the Tour Down Under, Volta Algarve and recently at Tirreno, though his past history has shown that he reserves his best for the Grand Tours.
“I think everything is going pretty good to be honest,” Hindley said of his season to date. “The main goal is in July, all the races leading up to that are just preparation races.
“Just trying to have some results here or there, but the big focus is the Tour, and everything is to help for that. Since Down Under it started off pretty steady and it’s just been getting better and better.”
Now in his sixth season as a professional, the Tour de France remains the final frontier for Hindley. He will be the most high-profile and well-credentialled debutant in many years, but that won’t change the fact that he’ll be embarking on a whole new journey.
“Just the whole experience,” Hindley said when asked what he was most looking forward to. “To be there to race, just to see what it’s like to do the race.
“I’ve been there once before on the side of the road as a teenager watching. That was pretty epic so I can only imagine what it’s like to be in the bunch racing. Of course, everyone dreams about rolling into Paris on the last day, and that’s something that I always strived to achieve.”
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