BarcelonaAt the age of 17, Jai Hindley left his hometown of Perth for northern Italy. The son of an amateur cyclist who took him cycling on the long roads of the west coast of Australia, where they sometimes stopped to swim among sharks, Hindley was one of the most promising young cyclists in the country, so he agreed to spend half a year in the Italian Alps in order to improve. He only spoke English and ended up on the floor of a cycling enthusiast who rented rooms to young athletes – a 70-year-old man who didn’t know English. “I could hardly speak, at first it was hard,” jokes Hindley, who has learned to defend himself in Italian.
At 26, Hindley has become the first Australian to win the Giro d’Italia. And the second Australian to win one of the big races, after Cadel Evans’ victory in the 2011 Tour de France. Australian cycling has been improving for years – Richie Porte won the Tour of Catalonia in 2015 – thanks to the decision to send many of his talents live in Europe. Hindley, who in 2020 was one step away from winning the Giro, when he finished second and lost the lead in the time trial on the last day, had already warned this year that he was not going to the Giro “to put socks on a hundred feet, but to compete. ” And so it has been. After winning the Blockhaus stage, he climbed to second place in the general classification, chasing the 2019 champion, the Ecuadorian Richard Carapaz, until he left him with a handful of steps to the queen stage of this Saturday, with a very hard attack on the ramps of the Marmolada. In the last stage, a time trial on the streets of Verona did not fail. The Italian Matteo Sobrero (Bikeechange) won the stage with a time of 22 minutes and 24 seconds, ahead of the Dutch Thymen Arensman (DSM) and Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin-Fenix). Hindley did not waste much time in front of his rivals and ended up winning the overall with 1 minute and 18 seconds over Carapaz on the day of the Ecuadorian’s 29th birthday. Carapaz only took 7 seconds off Hindley today.
The long road from Perth to Verona
When Hindley was a teenager, “he was the only boy with shaved legs and tights in school.” “All my teammates played Australian football,” he recalls, referring to local sport, a long tradition in Perth. “My father is an Englishman from Manchester. He had taken part in many races and cycling was his great passion. At the age of six he was already on the road with him.” At 7 he was training on a velodrome. “I knew I wanted to be a cyclist,” he told NBC television. “At the age of 15 we went to France to see how Evans won the 2011 Tour. It was beautiful. And we stayed to shoot a bit. My first port was the Tourmalet, with my father,” he recalls. Fate was written.
After shining in the Australian and Oceania road championships, Hindley spent a few months in Italy before signing for a Taiwanese team, the Attack Team Gusto, with whom he competed in various Asian events as a youngster. His future, however, was in Europe. In 2017 he signed for the Mitchelton Scott team, with which he won the Fuzhou Tour of China and the one-week Tuscany-Land cycling event in Italy. And back home, on the Sun Tour, he finished second surprising everyone for his attacks on Chris Froome level runners. The Sunweb team, therefore, opted for him, understanding that he had the potential to aspire to win big races, as he has an amazing physical capacity. That 2017 in which he presented himself in society, he competed from January to November, on three different continents. A milestone that few can reach, which is why Sunweb’s sporting director, Marc Reef, signed him, telling him that he would prepare him with prestigious races such as the Giro. Reef tested him on all sorts of terrains, and saw that he was a good climber.
Mikel Landa, third
And the results came at the Giro in 2020, when being a stranger to a lot of people, he was one step away from being the winner. It was only surpassed by the British Tao Geoghegan Hart. After being lucky with injuries in 2021, Hindley signed for the Bora team with the promise of being able to be his great leader in the Giro. Said and done. With a good team strategy, he has achieved a historic victory for Australian cycling. At the age of 26, he finished pink ahead of Richard Carapaz (INEOS-Grenadiers) and the Basque Mikel Landa (Bahrain), who took his second podium in a great race, but never being able to aspire to victory in the general.
As for the rest of the Giro qualifiers, the blue jersey of the mountain was for the Dutchman Koen Bowman (Jumbo Visma), the white of the best youngster for the Spaniard Juan Pedro López (Trek Segafredo), the classification for points for Frenchman Arnaud Démare (Groupama) and the best team was Bahrain Victorious.