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Jai-high Tour de France hopes for WA’s Hindley despite a team shake-up that’s thrust him into a support role

This time last year, Western Australia’s Jai Hindley was preparing for his debut Tour de France as the leader of the BORA-Hansgrohe team with ambitions of standing on the podium in Paris. Fast-forward to today and the 28-year-old from Perth has had to somewhat shelve plans for his own general classification glory in support of his team’s decision to sign a new lead rider, Slovenian four-time grand tour-winner Primoz Roglic. Hindley, the 2022 Giro d’Italia winner and just the second Australian to take out a grand tour after Cadel Evans’ 2011 Tour breakthrough, finished an admirable 7th in his first attempt at cycling’s toughest test, even wearing the leader’s yellow jersey for a day after winning Stage 5. But with Roglic moving to the powerhouse German team, Hindley this year finds himself a super domestique for his new 34-year-old teammate. Only that might not be a bad thing, necessarily, according to cycling expert and SBS’s lead Tour de France commentator, Matthew Keenan. “Jai Hindley last year went in as the No.1 rider for BORA-Hansgrohe and he had all the pressure on him,” Keenan told The Sunday Times, ahead of the 111th edition of the famous race starting on June 29. “The media that was around the team bus at the start of every stage, they wanted to talk to Jai. This year the media is going to want to talk to Primoz Roglic. Jai is going to have a slightly quieter Tour de France in terms of that external noise. “Roglic is going to be the No.1 guy for the team and Jai Hindley is going to be an amazing plan B.” Earlier this month, Roglic won the Criterium du Dauphine, a shorter eight-day French race often looked to as a dress rehearsal of the three-week Tour. And Hindley’s support in the mountains proved important in Roglic holding on for a narrow victory. “For the team, it’s been really successful, even if for me personally, it hasn’t been the best race, but I’m happy to be here and get some good racing in my legs before the big goal of the Tour,” Hindley, who finished 20th in the Dauphine, said. “If I had to compare to last year’s Dauphine (when Hindley finished fourth), maybe not as good, but the Tour is still some time away and I think we should be good to go by then.” Roglic, who took a 62-second lead into the final stage, was almost run down in the closing 5km of the race after being isolated and dropped by three of his closest rivals in American Matteo Jorgenson (Team Visma/Lease a Bike), Canadian Derek Gee (Israel-Premier Tech) and Spaniard Carlos Rodriguez (Team Ineos Grenadiers). But the former Giro d’Italia and three-time Vuelta a Espana winner rallied to finish 48 seconds adrift, and hold on to the overall lead by just eight seconds. In 2020, Roglic led the Tour de France for 11 consecutive stages, only to be leapfrogged on the penultimate day by by countryman Tadej Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates) in a heart-breaking time-trial. He has not finished his two attempts at the Tour since (2021 and 2022) after going down with injury as a result of high-speed crashes. Former Australian national road race champion and SBS expert David McKenzie believes the unpredictability of the gruelling 3492km race over three weeks, crashes included, means Hindley remains a chance to finish on the podium. “Jai will be a really strong plan B (for the team) and although it’s a plan B, Jai could slip under the radar just ever so slightly,” McKenzie said. “They all know how good he is and the quality that he is but I think it will take the pressure off him a little bit. It’s not beyond Jai Hindley to be on the podium come the end of July and it wouldn’t be a surprise.” But for all the talk of the Roglic-Hindley dynamic, the main question McKenzie has leading into this year’s Tour is can anyone stop Pogacar winning the great race for a third time in five years. The 25-year-old from UAE Team Emirates, left, has been on fire to start 2024, including winning grand tour, the Giro d’Italia, in scintillating fashion. If he does win the Tour as well, it will be the first time anyone has done the Giro-Tour double since Italian Marco Pantani in 1998, and just the 13th time ever in more than 100 years. And with his greatest challenger, two time defending champion Jonas Vingegaard, of Denmark, under an injury cloud after a horror crash in April, Pogacar is odds on to do it. “That’s been the story throughout most of the season, even before Jonas Vingegaard had his crash,” Keenan said. “Based on what we saw at the Giro d’Italia, Tadej Pogacar is going to be starting the Tour de France as the favourite and that puts all the pressure on him.”Seeing how he backs that up is what I’m most looking forward to. “It (the Giro-Tour double) was done regularly last century with some of the greats of the sport like Eddy Merckx, Miguel Indurain and Bernard Hinault but hasn’t been done since 1998. “It’s just a lot more of a global sport (now) than it used to be and the competition is a lot tougher.“ Vingegaard, 27, was hospitalised after sustaining rib and collarbone fractures and a punctured lung in a mass crash during the Tour of the Basque Country on April 4. While Team Visma-Lease a Bike confirmed him as a starter this week, whether he will be 100 per cent and challenging for general classification honours remains in question. This year’s Tour will be historic for many reasons. It starts in Italy for the first time to celebrate the 100-year anniversary of maiden Italian winner Ottavio Bottecchia’s 1924 triumph, and finishes with a 33.7km individual time-trial from Monaco to Nice. It is the first time since 1989 the final stage is a time-trial but also the first time in race history that it will not finish in Paris. Due to the logistical challenges of the Olympic Games in Paris just days later, the traditional Champs-Elysees finish will be replaced by the Place Massena in Nice. Another historic moment could come if veteran sprinter Mark Cavendish (Astana Qazaqstan Team), nicknamed the Manx Missile for his blistering turn of speed, can become the outright record holder for stage wins at the Tour. The recently knighted 39-year-old from the Isle of Man, a small island in the Irish Sea, shares the record of 34 stage wins with Belgian legend Eddy Merckx but can move clear with a victory in his 15th start at the Tour. McKenzie said despite all the predictions, only one thing was assured: expect the unexpected. “There will be a stage in the first week where you won’t expect much and it will end up just being absolute chaos,” he said.

exclusiveJai-high Tour de France hopes for WA’s Hindley despite a team shake-up that’s thrust him into a support role

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Jai-high Tour de France hopes for WA’s Hindley despite a team shake-up that’s thrust him into a support role