Jay Vine Takes Tour Down Under 2026 Crown Despite Kangaroo Crash
Jay Vine Takes Tour Down Under 2026 Crown Despite Kangaroo Crash
Jay Vine claimed his second Tour Down Under overall after surviving a kangaroo collision, while Matthew Brennan won the dramatic final stage.

British sprinter Matthew Brennan swept to victory in Sunday's final stage as Jay Vine survived a high-speed collision with a straying kangaroo to win his second Tour Down Under.
Brennan, 20, coming off a breakthrough season with 14 wins for Team Visma last year, finished a misfiring week with a TDU stage win from New Zealand's Finn Fisher-Black (Red Bull-Bora Hansgrohe) and Denmark's Tobias Lund Andresen (Decathlon CMA CGM).
Jay Vine Overcomes Kangaroo Collision To Seal Overall Victory
Vine overcame a torrid final day of the UCI World Tour season opener, finishing with just two of his six UAE Emirates teammates to support him after he plowed into a kangaroo and came off his bike with 95 kilometers left of the hilly 169.8km fifth stage into Stirling in the Adelaide Hills.
Vine's victory following his 2023 Tour Down Under success was a testament to his resilience and toughness to overcome setbacks, including the loss of his teammate and defending champion Jhonatan Narvaez in a crash in Saturday's penultimate stage.
The Australian protected his 1min 3sec advantage to win the race from Swiss Mauro Schmid (Team Jayco AlUla), with another nine seconds to Australia's Harry Sweeny (EF Education-Easypost) in third.

Matthew Brennan Ends Tour Down Under On High Note
"We started the week off positive but we just had more and more bad luck as the race went on and today was never going to be easy," Vine said.
"Two kangaroos blasted through the peloton as we were doing 50km/h and I ended up hitting one of them.
"Luckily, I am okay and happy to be able to hold on to the leader's jersey and take the overall."
Vine praised the unstinting support work of his British teammate Adam Yates, who helped position him after his fall. After switching to two replacement bikes, he managed to stay with the pack and finish without further mishap.
For Brennan, it was a morale-boosting performance in Australia heading into the rest of the World Tour season.
"We have been disappointed with this week's results and to finish it off today I am very happy," Brennan said.
"Today, we nailed everything that we wanted to do and so leading on to the next races and the classics, it's good to open the mind up to things like that."
