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Overall race leader Jay Vine struck the kangaroo and was knocked from his bike at the UCI World Tour season opener. (X/CanadianCycling)
A high-speed collision occurred at Australia’s Tour Down Under, a pro road cycling race and season opener, when two large kangaroos bounced onto the road on a sprinting section with about 96 kilometers (61 miles) left in the 169.8 kilometer (105 mile) stage through the hills.
Overall race leader Jay Vine struck the animal and was knocked from his bike, though he switched bikes with two other teammates to seal the title at the UCI World Tour season opener, eventually.
At last week’s Pune Grand Tour, organisers of the 2.2 UCI event (smallest grade) had been on the edge, fearing a dog or cow disturbing the race, which leads to docking of organisation points by the world body. The chaos however unfolded in Australia, where Vine said this had always been a nightmare scenario.
“Everyone asks me what’s the most dangerous thing in Australia and I always tell them it’s kangaroos,” Vine, who won his home race for the second time in three years, was quited as saying by WDEF.com. “They (the ‘roos) wait and they hide in the bushes until you can’t stop and they jump out in front of you. Point proven today,” he added.
A video of the incident posted by SBS Sport showed Vine and other cyclists on the ground as one kangaroo hopped across the road, trying to avoid a bunch of competitors in what is being described by netizens as “the most Australian crash ever seen.”
Three riders — Menno Huising, Lucas Stevenson and Alberto Dainese — were forced out of the race and one kangaroo also was injured.
“Two of them (the ‘roos) blasted through the peloton when we were doing probably 50 kph (30 mph) and one of them stopped and went left, right, left right, left right and I ended up hitting its backside,” Vine recalled to WDEF.
🦘 A 'hopping' mad situation!
🚴 Jay Vine was unfortunate to hit a rogue Kangaroo that was attempting to cross the track during the Tour Down Under! pic.twitter.com/6F5Jdd0Fed
— SBS Sport (@SBSSportau) January 25, 2026
One of the kangaroos was euthanized and the second one escaped, apparently unharmed, a cycling magazine reported.
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Vine led the race by 1 minute, 3 seconds on general classification entering the last stage but two members of his UAE Team Emirates, including the defending champion and then second-placed Jhonatan Narvaez, had crashed out in the fourth stage on Saturday. With one other abandoning the tour because of fatigue, Vine had only two teammates on the last stage: Ivo Emanuel Oliveira and Briton Adam Yates. He got up immediately after the kangaroo collision and changed bikes twice before rejoining the peloton with around 92 kilometers remaining. He managed to lead the peloton for the rest of the stage and finished 1 minute, 3 seconds ahead of Mauro Schmid of Switzerland (Team Jayco Alula) and Harry Sweeny (EF Education – Easypost) of Australia, who was a further nine seconds behind.
According to WDEF, Matthew Brennan of Britain (Team Visma) won the stage in a sprint ahead of Finn Fisher-Black of New Zealand (Bora Hansgrohe) and Tobias Lund Andresen of Denmark (Decathlon).
“It wasn’t ideal,” Brennan said after the finish. “We had Menno [Huising] who usually coordinates a lot [of the lead out for the sprint], but he got smacked on by a kangaroo, so that wasn’t great.”
Vine finallt said of the wretched luck, “This year we started off really positive and we just had more and more bad luck as the race went on,” he said. “Today was never going to easy and I’ve been saying all week it’s not over until it’s over. But it’s proven to be not over till it’s over in this race for us.”
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The poor ‘roo didn’t even survive to rue his luck as humans on cycles charged at it. He died later.
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