Tour Down Under 2026: Jay Vine wins despite colliding with a kangaroo

Australian Jay Vine won the Tour Down Under, despite being knocked off his bike in an accident caused by a kangaroo.

Britain’s Matthew Brennan took the fifth and final stage of the race in Australia, on a day dominated by drama in the peloton.

The kangaroo ran across the road with less than 100km to go before the race, then charged towards the peloton, knocking several riders to the ground before crashing into more who were trying to avoid it.

After Fine fell, he used his teammate’s bike to claim the winner’s yellow jersey by one minute and three seconds for UAE-XRG.

Visma-Lease A rider Brennan beat New Zealander Finn Fisher-Black of the Red Bull-Bora Hansgrohe team to take the stage win after a strong acceleration at the end of the grueling race.

Brennan’s teammate Menno Huising from the Netherlands was one of the riders forced to abandon the race, after being injured in a kangaroo incident.

Decathlon-CMA CGM’s Tobias Lund Andersen finished third in the 169.8km stage around Stirling near Adelaide.

Swiss Mauro Schmid of Jayco-AlUla took second place overall and Australian Harry Sweeney took third place in the EF Education-EasyPost.

Lund Andreessen took home the blue points jersey, while Norwegian Martin Ørianstad Boje won the mint green King of the Mountain jersey for the Uno X Mobility team.

Brennan ranks high among the many talented young British riders competing on the UCI World Tour this year.

He won 12 races in his first season at elite level in 2025.

The win caps a good week for the British riders in the first World Tour race of the year following Ethan Vernon’s quick stage four win on Saturday for NSN – the new team co-owned by World Cup winner Andres Iniesta.

This stage has been shortened to accommodate temperatures up to 43 degrees Celsius.

UK road champion Sam Watson won the opening prologue to the Ineos Grenadiers.

Several riders will now take part in the one-day Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race in Melbourne, with Brennan the favorite to win.

Brennan is particularly strong on one-day courses, and is set to compete in several of the sport’s biggest races this year, including the Milan-San Remo one-day race in March, as well as the Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix in April.