A star has been born at La Vuelta, but what are we to make of double stage winner, Jay Vine?

Although you probably ought to have heard of Jay Vine before Thursday, it’s okay if your familiarity with him was more in passing than in detail.

Your knowledge of him, such as it will have been, is more likely to have been a product of his exploits off the road, than on them. To address the “Primoz Roglic used to be a ski jumper” in the room, you will have known him as the graduate from the Zwift academy 2020, which earned him his first professional contract.

Although the numbers an athlete can hit are an (increasingly) reliable indicator of performance potential, they are no guarantee that a rider can compete in the cut and thrust of the professional peloton. His mountain bike background should have probably told us more than it did.

Vine arrived in Europe at 25 with – to put it generously – limited real world racing experience. His most recognizable result for the New South Wales based Nero Continental race team had been a 5th place stage finish in the Jayco Herald Sun Tour, before Covid put the kibosh on, well, everything.

Nothing on his recent – or less recent – record hinted at what he would achieve in the first week of the 2022 Vuelta.

Prior to Vine’s victory on Pico Jano, he had completed a total of 81 days as a professional road rider. His highest placed finish in his freshman season was 2nd on a stage of the Tour of Turkey. On his Grand Tour debut, at last year’s Vuelta, he recovered from an incident with his own team car to finish 3rd on the stage to Pico Villuercas. Impressive, sure, but perfectly within the realm of the ordinary.

In the first half of 2022, he thrice finished runner-up in sub-WorldTour level races, most notably behind Remco Evenepoel at the Tour of Norway.

At the Tour de Suisse his team withdrew mid-way through the race following multiple covid positives. Vine did not race between the beginning of June and last weekend.

“A few days off the bike for me to just let the body reset, before I get back on the bike preparing for the big one later this year (La Vuelta),” he wrote on Facebook.

In retrospect it reads as the most mighty of understatements.

He was not mentioned in many – if any – Vuelta previews. No-one had him down as a contender, or probable stage winner.

The cameras did not pick him up as he ghosted away from the bunch because he was not considered a threat for the stage. The peloton let him go for the same reason.

Due to the weather conditions on the climb, few can say they even saw him cross the line.

It was rightly recognized as a “chapeau”-worthy breakthrough performance, little more. But one stage win at La Vuelta does not make a summer. With good legs and a whole heap of favourable circumstances, most riders in the bunch could probably manage it.

The same circumstances could not be said to be present for his second.

Which is what elevates it to an entirely different level.

From the moment he made it into the breakaway this afternoon he was the rider to watch. More so than veterans such as Thibaut Pinot (Groupama FDJ) and Mikel Landa (Bahrain Victorious), with 34 Grand Tour rides, and a fair few victories between them. More than Marc Soler (UAE Team Emirates), who had himself won on Wednesday. More than Alexey Lutsenko (Astana) who has twice finished in the top 10 of the Tour de France.

No-one was going to “let” Vine go on the Colláu Fancuaya, and indeed they didn’t.

On some of the steepest slopes of one of the hardest climbs this Vuelta will throw at them, he simply rode at a pace that only he could handle and left everyone of his rivals gasping for air. He didn’t even particularly commit what could be described as an attack.

As he steadily built his advantage at no point did Vine appear to be in trouble, struggling or even pushing his own limits. At the finish line he looked like the only rider who had a couple more K’s in him.

His post-race interview was composed, fluent and thoughtful. There was plenty of oxygen to push toward his brain. “I looked back and there was no-one” he said, as surprised as anyone at how easy it had been.

Another stage win in this race feels more likely than not. As he leads the competition by 34 points, the King of the Mountains jersey is surely his to lose.

Who knows how high in he can go?

On Thursday Vine took a massive step up in his career. Today a star was born.

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