A weary but satisfied Jai Hindley (Bora-Hansgrohe) completed the final mountain stage of the Tour de France with his seventh place on GC all but guaranteed and the memory of a day in yellow and a stage win to spur him on for more in 2024.
Riding his first Tour de France, the 2022 Giro d'Italia winner has had a rollercoaster race.
A dramatic triumph in the Pyrenees and first-week maillot jaune were then followed by a long battle for a top overall standing against not just the other GC contenders, but also both a spell of illness and some energy-sapping injuries incurred in a major 60kmh crash early on stage 14.
Suffering from a large hematoma and back injuries in his back for most of the rest of the Tour, Hindley slid off the provisional podium that day and then out of the top five.
However, as the race moved into week three, he managed to put an ever-stronger brake on the downward spiral. He ended by finishing the last high mountains stage in eleventh place, less than a minute down on winner Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates) and will ride into Paris 14:44 down on race winner Jonas Vingegaard (Jumbo-Visma) but still in seventh.
The Australian will naturally be wondering what could have been after the crash and illness, but at the very least, as he said after stage 20, "I think I can walk away with no regrets."
"There were lots of ups and downs but I left everything out there on the road and we've come away with a stage win and a day in a yellow jersey, so it's not so bad," Hindley pointed out.
Being new to the Tour, "I didn't know what to expect, of course, but GC-wise, you always want to be right up there in the mix."
"I felt like going it was going in a good direction, but I had some illness and also this crash as well which is still affecting me a bit."
"But that's all part of it, and I'm just really happy to make it to Paris and finish my first Tour of France. So I'm pretty satisfied with it."
Second in the 2020 Giro d'Italia then the outright winner in 2022, Hindley feels more than motivated by his Tour de France stage 5 success, yellow jersey and seventh place overall to return to see how much better he can do in the future, he promised.
Not all riders managed to bridge the divide between top-level Grand Tour racing in the Giro d'Italia and the Tour de France, but Hindley's performance this July has proved to both himself and his team that he's mastered that particular challenge.
"I definitely want to come back and see what else I can throw at this race, for sure I want to be better for sure in the GC and for sure the dream is to be on the podium one day," he said. "It's going to take a lot of work to get there, so we'll go back on the drawing board and see what we can do to come back better next year."
Hindley said the final day of 'real' racing through the Vosges had been a challenging one as he had no idea how his body would respond, "but I just went in with a nothing-to-lose approach and gave it everything."
"I knew it was going to be full gas all day on a stage that's just 130 kilometres long and with lots of climbing, ups and downs, technical roads…but I Ieft it all out there on the road, so no regrets."
Hindley's parents were present on the last climb of the race, as well as in the early stages, and he described having them on the Tour as something "super-special."
"They came to the finish of the Giro last year and saw me there. Then to have them come to the start of the Tour and watch the team presentation and first few stages, also on the bottom of the climb here and on stage 5, too," - the day when Hindley took yellow - "it's super-special."
"To have the people who supported me and backed me since day one here on the race - that was incredible. It'll be super-nice to see them in Paris, too, before they go back to Oz."
Hindley himself will be enjoying a very special day on the Champs Elysées on Sunday, he confirmed with a grin, and when asked how it would feel, he said "I'll let you know tomorrow. For sure it's something I've always dreamed of - rolling onto the Champs Elysées and finishing the Tour. It's something every rider dreams of doing."
Once the final stage is done and dusted, the first thing he'll probably do, he said "is hug my girlfriend and my parents and just enjoy the moment with the team and all the people who have been there with me."
Exactly when Hindley will start reflecting on the 2024 Tour in more detail, he didn't specify. But after a debut with some real high points and a gutsy fight all the way to Paris to hold onto his top-ten placing on GC, that surely bodes well for the future.
