“Considering how bad that crash was, he’s been relatively lucky to come away without anything more serious. Unfortunately in this sport you can do everything right, be in the right position, and still end up on the ground”.
It was a moment of bad luck, specially for UAE who were at the head of the peloton but were the worst affected. Several riders of rival teams also abandoned as a result, whilst Vine was diagnosed with a concussion and a fractured elbow.
This season, Vine won the Tour Down Under with a fractured scaphoid after colliding with a kangaroo during the final stage. He returned to racing at the Volta a Catalunya but crashed out during stage 3. Upon another return, he only made it to the second stage. For Bre Vine, it was a reminder of the equally dramatic high-speed crash at the 2024 Itzulia Basque Country, in which he suffered several fractured vertebrae.
“Watching the footage replay everywhere definitely brought back some hard memories from Basque Country. I know people repost these moments because they care and want updates, but sometimes I think it’s easy to forget these are real people with families at home desperately trying to find out if they’re okay. When your person is on the other side of the world and you haven’t heard anything yet, those moments feel very long”.
Jay Vine abandoned the 2026 Giro d’Italia
Disaster for UAE Team Emirates and Jay Vine
Marc Soler suffered a fractured pelvis whilst Adam Yates had ear lacerations and a concussion diagnosed after the stage. The team’s mountain block was fully wiped out within one stage; whilst Jhonatan Narváez and António Morgado were also victims to the crash.
“UAE have already shared the medical update, so please check their socials for that. Thank you so much to everyone who has reached out with kind messages and support, it truly means a lot. My heart genuinely goes out to every rider involved because it was really frightening to watch. I also just want to say how grateful I am to the team for doing everything they could to get information through to me as quickly as possible. With so many riders involved, updates naturally take time, but I really appreciated the effort from everyone behind the scenes”.
The victims of the fall also involved Santiago Buitrago, Andrea Vendrame, Aleksandr Vlasov and Adne Holter – who have so far withdrawn from the race, although more could follow. Vine was in his second comeback of the season, and it is unclear now what the rest of the season will look like.
“This one hurts, especially after all the work Jay has done to get himself healthy again and back to riding so well. But sometimes sport is cruel like that. Right now the focus is simply on getting him fully recovered again, healthy, happy, and back doing what he loves”.
His family is heading to Bulgaria in the meantime. “Harrison (his son, ed.) and I are travelling now to rendezvous with Jay so he can finally get all the cuddles. We honestly don’t know what the next racing schedule looks like yet, and right now that’s not the priority,” Bre Vine added.
“First we want to fully understand the extent of his injuries and go from there. We take concussions very seriously, especially having dealt with them before, so we know how important it is to give him the proper time and space to recover fully”.