Jay Vine's cycling fairytale, which has taken the Australian from a turbo trainer in his living room to Grand Tour glory, has reached new improbable heights with his second mountain-top triumph in the Vuelta a España.
The Townsville novice, who's graduated from indoor racing to being one of the new stars of the professional peloton in just a couple of years, once again blew away some of the best climbers in the world to run away with the eighth stage on Saturday.
With his second win in just three days, the 26-year-old Queenslander, who won his pro contract by triumphing in an online Zwift e-cycling competition in 2020, was left shaking his head in disbelief before he crossed the line on the Collau Fancuaya.
"It's incredible. I've just got so much confidence after that first win, like I've got that monkey off my back," he said, after also riding into the King of the Mountain jersey as the race's top climber.
Once again, just as on the ascent of Pico Jano on Thursday when he won his maiden professional race, Vine roared away from the field on the final climb of a demanding 153.4km stage from La Pola Llaviana to win by 43 seconds from Spain's Marc Soler.
Behind him on this Asturias mountain stage was a parade of some of the world's best climbers, including Belgium's overall race leader Remco Evenepoel, who finished fifth, one minute 20 seconds behind the amazing Aussie.
And by the end, Vine seemed to feel right at home in his new-found celebrity as the man who's made the transformation from e-racing to real racing seem so implausibly easy.
"It just felt so much more natural riding in the group today, and all the pressure was off me," he shrugged.
"I had two goals and if the stage win didn't come off, I always had the King of the Mountains jersey to fall back on.
"But I had a lot more confidence in myself and I just really enjoyed today, it was such a fun day."
In an eight-man break with just over six kilometres to go, once the Alpecin-Deceuninck rider Vine hit the gas, the others, including luminaries like Mikel Landa and Thibaut Pinot, simply couldn't stay with his relentless power over the brutal final category one climb.
Pushing on alone after breaking them all in the space of a kilometre, Vine only increased his lead on the final slopes.
And unlike the rainy and foggy Thursday when visibility had been so bad that there hadn't even been any TV footage of his triumph, the cycling world could this time savour Vine's win in all its glory.
It was a performance so breathtaking that former Australian cycling sprint star Robbie McEwen could only gasp in the Eurosport commentary box: "A new star has arrived in world cycling!"
Overall, Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl's Evenepoel leads by 28 seconds from Movistar's Enric Mas, with defending champion Primož Roglič third at 1:01.
The leading Australians are ninth-placed Jai Hindley (2:51) and AG2R Citroen's 10th-placed Ben O'Connor (2:59) while Vine, after a slow start, has jumped up to 24th overall just over six and a half minutes down.
AAP
