The challenges continued for UAE Team Emirates-XRG on Sunday's Santos Tour Down Under finale, as while they started stage 5 in the enviable position of having Jay Vine leading with an almost unheard of gap to his nearest rival of 1:03, they'd lost the previously second-placed Jhonatan Narváez to a nasty crash on stage 4. Domestique Vegard Stake Laengen also had to leave the race injured on Saturday.
That left the team with five riders on the start line, and then, in the early part of stage 5, there came word of a crash in the peloton, with a kangaroo visible hopping off the side of the road as the footage on broadcaster Seven panned back to show the after-effects of the crash. Riders after the stage said it was one of a pair that jumped into the bunch. Another of Vine's teammates, Mikkel Bjerg, could be seen in pain on the road as Vine was remounting and starting his chase.
"Everything was going according to plan up until that point, Sebastián [Molano] was doing a great job. The breakaway was well within reach," Vine told reporters after the stage.
