Australian Jay Vine received the Tour Down Below – regardless of being knocked off his bike in a crash attributable to a kangaroo.

Britain’s Matthew Brennan took the fifth and remaining stage of the race in Australia, on a day dominated by drama within the peloton.

The kangaroo ran throughout the highway with below 100km of the race to go and launched itself into the peloton, knocking a number of riders to the bottom earlier than tumbling into extra who have been attempting to keep away from it.

Vine, having been knocked down, used a team-mate’s bike to say the general winner’s ochre jersey by one minute three seconds for UAE Crew Emirates-XRG.

Visma-Lease A Bike rider Brennan beat New Zealand’s Finn Fisher-Black of Purple Bull-Bora Hansgrohe to the road for the stage victory after a strong acceleration on the uphill dash end.

Brennan’s team-mate Menno Huising of the Netherlands was one of many riders compelled to desert the race, having been injured within the kangaroo incident.

Tobias Lund Andresen of Decathlon-CMA CGM took third on the 169.8km stage across the Stirling close to Adelaide.

Switzerland’s Mauro Schmid of Jayco-AlUla was second total and Australia’s Harry Sweeney third for EF Schooling-EasyPost.

Lund Andresen took the blue factors jersey, with Norway’s Martin Urianstad Bugge profitable the mint-green king of the mountains jersey for Uno X Mobility.

Brennan ranks extremely amongst a number of younger gifted British riders competing on the UCI World Tour this yr.

He received 12 races in his debut elite-level season in 2025.

The win caps a superb week for British riders on the first World Tour race of the yr following Ethan Vernon’s dash victory on Saturday’s stage 4 for NSN – the brand new crew co-owned by World Cup winner Andres Iniesta.

That stage had been shortened to account for temperatures of as much as 43C.

UK highway champion Sam Watson received the opening prologue of the race for Ineos Grenadiers.

Most of the riders will now tackle the one-day Cadel Evans Nice Ocean Street Race in Melbourne, with Brennan a robust favorite for victory.

Brennan is especially highly effective on rolling one-day programs, and is ready to compete in a number of of the game’s largest races this yr, together with the one-day Milan-San Remo in March, in addition to the Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix in April.