Grand Tour cyclist who won Vuelta stage earned pro contract through 'reality show'

dailystar.co.uk:

READ MORE: 7 sport stars with surprisingly big net worth - billionaire tennis ace to Barcelona flopNow 20 months on Vine has won the biggest race of his career winning stage six of the Vuelta which sees cyclists compete for three weeks in Spain.

Vine's win came on hill terrain and in wet conditions which saw several riders crash on the treacherous descents.The Australian impressively rode away from the race favourites, including Britain's Tao Geoghegan Hart and Simon Yates, on the final mountain to the finish and won alone after four-and-a-half hours of racing."It's almost unreal," said Vine after winning the stage. "Even though it was the team's plan for me to go on the final climb, it's unreal to be able to do that from the GC (favourites) group."I've been working towards this all year and it's a dream come true.

If I was going to close down the gap I had to go from long. "Vine added that being 13 minutes behind in the overall classification meant that nobody chased him down after launching his winning attack.He added: "It was the plan that I was 13 minutes behind overall and nobody would care if I went.

I was able to manage my effort and just paced the climb pretty handily. This is for my wife who has done everything for me in the last three or four years to get me to this point.