And then there were two.

Jai Hindley is Australia's newest Grand Tour champion, joining Cadel Evans as the only riders from Australia to stand on the top step of the podium as overall race winners.

It was less than two years ago, in October 2020, when Hindley made his Grand Tour breakthrough by finishing second in the pandemic delayed Giro d'Italia.

In doing so, he became, at that stage, the third Australian — after Evans and Richie Porte — to finish on the podium of one of cycling's Grand Tours, tantalisingly close to standing on the top step. 

Just seven months later though, at the 2021 edition, Hindley left the race a broken rider, withdrawing due to saddle sores, just one setback of many in an ultimately frustrating 2021 season.

"I had a lot of things going [on] which made it a super hard year and a difficult period," Hindley told reporters during the final rest day at this year's Giro.

"It was really frustrating because I finished 2020 with second place at the Giro and then I had really high expectations coming into 2021.

"I wanted to prove to people, and more so myself, that I was capable of riding at that level and that 2020 wasn't just a fluke."

A fluke? Not a chance.

Hindley put that difficult 2021 behind him and rediscovered his best form, becoming just the second Australian to ever stand on the top step after one of cycling's most gruelling tests.

It has been a wild 19 months.

Bora-Hansgrohe comes good with supreme tactical ride

After a tough 2021 season, Hindley switched teams from Sunweb to a newly focused Bora-Hansgrohe, a move described as "like pressing the reset button" by Hindley.

It paid dividends straight away.

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Bora-Hansgrohe came to the Giro with a renewed focus on general classification success, with three leaders: Hindley, Emmanuel Buchmann and Wilco Kelderman all eyeing success.

Bora-Hansgrohe showed they really meant business on the 14th stage of the race by putting the hammer down and shredding the field around the streets of Turin.

However, their commitment appeared to waver at times, particularly on stage 16, when both Lennard Kämna and Kelderman went up the road in the breakaway, leaving Hindley exposed.

When it counted though, the team came through.

Kämna's efforts to join the stage-20 breakaway gave Hindley a key ally up the road right when it mattered most, on the slopes up to the Marmolada, which the Australian described as "an incredible boost".

"Once we had [Kämna] up front, we were able to play with it a little bit," sporting director Enrico Gasparotto said of the tactics on stage 20. 

"Our plan was to keep Lenny up front until the really steep ramps.

"We wanted to let the others do the work and wait for the right moment in the last four kilometres, where the climbs were super steep, and indeed it went as we had planned."

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As can often be the case in cycling, the misfortune of one can offer a huge boost to a rival, and that was the case with the withdrawal of Ineos Grenadiers' super domestique Richie Porte, who withdrew on Friday's 19th stage due to gastro.

How much of an impact his absence had on Carapaz's form on the brutal slopes at the stage 20 finale, we'll never know.

The only thing that was certain was that, at the pivotal moment, Hindley's legs were better and he seized his chance.

He also had to banish the demons of 2020, when he also rode the final time trial in the pink jersey, only to surrender it for the final podium.

Hindley has only ever worn the pink jersey in a final-day time trial, so to ignore what happened two years prior showed exceptional resilience.

Australia on the cusp of becoming a Grand Tour power

Fifteen years ago, Hindley's Giro success would have been a huge outlier.

Now though, it's become par for the course.

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Australia has emerged as a general classification power, with every Grand Tour seemingly an opportunity for one of Australia's crop of riders to challenge for the leaders jersey.

Australian riders have stood on the podium in four of the last seven Grand Tours.

Considering there were 244 Grand Tours before an Australian made the podium for the first time, that's an impressive record.

The success of Evans has to take enormous credit for the burgeoning crop of young Grand Tour riders who are now tearing up and down mountains across Europe.

His second-place finish at the 2007 Tour de France started a run of five podium finishes in his next 10 Grand Tour starts.

Evans podiumed at all three of cycling's Grand Tours, three times at the Tour de France — including his memorable 2011 triumph — as well as third-place finishes at the Giro in 2013 and Vuelta in 2009.

However, some credit too has to go to those who helped establish the Tour Down Under in 1999, and those who turned it into a top-tier UCI race by 2009, attracting the best riders from around the world.

Richie Porte is a two-time winner of the Tour Down Under and, after a seven-year lack of Grand Tour podiums, it was he who kick-started Australia's recent run with his long overdue podium at the 2020 Tour de France.

That was followed swiftly by Hindley's second place at the Giro and then, the following year, Jack Haig finished a superb third at the Vuelta a España.

That means three different Australian riders have taken four of a possible 21 Grand Tour podium places since 2020.

Only the five accumulated by Slovenian duo Tadej Pojačar and Primož Roglič betters that — although the British equal the Australians in terms of variety, with three different British riders claiming three podium places in that same period.

It's a stunning recent record and, as Michael Storer's two stage wins and mountains classification jersey win at last year's Vuelta shows, the future looks pretty bright too.

Storer also won the Tour de l'Ain last year and came second in this year's Tour of the Alps behind Romain Bardet — and comfortably ahead of his illustrious compatriot, Porte.

Need more cause for optimism?

Ben O'Connor finished a hugely credible fourth at last year's Tour de France and is targeting this year's race as well, although is keeping an open mind as to whether he can replicate his success.

Add to that names like Lucas Hamilton at Bike Exchange and highly rated neo-pro Luke Plapp at Ineos Grenadiers, and it seems like all of Australian cycling fans' Christmases have turned up at once.

For now, though, the future of Australian cycling is here, personified by Jai Hindley, brightly clad in the famous Maglia Rosa.