"Any given cycling season only truly begins once everyone gets to see images of star riders holding little baby joeys, and the first WorldTour race of the season also features a kangaroo as its mascot (Oppy, per the TDU, "represents dedication, grit and an enduring passion for cycling"). The point is to play to the rest of the world's mild, smirking affection for kangaroos, in a mostly successful effort to show part of what makes Australia unique."
""They were quite big-I wasn't expecting that," Brennan said. "I just looked to the right and I saw this big animal. I thought, 'Oh, you're not meant to be here.' All the Aussie boys were like, 'They come in pairs,' and then all of a sudden the second one comes along and decides he's going to throw himself in front of the peloton. So we had two sacrificial kangaroos today.""
"it is fair to meet the news with more amusement than horror. However, this not a whimsical story. Roughly one-third of the way through the fifth and final stage of the race, two kangaroos leapt into the main pack. Video of the incident picks up shortly after it happened, with one large kangaroo shown writhing around then leaping through and out of the peloton."
The Tour Down Under prominently uses kangaroo imagery, including riders posing with joeys and a mascot named Oppy. During the fifth and final stage, two kangaroos leapt into the peloton roughly one-third of the way through the race, with video showing a large kangaroo writhing and then leaping through and out of the pack. British rider Matthew Brennan won the stage and described surprise at the animals' size and number. Several riders crashed and abandoned, including Menno Huising, Lucas Stevenson, and Alberto Dainese. The race-winning UAE team was particularly affected by the incident.
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