There is never any shortage of Australian cyclists dreaming of a mid-year escape to Europe where both the racing and weather are heating up, but Luke Plapp decided to do the reverse, as he recovered from a satisfying, although illness hit, showing at the Giro d’Italia and prepares for the next big goal of the season, the Olympic Games.
The target, which now sits in the rearview mirror, was all about building to the future, the one ahead, a goal from the past. Plapp went to his first Olympic Games in Tokyo on the track, walking away with a bronze in the Team Pursuit after a tumultuous qualifying saw one of his teammates, Alex Porter, hit the boards when a handlebar broke and the re-run time then left Australia out of contention for the gold medal, though they fought back to secure bronze.
After that COVID-19-delayed Olympics in 2021, there was a sense that the Victorian would be back on the boards in Paris given there was "unfinished business", but a lot can change in three years.
Plapp launched from the track to road racing and the WorldTour and his performances, aspirations and career commitments evolved. However, the rider from the sport-loving nation where the spotlight on WorldTour cycling is so much fainter than the halogen-like glow surrounding the competition that plays out every four years didn't abandon his Olympic aspirations – the backdrop for them just changed.
“I ride a bike for the Olympics,” Plapp told Cyclingnews from his home base in Australia in June as he began to intensify his focus on Paris. “That’s the biggest thing for me and what drives me as an athlete and it has done since Tokyo.”
This time around, as he lines up for his second Olympics, Plapp will be leaving Sam Welsford, Kelland O'Brien, Conor Leahy and Oliver Bleddyn to chase the gold medal in the team pursuit, with the rider who started out learning the craft of bike racing on the outdoor velodrome of the Brunswick Cycling Club instead lining up for Australia on the road.
Plapp will be in a support role in the men's road race on Saturday August 3, but first he will carry the hopes of the nation in the men's individual time trial on Saturday July 27 – or for those working in Australian time the early hours of Sunday July 28.
From Italy to Bright to Paris
A win in the national time trial in Ballarat as a 20-year-old in 2021, after he shifted up to the elite ranks early, was the confirmation of his potential in the discipline. Then the recouping of the title again at the start of 2024, despite a bike swap due to a mechanical, was a clear statement of intent. The new Jayco-AlUla rider was clearly among the front runners for the Olympic Games selection, but on the road this time instead of within the velodrome.
Still, Plapp was taking nothing for granted when we spoke to him in the run-up to the selection announcements, but the accomplished performance in the time trial at Road Nationals back in January demonstrated that he had meticulously prepared and was going all in to firstly secure the Olympic Games slot and then deliver when he got there.
"I guess from the start of the year, and last year, we really built up as a team, really targeting the TT at nationals and those steps and those processes," said Plapp last month.
The roads near the alpine community of Bright in regional Victoria were where his preparation for the successful summer season of 2024 had unfolded, led him to both a recouping of the time trial national title and a third road national title in a row. It was also here, on his patch of tranquil Australian bushland, that in June, he began to hone the focus on the next big goal of the season after unwinding from a confidence-building Giro d'Italia.
"I went into it sort of wanting to see how long I could survive on GC but with also an eye on the TTs," said Plapp. "We went around as a team, and talked about what we wanted to achieve and I said, look, I'd like to stay on GC in the first week and have a crack at the white jersey in that first TT and how that worked out was pretty amazing."
It was just his second Grand Tour, but he managed to wear the white jersey for a day, take to the podium on stage 6, and come seventh and fifth in the time trials. Even after riding through illness in the second week he still managed to recover enough to not only finish but also secure another top-5 spot in the third last stage, despite some inconvenient 'poop stops' costing him some time.
"We did a lot of wind tunnel testing and testing on the TT bike before Paris-Nice" – where he came sixth overall – "and also before the Giro, so we had one eye on performing in the Giro at the TTs but knowing that that was only going to be beneficial for the Olympics and then now since the Giro I’ve ridden the TT bike every single day actually," he said in June. "I’ll continue to do that all the way up until the Olympics."
In hindsight, the time trial was perhaps an inevitable path for the rider who, in 2018 as a junior, was second only to Remco Evenepoel at the World Championships time trial and then, in 2021, took the runner-up slot in the rainbow race again in the U23 category, that time to Johan Price-Pejtersen. It's clearly a discipline Plapp is suited to and that also meshes well with the 23-year-old's road ambitions, with his path as a potential GC contender at Grand Tours looking clearer as each season progresses.
"It’s really been a TT focused year, but at the same time, TTs are what I love in this sport," said Plapp. "I love the science and those one percenters and I really sort of believe that who puts the most time in off the bike around the TTs gets those results, so if you are really obsessive over it, it pays off in the end."
Monkey off the back
The 2024 proof of the time trial efforts paying off may have started with his second national title victory, but the rider always seems to have the ability to perform in Australia, something that was also evident when the WorldTour teams came flocking to sign him after a breakthrough performance as he rode alongside Richie Porte at the Santos Festival of Cycling.
His contentment on home terrain is clear and it's success as a build up location a reason that he may have taken the somewhat unusual move to take a mid-winter sojourn in the cooling winter climate of the southern hemisphere rather than the warming temperatures of Europe.
However, at times there have been some hurdles when transferring performance in the race against the clock elsewhere. It started with his first time trial outside his home nation as a WorldTour rider in 2022—when he crashed in recon at the UAE Tour and ended up having to take on the time trial on his road bike—and the hiccups carried on through to Europe with the rider unable, initially, to work his way into the top 10 at any of the occasional individual time trial opportunities that came along. The seventh and fifth places in the Giro time trials, however, changed that.
“It was a bit of confirmation about the preparation we did for those TTs, the recons and the equipment and also behind the scenes with the team, it was really good to see all that paying off," said Plapp. It's also "huge for the confidence leading into, the Olympics because, for one reason or another, I've always seemed to struggle in time trials in Europe, so to get that monkey off the back as such, was really, really pleasing.”
The Olympic Games time trial, playing out on a flat 32.4km course in Paris, will be just the second time the 23-year-old has represented Australia in the discipline as an elite category rider. Plapp lined up for the nation at the Wollongong World Championships and, on a course that didn't suit, came a solid 12th in the elite men's category, but a now retired Rohan Dennis and Jay Vine – who is currently still recovering from a nasty crash in April – chased time trial results for Australia at the last World Championships.
The 2024 national champion, however, was the obvious Olympics choice, and the rider seems likely to again also line up for the nation at the World Championships in Zurich – which also has a road race course that plays more to his climbing strengths. The Olympic Games road race of 273km long with 2,800 metres of climbing, however, delivers a punchier circuit, and as such, the three-man Australian team will be concentrating their efforts on Michael Matthews – known as Bling.
"I know Bling super well and also know that on a big stage there’s not many better in the world that can stand up and perform like him,” said Plapp in a pre-Olympics media statement from Jayco-AlUla. “There’s a lot of confidence as well to know that’s our role to help Bling and he’s a proven performer on that stage."
"I’m looking forward to focusing on my TT, then those guys get in a couple of days afterwards and we’ve got a week of working together and trying to do the ultimate with Bling. One thing that he doesn’t have on his palmarès is an Olympic medal. I think he really believes in it and it’s quite special knowing me and Clarky [Simon Clarke] are there to help him achieve that goal.”
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