Luke Plapp takes third elite men's Australian road title in a row

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Luke Plapp won his third elite men's road race at the Federation University Australian Road National Championships in a row, bringing the jersey back to his new team, Jayco-AlUla after he and teammate Chris Harper clipped off the front with more than 100km to go.

With such a big gap the Jayco-AlUla pair had had time to chat and celebrate en route to victory, with Plapp ultimately clinching gold and Harper adding a silver medal to the one he claimed in 2019 with BridgeLane before heading to the WorldTour.

It then came down to a sprint of three, minutes later, to decide who would take bronze in the 185.6km race -  which marked both the end of the titles battle for another year and the end of the Ballarat area's nearly two-decade reign as home of the National Championships.

Kelland O'Brien took the sprint comfortably, making it a clean sweep of the podium for Jayco-AIUAa even as Australia's only WorldTour team also secured the national road race title for the first time since 2021.

“We were able to counter off all the amazing work the team did for us," said Plapp. "They set us up beautifully. I don’t think it was ever in the plan to go that early but me and Chris had some amazing legs and we just made the most of it.” 

Earlier in the Championships Plapp also won the elite time trial, recapturing the jersey for the race against the clock that he last wore in 2021, while Caleb Ewan claimed his fourth criterium title and started off his return to the Australian squad with a victory. That meant the Australian WorldTour team delivered both a clean sweep of the elite men's titles as well as a clean sweep of the men's road race and time trial podiums.

How it unfolded

The rain that had been present for the Elite/U23 women’s race cleared before the elite men's event set off, once the course had been cleared of a handful of protesters targeting the presence of the Israel-Premier Tech team.

There may have been 16 laps of an 11.6km circuit including the pivotal Mount Buninyong Road climb to shape the race but there was no waiting for the latter stages to spur the action. The peloton was blown apart early and a big part of the field removed from contention.

Plapp, Miles Scotson (Arkéa-B&B) and Simon Clarke (Israel-Premier Tech) were in the lead with 130km to go, but that group swelled to eight – Jayco-AlUla holding the advantage with three riders in the group after Harper bridged from the chase behind.

He turned out to be a valuable ally in the next round of attacks, with Plapp and Harper taking off together to build a gap of around one and a half minutes at the 100km mark of the race. They worked their way through the light rain, swapping off turns and appearing to get advice from the team car along the way to keep a lid on their enthusiasm and conserve energy for the latter stages of the race. 

By this point Jayco-AIUIa looked to be in complete control of the race, despite an early puncture for Caleb Ewan, with Plapp and Harper out front and their teammates able to sit back and let the other squads do the work.

At five laps to go there were a group of three in pursuit - Michael Storer (Tudor), Liam Walsh and Rudy Porter-  while riders who were clearly out of contention were just making the most of their last runs up Buninyong. Jensen Plowright (Alpecin-Deceuninck) was particularly active at pulling wheelies and playing up to the crowds.

With a gap of 4:30 with less than three laps to go, the duo out front looked to have it all sewn up and the positioning for bronze began behind. The chase of three containing Storer, Walsh and Porter was swept up and another trio formed containing Elliot Schultz (Team BridgeLane), Chris Hamilton (dsm-firmenich Post NL) and Kelland O’Brien (Jayco-AlUla). O’Brien’s presence, it turned out, was enough to give Jayco-AlUla the clean sweep, with Team BridgeLane's Schultz taking fourth ahead of Hamilton.

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