Three years ago a critical win in Lobethal at the Santos Festival of Cycling got the momentum rolling on a stellar domestic season that launched Luke Plapp into the WorldTour.
On Wednesday the Jayco AlUla rider tried to take his first WorldTour victor in Lobethal, inspired by his 2021 performance.
Plapp’s stinging attack on stage 2’s final climb of Fox Creek, with under 10km to go, dropped rider after rider with Julian Alaphilippe (Soudal-QuickStep) among those trying to follow but fading away. When Plapp started powering down the descent to the line, it looked almost like a carbon copy of his 2021 winning scenario, except for one thing – he wasn’t alone.
“To be honest I watched that replay a couple of times last week and focused on this stage a lot leading up to here,” the Australian champion said in Lobethal.
“I did a few recons and I really like that climb … just unfortunately Johnny [Jhonatan Narváez], who is probably one of the fastest in this bunch, was there.”
Had it been almost any one of the other 138 riders in the Tour Down Under peloton, the move may have had a chance. But Narváez, who clearly demonstrated his speed in a reduced group sprint at the Down Under Classic on Saturday, was not a rider Plapp and Jayco AlUla could allow to take bonus seconds or open a time gap.
“There were two people that we got told I can’t ride with and that was Corbin [Strong] and Johnny, so to see him there was really annoying,” said Plapp.
“I guess it was like, ‘what could have been’ if he wasn’t there, but he is a class act.”
Narváez’s presence forced Plapp sat up, pointing to his earpiece to indicate that he was being told not to work with the Ineos Grenadiers rider, who had until a month ago been a teammate.
Narváez was clearly frustrated by the Australian’s decision not to help consolidate the gap in a move he had begun. The first thing Plapp did when he came back to the team area was walk straight up to the Ineos Grenadiers vehicles, parked alongside Jayco-AlUla to explain his tactics, before coming to talk to the waiting reporters – Cyclingnews among them.
“There was a bit of language spoken on the descent there – why I wasn’t working so I was just saying sorry,” said Plapp when asked what the conversation was about.
“They are really good mates and he is a really nice guy so I was just trying to let him know I wasn’t trying to be a dick to him.”
Plapp’s stage tactic were designed to help his new team…
Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at CyclingNews RSS Feed…