Luke Plapp: World Championships time trial 'a bit of a lottery'

Luke Plapp goes deep near the finish
Luke Plapp (Australia) on his way to silver in the U23 TT at the World Championships in 2021 (Image credit: Getty Images)

Luke Plapp is about to race his first UCI Road World Championships in the elite category and he is doing it on home soil while carrying the nation’s hopes in the elite men’s time trial. It’s a big task at the best of times but even more so just a week out of his first ever Grand Tour, the Vuelta a España.

The 21-year-old Australian road champion, who also won the national time trial title in 2021, is Australia's sole representative in a category it is used to entering with high hopes, given it usually has 2018 and 2019 victor Rohan Dennis in its colours. However, with Dennis ruling himself out, the task of chasing rainbows is falling to last year's U23 silver medallist just after the neo-pro has also completed the longest race of his career, by far, in Spain.

Simone Giuliani
Australia Editor

Simone is a degree-qualified journalist that has accumulated decades of wide-ranging experience while working across a variety of leading media organisations. She joined Cyclingnews as a Production Editor at the start of the 2021 season and has now moved into the role of Australia Editor. Previously she worked as a freelance writer, Australian Editor at Ella CyclingTips and as a correspondent for Reuters and Bloomberg. Cycling was initially purely a leisure pursuit for Simone, who started out as a business journalist, but in 2015 her career focus also shifted to the sport.