Eleven years after Luke Durbridge took his first win in the elite men's road race at the AusCycling Road National Championships, the 33-year-old Jayco-AlUla rider claimed another - and this time it was in an emotional victory on home roads as the race for green and gold made the move to Perth.
It may have been a different course, but for a second year running, two Jayco-AlUla riders were out front heading toward the line at the end of the 177km race.
Durbridge had gone out early, but his lead looked like it was beginning to falter after a monumental solo effort until the winner of the last three titles in a row, Luke Plapp, jumped across to his teammate and nursed him through that final lap.
"It's one of the proudest moments of my life, I was in the zone all day and I just got so much support and so much love," Durbridge said in an interview on race broadcaster SBS, during which the jubilation of the home crowd was also clear.
"I've just got to thank Luke Plapp, in the end there it was looking pretty dire straits and he was a true champion there. I don't know what would have happened if he didn't come across but he gave that to me and I really can't thank him enough for that."
Plapp came over the line second in Kings Park, hanging back so his teammate who so often in his career goes all out for the wins of others could enjoy his own. 58 seconds later Liam Walsh (CCACHE x Bodywrap) charged over the line having charged ahead of his rivals in the chase group to claim the final podium spot.
Brady Gilmore (Israel-Premier Tech) then led the next group of six over the line which also included pre-race favourites Jay Vine (UAE Team Emirates) and Jai Hindley (Red Bull-Bora Hansgrohe).
Many, however didn't make it over the finish line of the race which took in 13 laps of a loop that swept through Kings Park, past the Swan River and into the city centre with only 26 of the 65 starters finishing the brutally tough race.
Among those not making it through was one of the key favourites, Perth local Sam Welsford (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe). The criterium title winner had a crash early in the race, leaving him with lots of skin missing from his thigh, a graze across his ungloved hands and a chase back to the peloton on his hands. Welsford made it back and kept fighting for the title, until finally abandoning late in the race.
How it unfolded
The race which played out on a 13.6km loop, with 193m of elevation gain each lap, was the final title to be awarded in the event that signalled a new era for the Australia National Championships, with the long-term home of Ballarat passing the baton to Perth for 2025, 2026 and 2027. The course had a slightly lower amount of climbing than Ballarat, but it nonetheless had plenty of punchy climbs, with gradients topping out at 12% to provide a challenge in the final kilometres of each lap.
The elite men’s field had the advantage of having watched the women’s and U23 men’s road race play out already, with both delivering a clear message: don’t let the early break get too much of an advantage because this was a course where there was no such thing as an easy chase.
Before the race had even cut through the 5km mark, a key move got away with two of the best-represented teams on the move as the powerful Western Australia duo of Durbridge and Olympic gold medallist on the track, Conor Leahy (CCACHE x Bodywrap) got away.
Not all was going well for the Western Australian riders, though, as another of the key home-state favourites, Welsford, crashed in the early stages of the race. He made it back to the peloton and as the race started to draw closer to the halfway mark even jumped into a chase group of six, which included Liam Walsh (CCACHE x Bodywrap), Matthew May (Cycling Development Foundation), Blake Quick (Roojai Insurance), Leighton Cook (Velofit) and Michael Hepburn (Jayco-AlUla).
They were in pursuit and making up some ground when with 82km to go the leading group of two turned into a solo effort for Durbridge, as Leahy was unable to hang on. There was, however, not a lot of comfort taken from that in the bunch given the strength of the solo rider and a gap that was still at over three minutes.
The attacks kept rolling, the chase group was swept up and the peloton was being shredded. At 70km to go there were little more than 20 riders left in the lead bunch and there was a strong group of Jayco-AlUla riders among them to disrupt the pursuit.
Still the surges and attacks continued but Durbridge maintained his composure and most of his gap out the front, with the margin at around two-and-a-half minutes with around 40km and three laps to go. However, it was before that eleventh lap was over that Jay Vine (UAE Team Emirates) decided it was time to put the pressure on, and the lead dipped another minute, and so did numbers in the group of riders pursuing Durbridge, having fallen to about a dozen. That group, however, still included many dangerous riders among it, from Jai Hindley (Red Bull-Bora Hansgrohe) to Durbridge’s teammate and defending champion Luke Plapp.
At around 15km to go, near the end of the second last lap, the big move came from the winner of the title for the last three years, as with the gap shrinking to Durbridge Plapp decided his teammate was now both within reach and in danger from his rivals.
It was a huge charge from the Victorian rider to quickly make the junction, so the two Jayco-AlUla riders could now work together out the front for the final lap. Durbridge sat on Plapp’s wheel for a start, catching his breath so he could take a turn on the flat section.
Behind Vine and Hindley were leading the charge in the chase group, determined not to let the race slip away easily. However, there wasn’t a lot of momentum among the rest of the group, playing into the hands of the two Lukes who were working their way to the finish line up the front.
Durbridge was clearly feeling the long effort at the head of the race on the final climbs, but Plapp slowed and encouraged him on. He carefully looked behind to see that there was enough of a gap as he shepherded an emotional Durbridge to the line to take a win that provided a touching finale to the 2025 Road National Championships in Perth.
Results
Results powered by FirstCycling
