The appearance of Jay Vine (UAE Team Emirates) on the men's elite time trial start list at the AusCycling Road National Championships wasn't enough to stop the green and gold run of Luke Plapp (Jayco-AlUla), who won the race against the clock and guaranteed he'll get to ride in the colours of the Australian champion for another year.
Plapp claimed his third time trial title on Thursday – matching his current road tally – with the shift in location of the National Championships to Perth and the addition of a ferocious challenger not enough to break his stride.
The Jayco-AlUla rider quickly established a lead as he set off from the start line of the Bold Park course to take on four laps of the 9.8km loop with 109m of elevation gain each lap. By the first pass, he was already nearly 20 seconds up on Vine and it hovered around that mark for the next two laps.
"I went out pretty hard," Plapp, who had to have a considerable hiatus after crashing in the Olympic Games time trial last year, told reporters in Perth. "I wanted to make sure I was in the race early and It's been a while since a good TT - especially since the Games - so I wanted to get out and get ahead of the race and I knew that would be better for my head if I was ahead of the race."
Vine, however, was closing in the final lap.
"Then it was just a matter of holding on," said Plapp. "I was super stoked to get it done in the end."
The defending champion finished nearly nine seconds ahead of Vine with a time of 46.33 on the 38.4km course and secured another year wearing green and gold, one consistent feature in his kit every year since 2021 when he claimed the first of his three elite time trial titles.
Plapp and Vine hadn't before met in the race against the clock at the National Championships, with Vine claiming the title on his debut at the event in Plapp's absence in 2023. Plapp then took the title back again in 2024, an edition when Vine wasn't on the start line, setting up an intriguing showdown in 2025.
"It's my favourite event in the world, the Nationals TT," said Plapp in a team social media post. "I love training over the summer here in Aus focussing on this event and it's super special to go back-to-back with the team."
The only riders within a minute of the times of Plapp and Vine were the former's Jayco-AlUla teammates Kelland O'Brien – who came third with a time 55 seconds behind Plapp – and Chris Harper, who was a further four seconds back.
The focus for Plapp and Vine will now turn to Sunday's 177km elite men's road race centred around Kings Park. Plapp has won the last three road titles in a row but is facing a different 'tactical' course in 2025 as the race moves away from Buninyong after two decades of calling Ballarat and its surroundings home.
Still, no matter what happens in the road race Plapp has already fulfilled a key aim for the National Championships, telling Cyclingnews in December that "Basically, I'd like to have one of them," he said referring to the national titles. "If I can't have the roadie again, the TT would be nice but if we can make it with someone from the team, that'd be just as good."
Before the road race, however, many of the fast finishing riders will turn their attention to Friday's criterium which will play out on a 1.2-kilometre course in Northbridge, with the elite men racing in the evening for 60 minutes and two laps.
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