Six-time Australian champion Luke Plapp has gone it alone to deliver a solo cycling masterpiece and blast to an outstanding maiden Grand Tour triumph on the eighth stage of the Giro d’Italia.
The 24-year-old from Melbourne made his decisive attack on the 197km mountainous route from Giulianova with 46km still left to left to go to the finish in Castelraimondo on Saturday.
Yet his power and huge engine enabled him to leave his fellow breakaway riders in the dust on a steep climb before he negotiated more ascents to go on and earn his first ever WorldTour win.
“It’s crazy,” said “Plappy”, the rider from Australian team Jayco AlUla, putting his hands to his head in almost disbelief as he crossed the line following almost four and three-quarter hours in the saddle to win by 38 seconds.
He was the second Australian winner on the 108th edition of the Giro, two days after Kaden Groves sprinted to victory on stage six in Naples.
It also represented a wonderful comeback for Plapp, three times a winner of the Australian road race and a triple national time trial champion, after a disrupted 2025 campaign when he had to undergo surgery on his injured wrist.
He had also crashed on just the second stage of the Giro in Albania when he had been flying on his time trial route.
Wilco Kelderman of Visma-Lease a Bike was second while XDS-Astana’s Italian hope Diego Ulissi came in third to take the overall leader’s pink jersey from Juan Ayuso.
It left the Italian screaming in delight at earning the top prize in his nation’s biggest race when he was told the “Maglia Rosa” was his.
https://thewest.com.au/sport/cycling/happy-plappy-aussie-star-solos-to-glory-at-the-giro-c-18728433
