After a short break following a busy Australian summer, Luke Plapp will show off his Aussie national champion’s jersey in Europe for the first time at Paris-Nice.

Plapp headlines a strong Team Jayco AlUla squad at the eight-day race alongside his compatriot Chris Harper. Both riders will be looking to shine in the stage three team time trial as well as the tough final stages close to Nice.

Paris-Nice, also known as the ‘Race to the Sun’, does what it says in the name and takes the riders from the outskirts of France’s capital down to the south coast. It sets off on the 3rd March and will arrive at its destination on 10th March.

The race gets progressively harder as it develops, moving from the early sprint stages to the team time trial. A string of undulating days follows while the most challenging days are reserved for the final weekend.

With a varied terrain across the whole race, the Australian team brings a line-up to match. Dylan Groenewegen has his eyes set on the opening sprint days of the race, shepherded by Elmar Reinders and Luka Mezgec.

Michael Matthews will be targeting the rolling stages later in the week, while experienced Luke Durbridge rounds out the line-up as the road captain.

Luke Plapp:
“It’s been a great little block, starting in Australia and then having a good few weeks up on the volcano in Tenerife. I’m really excited to race my first Paris-Nice and ride with a few new boys on the team. It will be my first time riding with Dylan and his leadout crew and I’m also really looking forward to mixing it with Chris Harper on the climbs. I think we have a super strong team for this week.

The team time trial is probably my favourite discipline in cycling so I can’t wait to have a crack at that. The Paris-Nice time trial is super special with how you only need to get one rider to the finish line. There’s definitely going to be a bit of weather so we’ll see how that goes and, but hopefully, towards the weekend we will race towards the sun. When mountains come, hopefully the better weather will too, and we’ll be able to race for GC.

The plan for the race will be to try and win some sprints with Dylan and be up there as high as possible on the GC with both myself and Chris. It’ll be my first stage race of the year, I didn’t get to finish the Tour Down Under due to a crash, so I’m really looking forward to getting through it and seeing how the work has been going up on the volcano and what kind of shape I’m in.”

Mathew Hayman (Sport Director):
“We come into Paris-Nice with quite a strong team. Quite a few of the guys have been preparing at altitude and will come down to race. Luke Plapp and Chris Harper, who both featured at the national championships and the Tour Down Under, have had a bit of a break and they’ll come back into competition. The backend of Paris-Nice is quite hilly as we get towards Nice and those guys will be looking to those hilly stages and, of course, we’ve got Dylan Groenewegen for the flat days. He comes with some of his trusted leadout guys in Elmar Reinders and Luka Mezgec.

Rounding out the team we have Michael Matthews who can go for the more intermediate stages, the more puncheur style stages and Luke Durbridge as a trusted road captain and lieutenant on the road. It’s a really good team. The course is really interesting this year and it’s going to be quite challenging.”

Photo: Sprint Cycling