Australian champion Luke Plapp swapped the green and gold of his national champion’s jersey for yellow after moving into the race lead of Paris-Nice on stage four.
Plapp rode away from the group of favourites on the penultimate climb of the day, initially going solo. The Team Jayco AlUla rider gained around 15 seconds on the chasers before he was joined by Santiago Buitrago.
The pair worked well together and the elastic finally snapped going into the last climb, allowing the gap to grow out to an unbeatable size. While Buitrago had the legs on the toughest section of the final climb, Plapp didn’t panic.
The Australian paced his way up the climb of Mont Brouilly with a big prize in his sights. With the chasers still almost 40 seconds behind, Plapp had plenty of space to breathe as the line loomed into sight and he rode himself into the overall lead in his debut appearance at Paris-Nice. He now holds a 13-second lead over Buitrago into the overall classification.
Chris Harper makes it two Team Jayco AlUla riders in the top 10 in the GC. Harper finished within the group of favourites and is seventh overall at 46 seconds behind his teammate.
Luke Plapp (Yellow jersey)
“I really tried to race that last climb like a time trial and race it to the line and I think that gave me the best time possible rather than if I raced it and then blew up. It was awesome having Hayman in the back and the team were awesome today. I was at the back a bit today, but the boys got me up there when it mattered. I’m blown away by how it unfolded to be honest. It was quite a weird way that it all played out, but I am really happy.
It’s been a nice start and hopefully we will have a sprint stage for Dylan as well. It’s really exciting. We have such a diverse team here that every day we’re here to win, whether it is a sprint stage, the TTT yesterday or today. It’s really good fun racing with the team.
I think this is the first bit of rain I’ve had in about four months since I left Europe, let’s see what the weather is on Saturday. Hopefully it is sunny, but we’ll look towards the sprint tomorrow and then we’ll think about the weekend. This is more than I ever could have imagined and anything else now is a bonus. We’ll just take it day by day.”
2024 Paris-Nice stage four results
1 Santiago Buitrago 04:25:52
2 Luke Plapp (Team Jayco AlUla) +00:10
3 Mattias Skjelmose +00:37
General classification after stage 4
1 Luke Plapp (Team Jayco AlUla) 13:15:04
2 Santiago Buitrago +00:13
3 Brandon McNulty +00:27
Photo: Sprint Cycling
