{"id":46501,"date":"2024-05-26T17:47:41","date_gmt":"2024-05-26T17:47:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/greenedgecycling.com\/2024\/?p=46501"},"modified":"2024-05-29T16:27:05","modified_gmt":"2024-05-29T16:27:05","slug":"giro-wrap-up-team-jayco-alula-reflect-on-a-mixed-bag-giro-ditalia-with-many-valuable-lessons-learnt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/greenedgecycling.com\/2026\/giro-wrap-up-team-jayco-alula-reflect-on-a-mixed-bag-giro-ditalia-with-many-valuable-lessons-learnt\/","title":{"rendered":"GIRO WRAP-UP: Team Jayco AlUla reflect on a ‘mixed bag’ Giro d’Italia with many valuable lessons learnt"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Team Jayco AlUla<\/strong> concluded a Giro d\u2019Italia<\/strong> of mixed fortunes and \u2018what ifs\u2019 as the team battled through the elements and adversity on the three-week journey to Rome. One thing which stood out was Australian champion Luke Plapp<\/strong>‘s talent and determination, giving the Australian outfit even more confidence in the 23-year-old’s bright future ahead and especially his time trialling abilities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The squad was dealt a huge blow as early as stage two with general classification contender Eddie Dunbar<\/strong> forced to abandon following a crash, but despite the setback the team bounced back as they went on the hunt for stage wins and formed an unlikely GC goal.

Despite the early misfortune, the group walked away from the first Grand Tour of the year with eight top-10 finishes, many lessons learnt and experienced gained.

Bouncing Back<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In just his second ever Grand Tour, ‘Plappy’ showed his grit with a daring ride on the gravel roads of Tuscany on stage six as he made the decisive breakaway before fighting to third place on a brutal day of racing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The rider from Melbourne then backed up his ride just a day later in the monstrous 40km time trial as he powered around the course to a top-10 finish with an impressive ride to seventh place that earned him a special day in the best young rider\u2019s jersey.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Luke Plapp:
<\/span>\u201cOverall, I’m pretty happy, I came here to try ride a bit higher on GC, but unfortunately I got quite sick in the middle week, but I think to be sitting here in Rome now with three top fives, and one seventh place, I think I made the most of it.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was really, really happy with my TT performances, we put a lot of work into that with the team so that was really pleasing to see that pay off and to also get into the two major breakaways of the Giro. There wasn’t as many breakaways that went this year and to be in two of them on two pretty spectacular stages, I was really happy.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I enjoyed the route, I think it was really backend heavy as it usually is, but we were really fortunate during the first two weeks with the weather and then it all hit us at once when we got to the Dolomites. So it’s been a really, really hard last week, but I have enjoyed it, I don’t know when I’ll be back next, but I would like to be back.\u201d<\/em>

Italian Pride<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite missing their GC leader, the team continued to fight on and by stage 10, former Italian champion and Giro stage winner Filippo Zana<\/strong> moved himself into the top-10 overall, with a strong and determined climbing performance on the tough summit finish of Bocca della Selva.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, veteran Italian Alessandro De Marchi <\/strong>constantly made a series attempts to infiltrate the various breakaways throughout the first two weeks of racing, but the peloton was unforgiving in this year\u2019s edition as the 38-year-old continued to chase that elusive Giro stage victory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Filippo Zana:
<\/span>\u201cOverall I\u2019m happy, it has been a new experience for me to try to ride for the GC at a Grand Tour, and I think we did a good Giro. Yes, the 20th stage was hard for me and we lost the top-10 overall by one or two minutes. It was a hard day for me, but it\u2019s ok, I think it’s an experience for the next years.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have learned to suffer, I have been suffering a lot, but yeah I’m happy and for sure I’m stronger after this Giro and we will see this at the other races in the future.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mixed Bag<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The final week brought with it grizzly weather conditions alongside a brutal selection of mountainous stages. The full team dug deep, 100% committed to the final goals of the race, and Zana once again mixed it with the GC contenders for as long as possible, while De Marchi and Plapp went in search of stage glory in the breakaways after selfless assistance from their teammates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Plapp was able to force himself into the breakaway on a spectacular stage 19 on his way to another fifth place finish, while two ascents of the Monte Grappa pushed Zana to his absolute limit on the penultimate stage. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

David McPartland (Sports Director):
<\/span>\u201cThis year’s Giro d\u2019Italia has been a bit of a mixed bag for us, we’ve had a lot of good placings and top-10s on stages, but obviously the big hit for us was on stage two with Eddie Dunbar crashing out.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eddie was our leader here for the general classification so we had to reset our goals a little bit and then Filippo Zana really impressed. He was on target there for the first half of the race and was up there on general classification so we pursued that goal of him riding the GC and it looked really good until stage 20 where he lost a bit of time and unfortunately just fell out of the top-10<\/em>, concluding with 11th place.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then on the front there with Luke Plapp, he did a really good job for only his second ever Grand Tour and his first Giro d\u2019Italia, the results that he got for us there were really good and he really showed us his talent and I think we can expect a lot from him in the coming years.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Team Jayco AlUla concluded a Giro d\u2019Italia of mixed fortunes and \u2018what ifs\u2019 as the team battled through the elements and adversity on the three-week journey to Rome. One…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":46503,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[296,386],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/greenedgecycling.com\/2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46501"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/greenedgecycling.com\/2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/greenedgecycling.com\/2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greenedgecycling.com\/2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greenedgecycling.com\/2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46501"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/greenedgecycling.com\/2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46501\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":46521,"href":"https:\/\/greenedgecycling.com\/2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46501\/revisions\/46521"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greenedgecycling.com\/2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46503"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/greenedgecycling.com\/2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46501"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greenedgecycling.com\/2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46501"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greenedgecycling.com\/2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46501"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}