{"id":49921,"date":"2025-04-03T15:42:17","date_gmt":"2025-04-03T15:42:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/greenedgecycling.com\/2024\/?p=49921"},"modified":"2025-04-03T15:52:40","modified_gmt":"2025-04-03T15:52:40","slug":"plapps-comeback-luke-plapp-returns-from-injury-to-snatch-first-ever-european-win-in-greece","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/greenedgecycling.com\/2026\/plapps-comeback-luke-plapp-returns-from-injury-to-snatch-first-ever-european-win-in-greece\/","title":{"rendered":"PLAPP\u2019S COMEBACK: Luke Plapp returns from injury to snatch debut European win in Greece"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Luke Plapp<\/strong> delivered Team Jayco AlUla<\/strong> a fantastic victory on stage two of the International Tour of Hellas<\/strong>. The 24-year-old Australian beat Harold Martin L\u00f3pez in a sprint-a-deux in the 177km stage in Greece. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For Plapp, the win is a big boost as the International Tour of Hellas is the Australian\u2019s first race back after surgery in early February.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During yesterday\u2019s stage, Team Jayco AlUla came agonizingly close to victory with\u00a0Dylan Groenewegen<\/strong> (2nd), and today, turned things around with a blistering move off the front of the bunch to victory, giving the team every reason to celebrate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After the break of the day was caught, the race fans were treated to an attractive finale with numerous attacks. On the final climb to Arachova (21.6km, 3.9% average gradient), Plapp closed the gap to two leaders before going on the attack himself. The 24-year-old had L\u00f3pez behind him who managed to join the Australian just two kilometres from the finish line. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Plapp proved to have recovered sufficiently from his efforts in the short remainder of the stage to beat the Ecuadorian in a sprint.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The win marks the Australian\u2019s first victory in Europe and moreover, a great success coming already in his very first race back after his early-season injury.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Plapp now leads the points and mountains classification and occupies second place in the general classification. The International Tour of Hellas will continue until Sunday.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Luke Plapp – Stage 2 winner<\/u><\/strong><\/strong>
\u201cThis win means a lot to me. The season started with a setback, which put me out of racing for a while. To take this win straight away in the first race after my comeback gives me a very good feeling and a lot of motivation for the rest of the Tour of Hellas and the other races ahead.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe played the game perfectly as a team today. In the first part, while the break had a gap of a few minutes, we kept control every time. We knew this stage was all about the final climb. Luckily my legs were still good enough to push out a firm sprint at the end.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

2025 International Tour of Hellas stage 2 results:<\/u><\/strong>
1. Luke Plapp (Team Jayco AlUla) 4:37:39
2. Harold Martin L\u00f3pez\u00a0ST
3. Marcin Budzinski + 00\u201909<\/p>\n\n\n\n

General Classification after stage 2:<\/u><\/strong>
1. Harold Martin L\u00f3pez\u00a0\u00a0
2. Luke Plapp + 00\u201903 (Team Jayco AlUla)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Photo: Sprint Cycling<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Luke Plapp delivered Team Jayco AlUla a fantastic victory on stage two of the International Tour of Hellas. The 24-year-old Australian beat Harold Martin L\u00f3pez in a sprint-a-deux in the 177km stage in…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":49922,"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\/49921"}],"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=49921"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/greenedgecycling.com\/2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49921\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49927,"href":"https:\/\/greenedgecycling.com\/2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49921\/revisions\/49927"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greenedgecycling.com\/2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49922"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/greenedgecycling.com\/2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49921"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greenedgecycling.com\/2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49921"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greenedgecycling.com\/2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49921"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}