Wollongong 2022 rider guide: Australia's Elite Men

Learn all about the eight Elite Men selected to represent Australia at the 2022 UCI Road World Championships in Wollongong.

Photo: Rob Jones

Simon Clarke

Age: 36
Club: Carnegie Caulfield CC
State: Victoria
World Championship participations: 10

Like many of his compatriots, Simon Clarke spent the early part of his cycling career with the Australian Institute of Sport competing on track and road.

After winning the 2008 under-23 national road race championships, he began racing professionally in 2009.

In 2012, Clarke earned his first major result with Orica GreenEdge when he won a stage of the Vuelta a España from the breakaway and, to the surprise of many, also secured the mountains classification jersey. Clarke also won the Herald Sun Tour overall in 2014.

A strong all-rounder with a climbing focus and a penchant for the breakaway, Clarke transferred to the Cannondale team in 2016, where he won another mountainous stage of the Vuelta in 2018. He also began to produce results in one-day classics, placing second in the 2019 Amstel Gold Race and winning the smaller Royal Bernard Drome Classic in 2020.

At the start of 2022, Clarke was in danger of calling an end to his professional career, but he secured a last-minute contract with Israel-Premier Tech. He rewarded the team’s faith by claiming his maiden Tour de France stage victory on a gruelling cobblestone stage.

While he usually rides at the service of teammates, Clarke’s best result at a UCI Road World Championships was seventh over the hilly terrain of Florence in 2013.

Photo: Rob Jones

Luke Durbridge

Age: 31
Club: Midland CC
State: Western Australia
World Championship participations: 7

Luke Durbridge grew up in Perth and started racing as a triathlete before switching to road and track cycling.

From the beginning, Durbridge stood out as an excellent individual time triallist; a strength that he’s retained over the course of his career.

As a junior, Durbridge won three world championships on track and road, including the junior road time trial in 2009.

His power against the clock continued to show when he added the under-23 time trial world title in 2011, along with an elite world championship in the team pursuit on the track.

In 2012, ‘Durbo’ won the first of four elite time trial national titles. But in 2013, he achieved the unprecedented feat of winning both the road race and time trial national championships in the same year.

Over time, Durbridge has evolved into more than a time trial specialist. With top-five finishes in the Belgian Classics and a willingness to work hard for his team leaders in Grand Tours, the West Australian has been a versatile team member for the GreenEdge Cycling team, whom he’s raced with for the entirety of his pro career.

These will be his eighth elite World Championships for Australia, although Durbridge has also won multiple world championship medals in the team time trial with his trade team.

Photo: Casey Gibson

Heinrich Haussler

Age: 38
Club: Inverell CC
State: New South Wales
World Championship participations: 6

Heinrich Haussler is one of Australian cycling’s elder statesmen. After moving to Germany at age 14 (his father is German) he began his professional career in 2005 and raced under the German flag.

He immediately shot to prominence by winning a stage of the Vuelta a España in his first year as a pro. In 2009, he won another Grand Tour stage with a dominant solo breakaway in the Tour de France. That year, he came within centimetres of winning Milan-San Remo, beaten only by Mark Cavendish in a photo finish. He was also second at the Ronde van Vlaanderen.

In 2010, Haussler renounced his German citizenship with a goal of representing Australia, his country of birth and childhood home, at a UCI Road World Championships.

Cruelly, he missed out on Geelong 2010 due to injury, but received his first representation in the green-and-gold jersey in 2011.

In 2015, he earned a different set of green-and-gold stripes when he won the Australian road race national championship in Buninyong, beating Caleb Ewan in a reduced bunch sprint.

This September, the Classics specialist from Inverell will finally fulfil his dream of racing for Australia at a World Championships on home soil.

Photo: Casey Gibson

Jai Hindley

Age: 26
Club: Midland CC
State: Western Australia
World Championship participations: 1

Perth climber Jai Hindley enjoyed a steady progression through the junior ranks. He won junior Oceania medals in 2013 and 2014, but perhaps the biggest hint of his potential was fifth at the 2016 Tour de l’Avenir, the ‘Race of the Future’ for under-23 men, where he was representing Australia.

Success in green and gold continued when Hindley led an all-Australian podium at the 2017 Toscana-Terra di Ciclismo, an under-23 stage race in Italy. He picked up strong results on the Continental circuit – world cycling’s third division of racing – but 2020 was truly his breakthrough year.

By then, Hindley had been racing professionally with Team Sunweb for two years. First, he won the Herald Sun Tour with an unmatched climbing performance in the Victorian Alps. But in May, he came heartbreakingly close to winning the Giro d’Italia after taking a mountaintop stage win and losing the famous pink jersey only on the final day.

But in May this year, Hindley had his redemption. The West Australian shot to stardom by becoming the first Australian to win the Giro d’Italia, and only the second to win one of cycling’s three-week Grand Tours, joining Cadel Evans in that exclusive pantheon.

Wollongong 2022 will be Hindley’s second elite UCI World Championships, although he has competed in the event three times as an under-23 and twice as a junior.

Photo: Rob Jones

Michael Matthews

Age: 31
Club: Vikings CC
State: Australian Capital Territory
World Championship participations: 9

Michael ‘Bling’ Matthews has fond memories of racing UCI Road World Championships on home soil. Last time the event was held in Australia, at Geelong 2010, Matthews won the rainbow jersey in the under-23 road race.

The Canberran’s cycling career began after a talent identification program by the ACT Academy of Sport.

Matthews turned pro in 2011 with the Rabobank team, but it wasn’t until he switched to ORICA GreenEdge in 2013 that he tasted Grand Tour success with two stage wins at the Vuelta a España.

Matthews came to excel on tough, Classics-like parcours thanks to his impressive punch and rapid sprint, especially on uphill finishes.

The 2015 UCI Road World Championships in Richmond suited him to a T, and he took home a silver medal for Australia.

By 2016, Matthews had completed the collection of stage wins in all Grand Tours. He’d take that one step further in 2017 by winning the green jersey of the points classification at the Tour de France.

2017 also saw Matthews collect his second elite world championship medal, bronze in Bergen.

From his home base in Monaco, Matthews has enjoyed plenty of success in one-day races, picking up podiums in the Amstel Gold Race and Milan San-Remo, but particularly making the Canadian Grand Prix races his own.

In July 2022, a scintillating fourth Tour de France stage win from a breakaway proved that the 31-year-old is still very much at the height of his powers.

Photo: Getty Sport

Ben O’Connor

Age: 26
Club: Peel District CC
State: Western Australia
World Championship participations: none

Ben O’Connor came to cycling with a background in cross-country running.

His first bike race was only in 2013, at the age of 17: it was a local Perth criterium, which O’Connor won.

His abilities caught the attention of Wayne Evans, a rider agent and manager of a National Road Series (NRS) team at the time. After getting his first start domestically with Satalyst-Giant Racing, O’Connor got his first taste of UCI racing in Asia when the team stepped up to Continental level.

He then moved to NRS juggernaut Avanti-IsoWhey (which has since transformed into Team Bridgelane), where he enjoyed podium success in New Zealand, Taiwan and the Tour de Savoie Mont Blanc in France.

Those performances earned him a WorldTour berth when he signed for Team Dimension Data for 2017 – rocketing to the sport’s highest level in just four years.

A stage win at the Tour of the Alps in 2018 was his biggest result until 2020, when O’Connor won a mountain stage of the Giro d’Italia solo, from the breakaway.

The next year, he earned his first Tour de France participation with French team AG2R Citroen, and famously soloed to victory on stage 9 to Tignes, again winning a mountain finish from the break. From there, he fought for the overall podium but eventually finished fourth overall.

The 26-year-old from Fremantle has quickly become a world-class climber who can challenge for the general classification at the top level.

Photo: UCI

Lucas Plapp

Age: 21
Club: Brunswick Cycling Club
State: Victoria
World Championship appearances: none

Luke Plapp took up cycling at age 12 to keep fit for cricket and football. He developed into a talented track and road rider, particularly in the individual time trial, and in 2018 enjoyed a stellar season in the junior ranks.

That year, Plapp won the under-19 national and Oceania time trial championships, three national titles on the track, and two rainbow jerseys at the UCI Junior Track World Championships (in the points race and Madison). Still not finished, he also picked up silver in the time trial at the Junior Road World Championships.

Plapp was chosen for the Podium Potential Academy and, in 2019, won gold at a UCI Track Cycling World Cup in Brisbane as part of Australia’s team pursuit outfit. Two years later, Plapp would win an Olympic bronze medal in that same discipline at the Tokyo Games.

On the road, Plapp shot to prominence in early 2021, when he won the elite individual time trial national title before racing alongside Richie Porte at the Santos Festival of Cycling.

A stage win and impressive performance on Willunga Hill eventually led to Plapp’s signing for the INEOS Grenadiers WorldTour team.

At the end of 2021, Plapp won another World Championship silver medal in the time trial, this time in the under-23 category.

In 2022, Plapp was unable to defend his time trial national title due to COVID isolation rules, but a scintillating solo ride in the road race earned him the green-and-gold stripes of Australian champion.

In his debut professional season, Plapp has already earned a podium finish at the Tour of Norway, and also performed excellently at the Commonwealth Games.

Wollongong 2022 will be Plapp’s debut UCI Road World Championships at elite level.

Photo: UCI

Nicholas Schultz

Age: 27
Club: Sunshine Coast CC
State: Queensland
World Championship participations: 3

Since his junior days, Brisbane’s Nick Schultz has always been racing with the best of Australia’s cycling scene.

In 2011, he won the junior Oceania time trial championships, and was also a junior national medallist on the track.

Schultz’s upward trajectory enjoyed a healthy boost in 2016, when he won a stage of the under-23 Tour de l’Avenir while racing for the Australian national team.

That earned him his first professional contract, although he took a different path than many Australians, riding for second-tier Spanish team Caja Rural in 2017 and 2018.

Despite the language and cultural barriers, those two years enabled Schultz to race some of Europe’s biggest races, including the Vuelta a España.

In 2019, the Queensland climber rejoined many of his Aussie compatriots when he signed for Mitchelton-Scott and won a stage of the Herald Sun Tour.

Since then, Schultz has been consistently knocking on the door of a big result, as seen earlier this year when he placed second on a stage of the Tour de France finishing in Megève.

Wollongong 2022 will be Schultz’s fourth appearance at an elite UCI Road World Championships, matching his four previous participations at under-23 level.

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Feature photo: Rob Jones