As Tadei Pogachar crossed the finish line in Perugia to win stage 7 of the Giro d'Italia, Luke Plapp (Jayco Aiauia), along with interim stage leader Filippo Ganna (Ineos Grenadiers) He watched on.

When Ganna's victory seemed almost certain, Plapp put his arms around his former teammate to comfort the Italian.

While Ganna came so close to winning that he headed for the team bus, Plapp shared the day's honors on the podium with Pogachar.

As the Australian later said, while he regretted Ganna and his near-miss, he was happy that his key goal before the race, to win the white jersey at the end of the first week, became a reality in Perugia." From now on, everything is a bonus," Plapp said.

"I had a bit of a goal for the first week of the Giro, to stay in and around the GC and try for the best young rider jersey in the time trial," Plapp told reporters.

"Everything worked out perfectly. I'm super happy and today is a big bonus. To be honest, during the last few months of preparation, I didn't think about anything after today in the Giro. I just wanted to do well in the first week."

"This is everything I wanted. I definitely enjoyed tonight and want to do my best in the rest of the Giro."

Although he finished third on Thursday's sixth stage with a very long breakaway in Stellato, Tuscany, the double Australian national ITT champion still had plenty of fuel left in Friday's time trial in Umbria, where he finished seventh, 1:45 behind Pogachar He was in seventh place, 1:45 behind Pogachar. As a result, he moved up to fifth place overall with 3 hours and 42 minutes.

Plapp is currently 8 seconds ahead of the previous Youth Class leader, Sian Uitdebroeks (Visma Lease-a-Bike). But regardless of the gap, the main thing, as Plapp said, is that his goal of a white star at the Giro d'Italia has been achieved.

"I didn't feel sharp after stage 6, but I didn't feel bad," said Plapp.

"Yesterday [Thursday] I was at threshold for four hours, and again today I was at threshold for one hour. [I didn't feel sharp enough to go another level when I needed to, but I didn't feel out of shape. If it had been a one-off TT, I would have had my usual punchy legs, but I'm not that disappointed. But I'm not too disappointed."

Regarding his pacing strategy on a complicated TT day and a course with a tough climb at the end of the day and strong winds, Plapp said, "I wanted to hold back some for the climbs, but probably not too much."

"Maybe a little bit lower than the time I was looking for, but that could be because of what I felt yesterday.

"If it had been a one-out TT, I might have had a little more, but on the other hand, if this was the World Championships or the Olympics, I wouldn't have spent four hours on full gas the day before.

"I definitely felt some pain in my legs, but it wasn't too bad on the climbs. I'm pretty happy."

As for how he consoled Ganna when the Italian faced a last-minute defeat.

"Yeah, I love Pippo. He's been great for me the last few years. But Taddei had a great run.

"Pippo was worried going into the last climb (after seeing Pogachar). But what Taddei did was very impressive. But I could see that Pogachar was a step above him."

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