'A hell of a week' as illness and crashes continue to blight Jayco AlUla

Jayco AlUla have been left licking their wounds after a spate of bad luck and crashes decimated their squad over the past couple of weeks.

In January, Caleb Ewan came into the Tour Down Under with question marks over his condition, while Luke Plapp crashed out of the race after a stellar start to the year at the Australian nationals. Despite relocating their racing campaign to Europe and the Middle East, bad luck has followed the team.

Christopher Juul-Jensen had been scheduled to start the AlUla Tour but was forced to skip the race due to illness, while Alessandro De Marchi crashed hard on the first stage but was able to survive. Lucas Hamilton also hit the deck during the race but has remained in the event. Dylan Groenewegen also left the race ahead of stage 4 due to illness.

In the Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana, the team lost Eddie Dunbar ahead of stage 3 after he crashed the previous day, while several riders including Michael Matthews came down on stage 3 after being well-placed ahead of the bunch sprint. Matthews finished the stage but GCN can reveal that he will not start start 4.

“We’ve had our fair share of bad luck. Matthews won’t be starting on stage 4 because of the crash he had on stage 3. He’s banged his knee and has an altitude camp in 48 hours so it’s more of a precaution with him. There’s no need to push it with him,” team director Matt White told GCN late on Friday evening from Valencia.

“Eddie Dunbar went down a couple of days ago too. We’ve had our fair share of good news this year with Luke Plapp winning at nationals, Caleb too, and then a couple of wins in Europe but when bad luck happens to all your leaders then it does have a bit of an impact. It’s been a hell of a week that’s for sure but it’s a 10-month season, so there’s still a lot of racing left.”

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Although the team have been hit by injuries they have still enjoyed a relatively successful start with four wins on the board already. The Tour Down Under was a slight disappointment given Plapp’s form and eventual departure from the race, and the fact that the team left without a stage win, but the signs are good in terms of the overall trajectory of the roster.

“Luke was in very good shape, very good shape and it would have given us another arrow to play with alongside Simon Yates at Tour Down Under. We would have liked to have been on a couple more wins at this time of year because we had big ambitions coming into the year but we’re already sitting on four wins and hopefully we can make it five or six in the next few days, but this is sport,” White said.

"You go in and clean up at nationals and you think it’s a nice start but the most promising thing is that we know that the team has prepared well during the winter and when you know that the groundwork is right then you can have an illness or a crash because the condition hasn’t gone anywhere. It just takes a bit of time to get back on track.”

The team will be hoping that Simon Yates can turn their fortunes around at the AlUla Tour. The British climber currently sits 15th overall, less than 30 seconds off the overall lead with the final stage to Skyviews of Harrat Uwayrid still to come.