Luke Tuckwell sees opportunity for Australia against Belgium at Worlds: ‘The more chaos, the better’

The 22-year-old will make his elite World Championships debut after completing his first Grand Tour at the Vuelta a España. Speaking on the Stanley St. Social podcast, Tuckwell pointed to Belgium as an example of a team with enormous strength, but also a clear tactical responsibility.

“Maybe they have eight riders that are better, but because they have one or two leaders, it’s almost too one dimensional,” Tuckwell said.

Belgium heads to Montréal with Remco Evenepoel and Wout van Aert among its leading options. Australia, by contrast, has selected Michael Matthews, Ben O’Connor, Jai Hindley, Michael Storer, Jack Haig and Tuckwell, giving the team several riders capable of playing a role in a selective race.

For Tuckwell, that depth could become increasingly valuable if the race begins to break apart.

“Honestly, the more chaos, if it’s like what it was on Sunday [GP Montréal], I think the better it is for us as Aussies,” he explained.

“We have such a united front, let’s say, of guys all on a good level. You can just keep putting guys in moves up the road and if it comes back, you put another. It comes back, you put another.

“Whereas if you’re trying to keep it all together for a Remco or for a Wout, it’s a big day of riding and you start limiting your options relatively quickly.”

His reference to Evenepoel is not an abstract one. The two are teammates at Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe, where Tuckwell has seen at close quarters the attention that follows the Belgian.

“There definitely was an October camp of like, ‘Oh,’” Tuckwell said. “Primož is a rockstar. Jai is a star. Remco is different.”

In Montréal, Tuckwell and Evenepoel swap the Red Bull jersey for their national colours, and Australia will hope that Belgium's need to control the race can create opportunities elsewhere on a course that seems harder in practice than it looked on paper.

“This is hard,” he said. “It’s almost like a GC rider World Champs course without looking like mountains.”

That description also fits the direction Tuckwell's season has taken. After taking sixth at the Tour de Romandie, he followed up with his biggest result to date at the Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes in June, finishing second overall behind Isaac del Toro and ahead of Juan Ayuso.

Tuckwell went to make his Grand Tour debut at the Vuelta, spending three weeks working in the mountains for Primož Roglič and learning the demands of the GC racing from one of the most experienced heads in the peloton.

And yet, an elite World Championships debut was not something he expected this season.

“There are so many other established Aussies who are riding well and have done it before. When I got the news, I was pretty chuffed actually,” said Tuckwell, whose route to the WorldTour largely bypassed the traditional Australian development pathway.

“I’ll be honest, juniors and U23, I never felt an Australian pride, let’s say. It was cool pulling on the Aussie jersey, but I didn’t get that pride and that feeling that other guys, the elite guys, were talking about. It didn’t move the needle for me.”

That has changed. In Montréal, Tuckwell will wear the green and gold with genuine pride and hope for the kind of race he believes can play into Australia’s hands: chaos.