New Zealand professional Niamh Fisher-Black made cycling history in finishing second in the elite women’s road race at the UCI Road World Championships in Rwanda today.
The diminutive 25-year-old from Nelson has become the first New Zealand rider, female, or male, to podium in the elite road race at the UCI World Championships.
The 2022 UCI Junior Road World Champion produced a brilliant and courageous performance in the elite women’s road race, staged over an arduous 11 laps of a testing 15km circuit staged in Africa for the first time, in Kigali, the capital of Rwanda.
The elite race proved a demanding test with 3,350m of climbing over the 165km multi-lap course comprising two telling climbs each lap .over a cobbled surface.
The Lidl-Trek professional settled into the peloton in the early stages, and became prominent on the climbs before she settled in a small group who reeled in the leaders. That group was whittled down to three riders over the final two laps.
The trio withheld a charge from the pre-race favourites early in the final lap before Canadian Magdeleine Vallieres Millproved the strongest in a frantic final sprint, with the New Zealand rider clearing out from Spain’s Margarita Garcia Canellas to secure second.
Until today, New Zealand elite riders, all women, have finished in the top-10 at the elite road world championships five times in Jo Kiesanowski, Cath Cheatley and three times by former elite world time trial champion, Linda Villumsen.
However Fisher-Black became the first New Zealand elite rider to podium at the road world championships.
Compatriot Ella Wyllie from Auckland, who rides for World Tour team Liv AlUla Jayco, finished a hard-fought 24th after riding with the peloton until the final lap.
Results: Elite women road race, 165km: Magdeleine Vallieres Mill (Canada) 4:34.48, 1; Niamh Fisher-Black (New Zealand) at 23s, 2; Margarita Garcia Canellas (Spain) at 27s, 3. Also NZers: Ella Wyllie at 2:59, 24.
