New Zealand professional Niamh Fisher-Black made\u00a0cycling\u00a0history in finishing second in the elite women\u2019s road race at the UCI Road World Championships in Rwanda today.<\/p>\n
The diminutive 25-year-old from Nelson has become the first New Zealand rider,\u00a0female,\u00a0or male, to podium in the elite road race at the UCI World Championships.<\/p>\n
The 2022 UCI Junior Road World Champion produced a brilliant and courageous performance\u00a0in the elite women\u2019s road race,\u00a0staged\u00a0over an arduous 11 laps of a testing 15km circuit staged in Africa for the first time, in Kigali,\u00a0the capital of\u00a0Rwanda.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The elite race proved a demanding test with\u00a03,350m of climbing over the 165km multi-lap course comprising\u00a0two telling climbs each lap .over a cobbled surface.<\/p>\n
The Lidl-Trek professional settled into the\u00a0peloton\u00a0in the early stages,\u00a0and became prominent\u00a0on the climbs\u00a0before she settled in a small group who reeled in the leaders. That group was\u00a0whittled down to three riders\u00a0over the final two\u00a0laps.<\/p>\n
The trio withheld a charge from the pre-race favourites early in the\u00a0final\u00a0lap before Canadian\u00a0Magdeleine Vallieres Millproved the strongest in a frantic final sprint, with the New Zealand rider clearing out from Spain\u2019s\u00a0Margarita Garcia Canellas\u00a0to secure second.<\/p>\n
Until today,\u00a0New Zealand elite riders, all women, have finished in the top-10 at the elite road world championships\u00a0five times\u00a0in Jo Kiesanowski, Cath Cheatley and three times by former elite world time trial champion, Linda Villumsen.<\/p>\n
However Fisher-Black became the first New Zealand elite rider to podium at the road world championships.<\/p>\n
Compatriot Ella Wyllie from Auckland, who rides for World Tour team Liv AlUla Jayco,\u00a0finished\u00a0a hard-fought\u00a024th\u00a0after riding with the\u00a0peloton\u00a0until the final lap.<\/p>\n
Results:\u00a0Elite women road race, 165km:\u00a0Magdeleine Vallieres Mill (Canada)\u00a04:34.48, 1;\u00a0Niamh Fisher-Black (New Zealand) at\u00a023s, 2; Margarita Garcia Canellas (Spain)\u00a0at 27s, 3. Also NZers: Ella Wyllie at 2:59, 24.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New Zealand professional Niamh Fisher-Black made\u00a0cycling\u00a0history in finishing second in the elite women\u2019s road race at the UCI…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":173203,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[569],"tags":[64,63,784,85],"class_list":["post-173202","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cycling","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173202","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=173202"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173202\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/173203"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=173202"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=173202"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=173202"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}