She has since become a force in junior cross-country racing, winning the 2026 New Zealand National Junior Women\u2019s Championship in Rotorua and securing the Oceania Under-19 title earlier this year.<\/p>\n
Her home track, the Te Miro Mountain Bike Park, has played a major role in her development, she said.<\/p>\n
This year, McMillan also secured second, third and fourth-place finishes in the Canada Cup and UCI Junior Series Events.<\/p>\n
The world championships feature a 36-strong New Zealand squad, with several riders ranked inside the world\u2019s top 10.<\/p>\n
According to MTB data, McMillan is third in the world junior rankings, making her one of the highest-ranked junior riders from New Zealand.<\/p>\n
Last year, New Zealand claimed five medals at the event in Switzerland, with Cycling New Zealand expecting another strong showing in Italy. <\/p>\n
For McMillan, this is her final season in the Under-19 category. <\/p>\n
She will step into the Under-23 category next year, the final stepping stone before elite racing and potentially the Olympic Games.<\/p>\n
For her European campaign, McMillan travels with her bike, spare wheels and additional parts to handle Europe\u2019s rocky courses. Cycling New Zealand only provides mechanical support at the world championships. <\/p>\n
Her trip is self-funded and supported by her parents and sponsors, including the Performance Racing Team. <\/p>\n
Despite the challenges, McMillan remains grounded, grateful and determined.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just want to be the best I can,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n
\u201cGive it everything and live the dream.\u201d<\/p>\n
Graeme \u201cMintie\u201d Mead is a sports commentator, the host of the radio show Waikato All Sports Breakfast and a Newstalk ZB overnight host. He is also a councillor on the Hamilton City Council.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"She has since become a force in junior cross-country racing, winning the 2026 New Zealand National Junior Women\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":560139,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2546,56767,6726,33234,5759,12784,2082,6371,275659,49465,31045,21524,117,111,43,139,69,275660,1557,9631,8812,33232,6123,377,80],"class_list":["post-560138","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-awardwinning","tag-balancing","tag-become","tag-biker","tag-championships","tag-college","tag-for","tag-joins","tag-kayley","tag-mcmillan","tag-morrinsville","tag-mountain","tag-new","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-schoolwork","tag-squad","tag-student","tag-training","tag-uci","tag-while","tag-world","tag-zealand"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/560138","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=560138"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/560138\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/560139"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=560138"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=560138"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=560138"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}