Cat Ferguson (Great Britain) added the junior women’s road race world title to the time trial rainbow jersey she won earlier this week at the UCI Road World Championships, prevailing in a tense three-woman sprint at the end of the 73.5km race in Zürich.
The 18-year-old, who turns pro with Movistar next season, outsprinted Paula Ortiz (Spain) and Viktória Chladoňová (Slovakia) inside the final 200 metres after the Spaniard had opened the sprint to draw an end to over a kilometre of poker playing.
"I'm over the moon. The road race is the thing I've always wanted. Ever since last year, second place really hurt, so to get gold is incredible," Ferguson said after the race, referring back to her silver medal in the Glasgow Worlds last summer.
"I was conscious that I didn't know how big the gap was. I had a good gap of a minute and a half with 5km to go but I knew that we slowed so much because nobody wanted to be on the front. So I kept looking back to check we weren't going to get caught.
"The race is so different [from the time trial and I focus so much on the road. I love the TT bike, but the road is the one I always wanted. It feels even better than Tuesday, which is insane to say because Tuesday was incredible."
The trio had been all set to contest the medal placings from the 20km to go marker, when they split away from a select lead group on the second and final major climb of the race, the Witikon.
Clearly the strongest three women on the road, they steadily extended their gap over the chasers as they raced back towards Zürich, sticking together on the soaking roads to the finish and finally enjoying an advantage of well over a minute.
The final two kilometres brought caginess, checking over shoulders and cat-and-mouse games, but with plenty of time in hand, the trio could afford the slowdown. In the end, though, the final result was no surprise, with Ferguson duly outspeeding her two competitors for her second 2024 World Championships gold.
Ortiz, having launched the sprint first, but only just hung on to take silver, edging out Chladonova by centimetres at the line. Fourth place was taken by Megan Arens (Netherlands) at just nine seconds down, the 17-year-old having used those final kilometres to close much of the minute-plus gap from the chasers on her own.
How it unfolded
The junior women’s road race at the Road World Championships would see the peloton tackle a hilly 73.5km course from Uster to Zürich. Two major climbs marked the route – Binz (1.5km at 9.4%) and Witikon (1.4km at 7.2%) – while the closing section was run on one-and-a-half laps of a closing circuit around the finish city.
The race got underway in damp weather, though the conditions didn’t prevent riders from going on the attack early on.
A breakaway wouldn’t go clear for 16km, however, at which point a group of five raced off the front. Arabella Blackburn (Great Britain) was joined in the lead by Nina Lavenu (France), Italian pair Eleonora La Bella and Silvia Milesi, and Weronika Wasaty (Poland).
The move was kept on a tight leash by the peloton and the quintet would only last around 10km on the front before being brought back with 47km to run. Not long after that, a new group of attackers made a break for it as eight riders moved clear.
Junior time trial champion Cat Ferguson (Great Britain) was up there and she was joined by La Bella, her Italian teammate Giada Silo, Célia Gery (France), Megan Arens (Netherlands), Ostiz, Kamilla Aasebø (Norway), and Chladoňová .
The group only held a slender lead of the peloton – not more than 20 seconds – meaning that chasers stood a chance of making it across.
Imogen Wolff (Great Britain) and Eirini Papadimitriou (Greece) were among those to strike out from the chase, eventually bridging the gap as the race crossed the finish line for the first time at 27km to go.
Their move made it nine up front, with La Bella having previously dropped away, likely the result of having been in two breakaway moves. The attacking and bridging all proved to be in vain, however, with the break and reduced peloton reunited at the 25km mark.
On the uphill road towards Witikon, the Dutch team assumed control at the front, though it would prove impossible to stave off further attacks.
Those moves saw a small group go clear at the front once more, with Ferguson and Wolff again up there along with Gery, Arens, Ostiz, Chladonová, and Silo.
Wolff and Gery wouldn’t stick up front over the top of Witikon, though, and neither would Arens or Silo, as the trio of Ferguson, Ostiz and Chladonová pushed on ahead past the 20km marker.
Pursued by Gery, Arens and Silo, the leading break quickly drew out an advantage of 40 seconds with 15 kilometres to go, while the next group on the road lay well out of contention at 1:30 down.
It looked increasingly as though the lead group would contest the rainbow jersey and the medal placings among themselves, a prospect that was surely beyond doubt at the 10km mark, where the trio had over a minute in the bank.
With 6km to run, at the end of the descent from the plateau following Witikon, they were 1:30 clear and ready to start thinking about the rainbow jersey. There was no poker from that far out, though, with the cat-and-mouse games not coming until they hit the 2km mark.
There was constant checking over shoulders heading under the flamme rouge, with Arens having gone solo from the chase behind. There was little to worry about, however, with the rainbows all but assured for one of the leading trio.
Ostiz and then Ferguson took to the front during the glacially paced final kilometre, but it was the Spanish 17-year-old who launched the sprint for the line first, just inside the 200-metre mark.
Ferguson wasn’t caught out by the early jump, however, and was the first to react. Her closing speed proved more than enough to hold off Ortiz and the trailing Viktória Chladoňová to secure her second rainbow jersey of the week.
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