British cycling has a new world champion: 18-year-old Harry Hudson, who made history as the first-ever male British winner of the junior world road race with a stunning solo ride in Kigali, Rwanda.
The Harrogate-based rider launched an audacious solo attack with a little under three laps to go of the gruelling 119km course and held off his pursuers by just 16 seconds as he claimed a maiden rainbow jersey.
It is Britain’s second gold medal of the championships so far, after Zoe Backstedt took an emphatic victory in the women’s under-23 time trial earlier in the week.
Former winners of the junior world road race including later elite world champions Remco Evenepoel and Mathieu van der Poel.
Hudson appeared slightly shell-shocked by his achievement when he spoke to the media after his victory, and was congratulated by an impressed Mark Cavendish after his statement win, telling the Manxman - a former elite world road race champion - the decision to attack was purely unplanned, “just in the moment”.
The teenager’s split-second decision paid off as he rode clear on an uphill section, with none of the thinned-down group of riders responding to his acceleration.
Hudson’s advantage ebbed and flowed but never stretched beyond half a minute, but his chasers could not get organised and he ultimately finished 16 seconds clear of silver medallist Johan Blanc of France, who won a two-up sprint with Poland’s Jan Michal Jackowiack.
But the day belonged to Britain’s promising juniors, with three in the top five, 18-year-olds Max Hinds and Matthew Peace coming in shortly afterwards for the minor places. Fellow Brit Dylan Sage was 27th, 2:16 behind Hudson.
Hudson - a junior winner of Liege-Bastogne-Liege - said: “It’s probably still settling in, I don’t really know what’s happening. Just winning a world title, I don’t really know what to say.”
He explained the timing of his move, saying: “I just saw in the moment that people were sitting up and it had been quite hard up that climb so I just went, thought someone else would go. I thought I was going to get caught with a lap to go or something, because there were people quite close, but I just ended up staying away. I was really suffering on the final climb, I think there was a French guy behind, but I just managed to stay away.
“Just after the cobbles, or maybe the flat bit in the cobbles, I just realised that a French person was dropping back and it looked like I was going to the line,” he continued.
The attritional course design put paid to many other hopefuls’ chances, with only 66 finishers of the original 142 on the start line.
The route was the same as the under-23 women’s race yesterday, with 2671m of elevation gain across seven laps of a Classics-style hilly parcours, with a tricky cobbled climb to finish.
There was action from the start but repeated attacks all came to naught, until Hudson’s decisive acceleration with 36km to go.
There were multiple attacks from the chase group, with Hudson’s advantage down to around 15 seconds with 2km remaining, but the Briton proved too strong on the final cobbled climb and had time to celebrate as he crossed the line.
Italy’s Lorenzo Finn, last year’s winner of the junior world road race, underlined his status as one of the sport’s most exciting young talents as he took gold in the men’s under-23 race later on Friday. The 18-year-old soloed to victory 31 seconds ahead of Switzerland’s silver medallist Jan Huber. Austria’s Marco Schrettl took bronze, 1:13 behind the winner.
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