After finishing runner-up in last year's road race and this year's time trial, Paula Ostiz (Spain) finally climbed onto the top step of the World Championships podium on Saturday, winning the junior women's road race to take her first rainbow jersey.
Ostiz has blazed through the junior ranks, with her talent earning her a spot in the WorldTour as Movistar secured her signature at the end of last year when she was still only 17.
This year, her impressive trajectory continued, becoming the first Spanish rider to win the Junior Tour of Flanders amongst other accolades, and on Saturday she secured the title she narrowly missed in 2024.
At the Zurich World Championships, Ostiz was beaten in a sprint by her future Movistar teammate Cat Ferguson in the women's road race, but this year the Spanish rider sped to the line from a reduced group to claim the rainbow jersey.
"It's a dream come true," she said. "I knew I had to wait for my chance right up to the end and finally I could get it. So I'm very happy and I just want to enjoy it."
Like all the road races so far, the junior women's event was a battle of attrition, with the peloton shrinking on every lap as riders hesitated to use their efforts too early, and Ostiz was confident that if she could stay in the front, she had the power for a final sprint.
"I knew I had to wait for the finish, and save my energy, because it was very much an elimination race, a lot of people were dropped. Finally there were just five of us left because it was such a tough pace, so I wanted to wait for the sprint," she said.
It was a tactic that worked, and despite the leading group of five slowing down and looking at risk of being caught in the final kilometre, Ostiz held on and out-powered Chantal Pegolo (Italy) and Anja Grossmann (Switzerland) for gold.
"In the sprint, I totally emptied myself," she said. "I was looking down and didn't see any wheels coming past me, and all I could think about was that I was going to do it. It's an immense joy to wear the rainbow."
This is the first time Spain have won this title since the event started in 1997, and Ostiz praised the effort from her teammates, who were active all day and were even more emotional than her at the finish line.
"Thanks to the work of all my teammates, I was able to achieve this," she said. "I'm very happy. My dream has come true, and now I want to enjoy this victory with all of them, with my family, and my loved ones."
Ostiz has already been riding as a stagiaire for Movistar, and from here she will head to France to try to defend her European time trial title, and then see out the season with Movistar in Italy before she undertakes her first season as a pro in 2026.
Movistar boss Eusebio Unzué was in Kigali to witness the exploits of his newest recruit.
With Ostiz' victory in the junior road race, silver in the time trial and Paula Blasi's silver medal in the under-23 event, Spanish women's cycling has taken a major step forward at this World Championships, and Spain will be hoping that success continues next year, too.
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