The diminutive 25-year-old Nelson rider became the first New Zealander, female, or male, to reach a podium in the elite road race at the world championships.
The 2022 junior world champion produced a brilliant and courageous performance in the elite women’s road race, staged over an arduous 11 laps of a testing 15km circuit in Africa for the first time, in Kigali, the capital of Rwanda.
The elite race proved a demanding test with 3350m of climbing over the 165km multi-lap course comprising two telling climbs each lap over a cobbled surface.
Fisher-Black, who rides professionally for the Lidl-Trek team, settled into the peloton in the early stages, and became prominent on the climbs before she settled in a small group who reeled in the leaders.
That group was whittled down to three riders over the final two laps.
The trio withheld a charge from the pre-race favourites early in the final lap before Canadian Magdeleine Vallieres Mill proved the strongest in a frantic final sprint, the New Zealand rider clearing out from Spain’s Margarita Garcia Canellas to secure second.
Before yesterday, New Zealand elite riders — all women — had finished in the top 10 at the elite road world championships five times.
Jo Kiesanowski and Cath Cheatley both managed that feat, and former elite world time trial champion Linda Villumsen did it three times.
However, Fisher-Black became the first New Zealand elite rider to reach the podium at the road world championships.
Compatriot Ella Wyllie, of Auckland, who rides for World Tour team Liv AlUla Jayco, finished a hard-fought 24th after riding with the peloton until the final lap.
— Allied Media
