Known for instigating breakaways and shining in challenging one-day races, Mavi García came to the elite women’s road race at the UCI Road World Championships as an outsider but rode her way onto the podium with bronze. Though she didn’t take the victory, the Spanish rider was more than satisfied with her result.
“I don’t believe it,” García said in a flash interview minutes after crossing the finish line. “This time, my shape was really good, but you never know, because this circuit was really crazy, the cobbles were super hard. I think I take the good moments and it is the key of the race today.”
The 41-year-old rider was still “in shock” when she spoke to the assembled media at the Kigali Convention Centre following the podium ceremony. “Because I didn’t expect this moment like this. I don’t know, I prefer a really good world championship at altitude. And everything I can do I did, but I don’t expect to take the medal, it’s a dream, and today it comes through.”
“I started late in cycling, and this [11th season] is not so long for me, but this, I think, is the cherry in my career, because this is really important for me.”
With 22km remaining, García attacked from a 10-rider break on the Côte de Kigali, quickly joined by Canada’s Magdeleine Vallieres and New Zealand’s Niamh Fisher-Black, while the chase groups behind failed to organize to try and reel them back in.
The trio continued to work together until they hit the bottom slopes of the final climb, the steep cobbled Côte de Kimihurara, where Vallieres launched her winning move. Fisher-Black followed for second and García crossed the line 27 seconds later to secure third.
“I think today, I took the right moment in the race to go, and I knew [that] I’m not the strongest in the race, and I need to do something different in the race. And today, I think I took the right moment to go for the win.”
The 2025 season hadn’t been kind to García, despite the hard training, but she turned it around with a victory on Tour de France Femmes stage 2 in July, and now a bronze medal in Kigali.
“This year I started really good, in really good shape, but in the races, I don’t know, I don’t show good moments or crashes or problems or always something. But then in the final decision, it was a really, really good race for me, and now it’s the best race I can…
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