It's been a watershed weekend for Elly Hoskin, who secured her inaugural elite World Cup breakthrough in Bielsko-Biala, Poland.
The Squamolian found herself in a tight duel with Raphaela Richter, who had won two stages during Saturday's event, but an untimely shoulder injury brought the German athlete's medal hopes to an end. Instead, Hoskin cruised to gold in 26 minutes and 46.980 seconds.
A fifth-stage triumph gave silver to Ella Conolly of Great Britain (27:32.803). Bronze landed around the neck of Frenchwoman Morgane Charre (27:38.834), who was the only other rider to get within a minute of the victorious time.
"Feeling very grateful, happy, and still a little surprised. My riding on the weekend felt good but nothing spectacular, which I guess is good!" wrote Hoskin on social media. "That’s that process kicking in. My day went smoothly, I prepared my best, pushed and pedalled my guts out but also had a lot of fun on these tracks. I don’t check my results throughout race day, so I wasn’t very aware of what was going on until stage five, but my goal was to be committed on every second of the track and I executed my best.
"Something I got reminded this weekend was that you can’t really feel much else if you’re smiling, so if I was grinning it was probably hard. But the beauty of that is eventually you’re just smiling because you’re having fun...and that’s the whole point right?"
Hoskin also shouted out a number of individuals: "[Andréane Lanthier Nadeau] always been an inspiration and doing big things for Canada, [Ella and Morgane] I can’t believe I get to race beside you, [Raphaela] amazing battle, thank you, [Winni Goldsbury] we're all so proud of you, and [Simona Kuchyňková] thank you for washing my bike so I made podium and pushing me. [George Swift] for the best vibes. [Coach Adam Walker] as always, my rock. Also a thank you to the marshal in Pietra on stage one who started my season with the 'money for nothing' intro. I hummed it dropping into every stage. My sponsors, thank you for supporting this thing we do. I am spoiled and can’t thank you enough."
Polish prowess
After losing the season-opening men's race to Daniel Booker by 0.37 seconds in Pietra Ligure, Italy, Slawomir Lukasik didn't miss on home soil. He prevailed in the first three stages to reach the podium's top step (23:26.591).
Jack Moir filled the runner-up hole for Australia (23:32.631), and Ireland's Gregory Callaghan clocked in third (23:34.530).
Leading all Canadians in seventh was Jesse Melamed, while Booker placed a forgettable 95th.
"It was crazy. I still can’t believe," remarked Lukasik in a press release. "It was a really stressful day, but finally I got the win. It was a great day, but a really stressful one. The home crowd was so crazy. I am so stoked."
Moir won on stage four and five, but ultimately could not close the gap on his Polish opponent.
Full results from Bielsko-Biala are viewable here.
