{"id":3711,"date":"2025-09-26T08:43:17","date_gmt":"2025-09-26T00:43:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/?p=3711"},"modified":"2025-09-26T08:43:19","modified_gmt":"2025-09-26T00:43:19","slug":"gery-makes-under-23-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/gery-makes-under-23-history\/","title":{"rendered":"Gery makes Under 23 history"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>France\u2019s C\u00e9lia Gery win the Women Under 23 road race title, contested for the first time as a standalone event at the UCI Road World Championships in Kigali, Rwanda.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Already two-time cyclo-cross UCI World Champion (Junior and team relay), the 19-year-old powered to a fresh rainbow jersey after eight laps on a 15.1km local circuit set around the Kigali Convention Centre, featuring the C\u00f4te de Kigali Golf (0.8km at 8.1%) and C\u00f4te de Kimihurura (1.3km at 6.3%), whose cobbled gradients already delivered thrilling action in the time trials. These challenges added up to 119.3km of racing with 2,435 metres of elevation gain &#8211; a demanding course bound to crown a special talent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cIt&#8217;s really incredible. This morning, it was a very long wait until 1pm. But now, it&#8217;s awesome,\u201d celebrated the winner, capping off a stellar season that also saw her win three stages and the green jersey of the recent Tour de l\u2019Avenir Femmes (France). \u201cIt\u2019s proper teamwork, with Julie [Bego] at first, and then Marion [Bunel], who told me she wasn\u2019t feeling so good on the cobbles. She did an amazing finale. We were only three, but we handled things perfectly.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Gery got the better of Slovakia\u2019s Vikt\u00f3ria Chlado\u0148ov\u00e1, who, at 18 years old, took her second medal of this event after finishing 2nd in the Women Under 23 individual time trial. Spain\u2019s Paula Blasi rounded out the podium.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Although Ava Holmgren had to withdraw due to illness, Canada soon took the reins of the 81-woman peloton (with 40 nations represented) to force a race of attrition in the \u2018land of a thousand hills\u2019. Great Britain\u2019s Cat Ferguson and Flora Perkins were among the early victims, struggling on the cobbled gradients of C\u00f4te de Kimihurura halfway through the race.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Luxembourg\u2019s Marie Schreiber, along with a number of German riders, also participated in driving a reduced bunch into the last 50 kilometres. Czechia\u2019s Julia Kopecky upped the ante on the fifth ascent of Kimihurura. Bego counter-attacked towards the line\u2026 Attacks kept going, but 24 riders regrouped to face the final two laps together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-embed-handler wp-block-embed-embed-handler wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"LIVE - Women Under-23 Road Race | 2025 UCI Road World Championships\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/2MKBOhXLL5w?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Poland\u2019s Malwina Mul was the first to open a significant gap, flying past the group with 25 kilometres remaining. Vikt\u00f3ria Chlado\u0148ov\u00e1 then put the hammer down on the penultimate ascent up C\u00f4te de Kigali Golf. Gery joined her on the move and the duo got back to Mul at the summit, 21km away from victory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Blasi drove a strong chase, and 14 riders made the front group into the final lap. As the pace dropped, more stragglers returned to make it 25 riders battling for a historic title.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Stina Kagevi attacked with 12 kilometres to go: already proven an expert of solo effort, the Swede opened a gap of 30\u2019\u2019 as the race entered the final 10km, and 45\u2019\u2019 at the bottom of the C\u00f4te de Kigali Golf, where Chlado\u0148ov\u00e1 attacked again, with Gery on her wheel, again. This time, Blasi followed them \u2013 and Isabella Holmgren dug deep to join them. After the quartet caught Kagevi at the summit, six more chasers reeled them in with just four kilometres to go.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The final ascent of Kimihurura proved to be decisive as Bunel attacked with 2km remaining. Chlado\u0148ov\u00e1 bridged the gap with another French woman on her wheel \u2013 Gery. Bunel pulled, Chlado\u0148ov\u00e1 opened up the sprint with 300 metres to go, and Gery took off to victory ahead of the 18-year-old Slovak. In their wake, Blasi took bronze.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>France\u2019s C\u00e9lia Gery win the Women Under 23 road race title, contested for the first time as a<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3713,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[98],"class_list":["post-3711","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-newsbeat","tag-cycling"],"aioseo_notices":[],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/cycling_compressed.jpg",1066,600,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/cycling_compressed-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/cycling_compressed-300x169.jpg",300,169,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/cycling_compressed-768x432.jpg",640,360,true],"large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/cycling_compressed-1024x576.jpg",640,360,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/cycling_compressed.jpg",1066,600,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/cycling_compressed.jpg",1066,600,false],"morenews-large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/cycling_compressed-825x575.jpg",825,575,true],"morenews-medium":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/cycling_compressed-590x410.jpg",590,410,true]},"author_info":{"info":["admin"]},"category_info":"<a href=\"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/category\/newsbeat\/\" rel=\"category tag\">Newsbeat<\/a>","tag_info":"Newsbeat","comment_count":"0","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/cycling_compressed.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3711","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3711"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3711\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3714,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3711\/revisions\/3714"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3713"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3711"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3711"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3711"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}