Antonia Niedermaier delivered a ride of initiative and measure to claim sixth place in the Elite Women’s Road Race at the UCI Road World Championships in Rwanda, matching her sixth-place finish from the time trial six days earlier. 

For the 22-year-old, still eligible for the Under-23 category, it’s her best-ever placing in a World Championships elite road race. Rounding out the top 10 was Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney, delivering a contrasting yet equally tenacious performance from behind.

It was an unrelenting day for all riders. Temperature, humidity, air quality, and altitude have combined to make this year’s first World Championships on African soil especially gruelling, even before factoring in the punishing courses. The road races unfolded on a 15km urban circuit in Kigali, with the women completing 11 laps totalling 166km and 3130m of climbing.

Each lap featured two pivotal climbs in quick succession: the Côte de Kigali Golf (0.8km at 8.1%) followed by the cobbled Côte de Kimihurura (1.3km at 6.6%). Both spike into double digits with the latter peaking just 2.4km from the finish. From the crest, riders dipped under the 1km-to-go red flag where cobbles gave way to smooth tarmac. A sharp uphill kicker was the final obstacle before the line – steep enough to split the field even in the last few hundred metres.

A pattern had already emerged in earlier races this week. The attritional parcours persistently eroded the field, leaving only the strongest riders, while attacks carved out an elite selection – sometimes whittling it down further to just a lone victor. Early on, Soraya Paladin was among those delivering a sterling team effort for the Italian squad as the peloton began to dwindle. With 36km remaining, Antonia propelled herself into a dangerous eight-rider move, which soon absorbed two duos a few seconds up the road, forming what ultimately became a race-winning 12-rider group.

Heading into the final 30km, a stand-off played out among the big-name contenders in the remains of the peloton, playing neatly into the escapees’ hands. Antonia was distanced on the Côte de Kigali Golf with 21km to go by Fisher-Black (NZL), Vallieres (CAN), and Garcia (ESP), their lead stretching to +1:40 mins over the peloton. Antonia rode smartly to bridge back to the trio with 16km remaining, and as the group passed through the finish line onto the final lap, a break in the deadlock within the peloton had reduced the front group’s advantage to 60 seconds.

Still, it remained a cagey battle behind the leading quartet. Pre-race favourites including Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney tried repeatedly to break free, but most attacks were futile. Antonia was distanced on the same climb as previous with 6km remaining – this time for good. Kasia continued to animate the chase, but making up the then 50-second deficit would have required a herculean effort. 

Only one rider from behind, Chabbey (SUI), passed Antonia as she battled for one final time up the torturous cobbles to secure sixth – +1:17 mins behind a surprise yet formidable victor, Vallieres (CAN), who was exemplary all-day. Kasia finished +1:34 mins back, leading the last charge for the finish in typically dogged fashion, only to be swamped at the line for a marginally higher placing.

Here’s what a satisfied Antonia Niedermaier had to say about her front-foot ride at the World Championships:

“I’m actually quite happy with that. I mean for sure, I was in the group that was on the podium in the end, but I had stomach issues in the last two laps, so I think because of that it was quite good. I recognised quite early that I wasn’t the strongest in the group and that I didn’t feel so great. I think the six is following me around because my starting numbers were also always with six but, I think I can be happy with the championships in general. Today, I couldn’t have done anything too different, and we did a good job as a team.”

And Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney’s thoughts on a tactically unique day.

“I definitely don’t feel great after the race, as a whole. I went there wanting to fight for the medals and having higher hopes but the race played out in a really weird way. I definitely regret not actually taking responsibility or creating moments that I could benefit from earlier in the race. I think that many times I am told that I spent too much energy, so I really tried to be conservative as much as possible and wait for the final move. Unfortunately, it never really happened because the breakaway was up in the front. And yeah, as we all saw, it all just ended up as a mess.”

“I definitely I wish I had done something differently. I wish I could race the race again. I would not wait for the big nations to start the chase. I think that I would want to either bridge across to the breakaway earlier on the climb, like with two laps to go, and focus less on the Italians, Dutch or French. I thought that they would just take things into their own hands, but sometimes you just have to race more with gut feelings and less with what’s right and what’s wrong.”

She admits she never imagined the race would unfold the way it did.

“Definitely not. I thought that the final would be hard between the favourites. Usually when the course is hard, people naturally drop from the selected group. But when the breakaway went away, we practically stopped. And any time there was a harder moment in the race, we raced hard and then we went super slow. That wasn’t good for bringing the breakaway back because we were just giving them time, basically.”