Alastair Mackellar produced a brilliant solo effort to ride away with the under-23 men's road race title in the Federation University AusCycling Road National Championships at Buninyong on Saturday.
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The Queenslander closed down a two-minute gap to a breakaway in the 11th of 12 laps of the demanding 11.6km circuit and then as the fresh rider on the scene rode away unchallenged - going on to win by a commanding 65 seconds.
Brady Gilmore (Queensland) won a five-way sprint to get second ahead of workhorse Alex Bogna, also from the Sunshine State.
All the accolades belonged to 20-year-old Mackellar, who used the experience he has had on the national championship course and in Europe, where he has spent a large part of the past two years with Continental team Israel Cycling Academy, to advantage.
A breakaway of six, which had been trimmed from 11, found itself about three minutes in front well into the second half of the race and with every kilometre which passed by it looked like having the championship to itself.
It was Mackellar who changed the complexion of the race - splintering the main bunch with an attack and then wearing down the pacesetters.
Mackellar admitted he did have doubts as to whether the breakaway could be caught when the margin opened up three-plus minutes with five laps remaining.
He said knowing a lot of time could be made up in the closing laps though, he had kept patient
Mackellar said he knew he had the legs, so maintained the trust in his process and kept to his plan to make a move with two laps to go.
Mackellar has been contesting the nationals for five years, with bronze medals in the under-19 road race in 2019 and 2020, a top 20 in his first under-23 road race in 2021 and seventh last year.
He said the experience from those races had been critical.
"You see it all the time, people going early. I put all that knowledge I had into the race today."
