20-year-old Australian Lucinda Stewart turned heads on the streets of Perth on Jan 12th with a phenomenal winning performance in the elite women’s Australian road race title.
Stewart just recently signed with the Liv AlUla Jayco Women’s Continental team for the 2025 season and in her debut road race outing, she took the top honours in style at the end of the 109km race.
In a field full of WorldTour pros, including last year’s winner Ruby Roseman-Gannon, Stewart confidently jumped into an early breakaway move of five riders. She continued to dominate and raced with maturity beyond her years to overcome the experienced field.
The laps ticked down and the time gap between the escapees and the peloton increased with every kilometre, eventually reaching more than six minutes.
Behind, the chase was delayed due to no real cohesion between WorldTour teams and star riders. Liv AlUla Jayco remained content yet attentive with their team representation leading the charge ahead.
As the race entered the final 20km, the gap remained above three minutes. Recently crowned Criterium champion Amber Pate jumped away with Amanda Spratt in the closing laps, attempting to bridge across to the leaders and assist, but the duo eventually ran out of road. Ahead, Stewart raced attentively, following the wheels, before launching her ferocious sprint to seal a career-changing victory.
The Liv AlUla Jayco Continental team rider also claimed the U23 women’s title and will head to Europe next week with a new green and gold jersey to illustrate her stunning accomplishment.
Lucinda Stewart said of her win – “I don’t know what to say. I feel so much pride racing in these colours. I look up to these girls, my teammates so much and I respect them and I know how strong they all are. To be the only rider in the breakaway, I knew I had to pull it off for Liv AlUla Jayco and that there was no other option other than winning. I am so happy. I knew the team had confidence in me and I just really wanted to pull it off for them. I wanted Amber Pate to come across, as I know how strong she is, but it is so special to get this win. I am proud that I could do it.
I leave for Europe on Tuesday to go to my team camp and meet all my teammates for the year, so it will be very special to take the jersey with me!”
Gene Bates – Liv AlUla Jayco WorldTeam Manager added – “We spoke about a whole host of scenarios over the past days and one of which was the early breakaway going and staying away. We knew there was a chance, and we wanted representation from any of the riders in our teams. We kept the powder dry with her, kept her fresh all day, as we knew she was the fastest in the group.
We were probably a bit surprised by the other teams that let the gap blow out that far and that just played into our hands. We are really pleased to see them pull it off and particularly for Lucinda to see her take this great result in her first road race with us. It is fantastic and beautiful to win the Australian championships as an Australian registered team.”
2025 Australian RR championships women:
1. Lucinda Stewart – (Liv AlUla Jayco Continental team) 2:46:59
6. Amber Pate – (Liv AlUla Jayco WorldTeam)
