Lauren Rosser accomplished something on Sunday (Sept. 5) that no Canadian woman has been able to do since 1990.
The Squamish native took home the gold medal in the junior women's downhill race at the Union Cycliste Internationale 2010 World Championships in Mont-Sainte-Anne, Quebec with a time of 5:59.55, beating the next closest time by almost 14 seconds.
Rosser was understandably thrilled with the result.
"It feels amazing," she said during a press conference after the finals. "It's the best feeling ever right now. I never had this before, to finish the year on this, it's great."
Rosser also participated in the cross-country race on Thursday (Sept. 2) but after finishing 11th, she focused all of energies on the downhill race.
"First I was mostly focused on the cross-country," she said. "That was the first event, then right after the cross-country I went in downhill mode, and I knew everyone else was getting more runs and had a couple of days to train on it, so I said OK I will have to put in more efforts to pull this off, and I did."
The day of the downhill race it was raining and Rosser said her time training in Squamish in all types of weather helped prepare her for the conditions.
"I was looking forward to the rain," she said. "I was just like, at night I want it to rain, I want it to rain, and it rained, and I was having so much fun in the corners and on all the rocks and stuff. I was just loving it, it was fun."
The muddy conditions did prove to be challenging for the 17-year-old but she managed to pull through.
"There was a couple of places where I was going 'Oh please, I don't want to crash, I really don't want to get muddy,'" she said.
Rosser raced second and she had a few nervous moments watching the other competitors race but ultimately her time stood up. She said even she was taken aback by how well she did.
"It was definitively a surprise to me," she said. "I didn't know how it was going to be so the timing run helped me. I knew what I needed to work on and the end results, I was wowed by it. I came first, it is just amazing it was just a surprise."
The thrill of standing on the podium and hearing the Canadian anthem play is a moment that Rosser said she won't soon forget.
"I didn't know what to think," she said. "I was out there and the adrenaline started rushing, and you're just like, 'Wow, I am World Champion.'
"It's an amazing feeling, so it was great to have my parents there, they were happy, so it's good."
This was the final race of the season for the UCI but Rosser is expected to continue training with Team Squamish during the fall and winter.
For more information and full results on the race, visit www.uci.ch.
