Australia's cycling future looks in exciting hands after Oscar Chamberlain followed in the pedal strokes of his female teammate Felicity Wilson to win the junior world championship time trial title in Stirling.
Twenty-four hours after Tasmanian Wilson-Haffenden took the women's crown, her fellow 18-year-old prospect Chamberlain battled painfully up the same cobblestones towards Stirling Castle in Scotland on Friday in front of big crowds to annex the junior men's gold.
And he did so by defeating a hot prospect with a famous name - Ben Wiggins, the son of Britain's first Tour de France winner Sir Bradley Wiggins, who had to settle for the silver medal.
Chamberlain, a youngster from Canberra who's already shown his quality this year with the under-19 team of France's AG2R Citroen team, having finished runner-up at the junior edition of Paris-Roubaix classic, produced a superbly timed run against the clock over the 22.8km course.
He finished in 28 minutes 29.62 seconds to end up 24.78sec faster than Wiggins and 34.11sec clear of Germany's Louis Leidert.
Chamberlain was 12 seconds down at the first intermediate time check after 10km, but he came on strong over four hills before holding on grimly on the tough final cobbled ascent.
"I just gave everything I could on the cobbles," he said. "They killed me and it felt like I wasn’t moving but then at the line I got the good news that I was leading (with five more riders, including Wiggins, still to finish) and hoped it was good enough."
He reckoned he had been inspired to make up for his disappointment at having only finished 10th in the weekend's junior road race after a mechanical problem forced him to have to fix his own chain amid a crash-strewn affair.
“I woke up this morning and had the goal to win," he told reporters.
"Getting 10th in the road race gave me a little more fire in my belly and I brought it home."
Wiggins was happy with his efforts. "To get a medal at my first world championships, it can't get much better. Obviously, there's the rainbow jersey I didn't win but I'm sure I'll get more opportunities to get that over the years."
Chamberlain, speaking hours before the Belgian superstar Remco Evenepoel went on to win the senior elite time trial, said his dream "was now to go and do the same in the elites" and added that "a ride in the pro peloton would be a dream come true."
In that senior race, Evenepoel added another rainbow jersey to the one he won in the Wollongong road race last year, finishing the 47.8km course in 55:19.23 to become the first Belgian man to lift the title - 12.34sec quicker than Italian silver medallist, two-time champion Filippo Ganna.
The bronze medal went to rising British talent Josh Tarling, who's only one year older than Chamberlain but who'd briefly threatened to become the youngest-ever champion.
Australia's two-time global champion Rohan Dennis was left deeply frustrated at picking up a mechanical near the end of his run, which ruined his chances of temporarily moving into the lead in his final world championship race, as he had to settle for seventh, 1:53.66 adrift.
Jay Vine, the Australian champion, ended a disappointing 28th, some three and a quarter minutes behind Evenepoel.
Australia's para-cyclists landed another medal in the road time time trials, but Lauren Parker, who had won hand-cycling gold in the H3 individual time trial two days earlier, had to settle for silver in the H3 road race, pipped by Germany's Annika Zeyen.
