A teamwork "masterpiece", as she described it, delivered Célia Gery to the rainbow jersey in the women's under-23 road race at the World Championships on Thursday, with her teammate Marion Bunel emptying herself to deliver her compatriot to the line.
Gery claimed the world title in Kigali at the end of an attritional race that culminated with a stellar combination of tactics and strength from the French team.
After using Julie Bego to force attacks all day long, the race came down to the final lap, and on the final cobbled climb, Marion Bunel launched from the peloton, taking Gery and Viktória Chladoňová with her.
Bunel then led the group for almost the whole final kilometre, dragging her teammate up the final climb to the line, allowing Gery to sit back and launch off Chladoňová in the final to go for the win.
Bunel collapsed against the barriers at the finish, empty from the effort she had put in for her teammate, explaining that going all-in for each other had been the team's plan from the morning.
"In the briefing, we had an African proverb: alone we go fastest, together we go furthest," Bunel told Eurosport at the finish. "We all kept that in our minds today, because we knew that to go for the title, we had to really play off all of our strengths."
With one of the strongest teams in the race, France were always going to be a threat, and Bunel knew early on that it could be a day for Gery in particular.
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"Deep down, every time I saw her on the cobblestones each lap, I knew she was on top. So I told her that if she could go for it in the final lap, then it would be hers. So it was a great team success, I think," she said.
Gery praised the work from Bunel that delivered her to a perfect position in the final 500 metres of the race, even after a long, attritional day.
"I was scared that Marion wasn't going to be able to do any more, but she managed to find some energy, I don't know where from, to pull in the final kilometre," Gery explained.
The cost of Bunel's effort was clear (Image credit: Zac Williams/SWpix.com)
Bunel was in a position to finish on the podium still, but slowed down dramatically in the final metres, and finished fifth on the day. However, she said, there was no disappointment in not taking a medal, as her efforts had been about going for the win.
"I was already cooked," she said. "I was trying to manage my efforts because it was super hard and I knew that today was a race of attrition."
Whilst others have put their success in Kigali down to their altitude training and heat adaptation, Gery didn't do any preparation at altitude, but did spend a lot of time in the run-in to the Worlds with her teammates, which she said was the secret behind their stellar cooperation on Thursday.
"I didn't do an altitude camp, like other girls might have done, but I finished the last part of the season and had some time off for the last few weeks, so I was quite fresh," she said.
"I did a camp with the French team, which allowed us to learn to work together, which I think helped us to win today, and again after the Tour de l'Avenir I was with Marion and Julie, and it's that that made it work today."
With the first under-23 women's race offering no playbook in terms of tactics or dynamics, France went into the race with an open mind and tactical flexibility.
"We said in the briefing that we had to be able to adapt, because in a World Championships you can never predict it, so you have to imagine all the possible scenarios," Gery said.
"So we had to adapt, make our efforts at the right moments, stay really intelligent with the efforts we had to do, because in a World Championships using a bullet at the right moment is a bullet that can take you to the finish. We knew how to adapt, basically, and with the girls, that worked."
Coming into the final kilometre in a two-vs-one situation with a teammate pulling on the front, Gery was in an ideal position for much of the finale, but said it wasn't until right before the finish that she knew she was going to take the rainbow jersey.
"I wasn't totally sure until the very end, but the moment when I knew I could really do it when we got to the top of the cobbles," she said. "But I also knew I had to keep going right until the line, then I really started thinking I could do it when Chladoňová launched with 300, 200 metres to go, because I knew that with my explosiveness I had the power to win."
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Matilda is an NCTJ-qualified journalist based in the UK who joined Cyclingnews in March 2025. Prior to that, she worked as the Racing News Editor at GCN, and extensively as a freelancer contributing to Cyclingnews, Cycling Weekly, Velo, Rouleur, Escape Collective, Red Bull and more. She has reported on the ground at all of the biggest events on the calendar, including the men's and women's Tours de France, the Giro d'Italia, the Vuelta a Espana, the Spring Classics and the World Championships. She has particular experience and expertise in women's cycling, and women's sport in general. She is a graduate of modern languages and sports journalism.
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