Megan Jastrab‘s star continued its meteoric rise this past weekend at USA Cycling’s amateur road national championships. Jastrab (Rally-UHC) won the national titles in the junior women’s road race and junior criterium, adding national titles 20 and 21 to her haul of junior national titles across road and track.
Here’s the W17-18 championship sprint won by Megan Jastrab. #roadnats pic.twitter.com/nMF31k8Hhe
— USA Cycling LIVE (@usacyclinglive) June 23, 2019
Jastrab earned her first national cycling championship in 2014 when she was just 12 years old.
This year, however, Jastrab had to overcome team tactics to claim her victories. In both the road race and criterium, Jastrab battled against six riders from the Southern California-based Lux Cycling junior development squad.
“It was a lot more competitive this year because we usually never had team tactics and everyone was just racing for themselves,” Jastrab told VeloNews. “This year Lux was attacking and putting girls up the road and forcing me to chase. I had to do a lot of the work myself.”
Jastrab has a famously fast sprint, and earlier this year won two stages and the overall at the Health Aging Women’s Tour, thanks in part to her fast finish. Still, Jastrab knew she was not guaranteed to outsprint the Lux riders. Jastrab said she came into the national championship weekend recovering from a sickness that she caught after a recent track cycling campaign.
Read the full story on VeloNews. (Lead photo courtesy of USA Cycling/Bruce Buckley)
