Little more than a year ago, Sarah Gigante stunned the cycling world – and perhaps even herself – by riding across the line ahead of a peloton stacked with seasoned professionals to take out both the Under-23 and elite women’s title at the Australian Road National Championships. Now comes the small matter of defending those titles, but at least this time she’ll be carrying the confidence and expectation that stems from having race No 1 pinned to the back of your jersey.

Even attempting to secure last year’s Under-23 women’s national road race crown was an ambitious target for Gigante, given it was her first year out of the junior ranks. Overall victory in the combined Under-23 and elite race was completely unthinkable. More so because of the year she’d just had. On top of determinedly studying and pulling off a perfect year 12 score, she also battled her way back from a broken elbow, shoulder and wrist.

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Though somehow Gigante has a knack for achieving the seemingly impossible and doing it with a smile on her face, a calm friendly demeanour and unrelenting commitment to having fun on the bike. The disarmingly enthusiastic personality and youth helped her catch the experienced players in the peloton off guard last year, but they won’t be making that mistake again.

There’ll be no flying under the radar on Sunday when the now 19-year-old lines up at the 2020 Road National Championships near Ballarat. She’ll be a marked rider, not only because of her performance last year but also because Gigante has already clearly shown what powerful form she is carrying into 2020. On Wednesday she started her Road Nationals campaign by winning the Under-23 and elite time trial, claiming yet another national title double.

That marked-rider status will undoubtedly add another degree of difficulty for Gigante as she attempts to defend her road race titles, but going in with anything less than a winning attitude just isn’t in her DNA. When asked if this year’s race around the hilly Buninyong circuit felt bittersweet because it could mean she had to hand the green and gold jersey of the national champion to someone else, she was quick to reply: “but hopefully I don’t”.

“I definitely have higher expectations now than I would have if I didn’t win last year, but I’m also trying not to put pressure on myself,” Gigante told Guardian Australia. “If I train hard, which I have been, and try my best on the day then even if it doesn’t quite work out I’ll know it’s the best I could have done.

“Luck does come into it too, you have to have the perfect race. Even if you train super hard not everything can always go right and other people’s decisions change your race as well,” said Gigante. “So it is best to go in with an attitude of have fun, try your best and see where it takes you.”

Luck, so far, hasn’t been on her side. Gigante was expecting to have just one ally on the road, but an extremely valuable one at that. Her move to join US team TIBCO-Silicon Valley Bank reunited Gigante with a supportive former teammate and 2018 Australian champion, Shannon Malseed.

Sadly, Malseed had a horrible crash on Saturday at the Lexus of Blackburn Bay Crits which means Gigante will be flying solo. Not an easy task, particularly when faced with the might of Australia’s only top-tier international team, Mitchelton-Scott, and its five riders at Road Nationals.

Not that she’s generally put off by unfavourable odds.

“I first saw Sarah racing when I watched the live coverage of the 2019 national championships and I really liked the way she raced, not afraid of or intimidated by her competition but willing to give it a go,” said Rachel Hedderman, head sports director at TIBCO-Silicon Valley Bank. “That attitude, combined with the strength to actually be able to pull off the result she did, was impressive at any age. But for an 18-year-old, especially so.”

Gigante is now set to launch into her first year of professional racing on an international team, making her Women’s WorldTour level racing debut in Australia and then competing in the United States and Europe. She’ll continue to study as well, because balance has always been crucial to her. Now, though, she’ll be a professional racer and part-time student, instead of a full-time student boasting an impressive racing record.

That means whether or not she manages to again defy the odds and add another Australian National Championships road race title to her already impressive results list, it is hard not to think of this year as anything but the beginning of a new era for this talented teenager.