FROM a crash which left her sore and bloodied to a day of gold and rainbows - Emilie Miller once again proved her toughness to finish her Cycling Australia Road Nationals campaign on a high note.
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Star Bathurst Para-cyclist Miller made the trip to Ballarat for the annual titles hopeful of adding another pair of national gold medals to her already impressive resume.
Since 2013 the H3 category handcyclist had not been beaten in any road race or time trial she had contested at the national titles. Miller is also a multiple world road champion in those two events.
On Wednesday Miller suffered a setback when she crashed in the time trial, the incident seeing her unable to finish the course.
She also opted out of Thursday's UCI time trial.
But on Saturday, despite facing an ascent of the renowned brutal Mount Buninyong climb, Miller was back at the start line for the road race.
READ MORE: Nicholas adds another victory to his tally
Wearing the rainbow colours of a world champion, Miller conquered the 10.2 kilometre circuit to claim the gold medal.
In becoming a national champion once more, she stopped the clock in a time of one hour, 31 minutes, nine seconds.
"Always an honour to wear the rainbows jerseys and at national championships to be able to come away with a gold medal, I am really pleased with the result," Miller said.
"I think from being able to come back from the crash in the time trial and to ride the road race as well as I did today, I am really happy."
Meanwhile, Miller's partner David Nicholas made a golden sweep of his Ballarat campaign as he added victory in Saturday's C3 men's road race to his earlier successes in the national time trial and UCI time trial.
The Queensland native and now Bathurst resident averaged 33.3km/hr for the course as he powered to a commanding victory.
Nicholas covered the 51 kilometres - five laps of the circuit - in 1:31.54 to finish 8:31 clear of his nearest rival Justin Godfrey.
The next assignment for Nicholas and Miller will be the inaugural Tour Down Under Wheel-Race in Adelaide on January 19.
The 30-minute sprint circuit demonstration adds to what is already the biggest annual cycling event in Australia, with the men's and women's Tour Down Under drawing a host of the world's best road talents.
"For any cyclist to even go to the event to watch it as spectator would be an incredible experience, so now to be able to ride there ourselves and show what we can do on a world stage, yeah, that's doubly exciting," Miller said after the event was introduced.
