ARARAT'S Lucas Hamilton is a national cycling champion.
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Hamilton competed at the Cycling Australia Under-19 Road Championships in Canberra at the weekend, winning a gold medal in the road race on Saturday.
He also claimed silver at the time trial on Friday, missing out on gold by just 2.4 seconds.
His uncle Tom Hamilton said Lucas could have easily returned to Ararat with two gold medals around his neck.
"In the time trial he really wasn't going to put out for that he wanted to save himself for the road race," he said.
"In the end he came second, but he probably would have won that too because at the turn, instead of turning around at the witches hat, there were two blokes standing 10 metres behind it and he turned around them.
"He did 20 metres more than he needed to, and he only lost by two seconds, so I'd say that's where he got done, which is a bit stiff."
Hamilton shook off the disappointment of losing the time trial on Saturday and produced a brilliant ride to win the 118.3-kilometre road race by one second from Queensland's Daniel Fitter.
Hamilton's winning time was three hours, eight minutes and 50 seconds.
More than 80 riders started the time trial, but only 44 finished.
Only three riders finished within two minutes of Hamilton.
Tom said the result was the culmination of years of training.
"It's a magnificent effort because he worked really hard at it," he said.
"People don't know the miles and the hours those boys put in."
It has been a big year for the Ararat teenager.
He finished first in the Under-19 Road Race at the Oceania Cycling Championships in February and won gold with Matthew Ross in the under-19 Madison at the Cycling Australia Track Nationals.