Lucy Kennedy recently earned a new nickname. According to Cycling Australia’s technical director Brad McGee, the Queensland rider is now known as “the cork”. The moniker was coined after Kennedy’s debut season in the professional peloton, where even two major crashes didn’t get her down. “She’s so buoyant – nothing can derail her,” he chuckles.

It has been a baptism of fire for Kennedy. While most elite cyclists take up the sport early and progress to the professional ranks by their early 20s, Kennedy did not touch a bike until she was 24 – after injuries stopped her from running. She balanced a career as a traffic modeller with rapid progression through the domestic ranks, before signing with Mitchelton-Scott late last year.

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“I don’t miss it at all,” Kennedy says of her past office life. “It has been a change but one that I am definitely embracing. While I had been an engineer for five years, ever since I was a little kid all I wanted to be was an athlete. The sport that I wanted to be a professional at has changed many times, but finally I am here. It is a dream come true.”

The 30-year-old’s fairytale continued last week in Austria, where she was part of the Australian team to contest the UCI road world championships. She was the chief lieutenant for Australia’s leader Amanda Spratt, showing fearsome climbing prowess on one of the toughest world championship courses in decades. Kennedy’s hard work helped earn Spratt a silver medal – the latter singling out her colleague in the post-race press conference. “I have to thank Lucy, she did an incredible job on the first time up that climb,” Spratt enthused.

Speaking to Guardian Australia barely 12 hours later, Kennedy is still in shock. “It is pretty wild really,” she admits. “When they announced the course for this world championships I had this pipe dream. It was a course that would suit me, and on Saturday it happened. I had a really good day on the bike, I did my job and could not be happier.” Spratt’s support for Kennedy during her debut season made it even sweeter. “It felt like a repayment for her mentorship,” she continued.

The counsel of the experienced Spratt has been warmly welcomed during nine tough months for Kennedy. After a strong start to the season in Australia and a fifth-place finish at Strade Bianche in Italy, Kennedy fractured her clavicle, scapula and eye socket during a bad crash at Amstel Gold.

“The year started on a high,” explains the tall and lean Kennedy, who still carries a few visible knocks from her physically-demanding campaign. “Then it all came undone.” Kennedy spent three months recovering with her heart set on the Giro Rosa – the toughest race on the women’s World Tour calendar – only to crash on stage four. “That was really hard to take,” she says. “During recovery I had a single-minded focus on the Giro. The Zoncolan stage – I was just so excited to finally race up a real mountain. Then it all disappeared.”

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Kennedy’s time off the bike forced reflection about the path that had seen her swap Brisbane for Italy. “In the moment it does not feel crazy – it has progressed naturally from one thing to another,” she says. “But if I think: literally a year ago I was working full-time in an office in Brisbane, it is just bizarre to think where I am right now.

“I do miss home,” she continues. “I could have my house and my stable job and my long-term partner Jack – it is hard to be away from that. But if you make the decision to be an athlete, you know what you’re sacrificing.”

After a turbulent debut season, Kennedy hopes that 2019 will be crash-free and she can contest some of the high-profile races she sat out during the past season. She also has one eye on 2020 and a spot in the Australian team for Tokyo. “The Olympics are two years away – they are really the pinnacle of sport,” she said. “The course has been released – it is not a super climber’s course but it’s not unrealistic for me. I think that is the main goal now.”

Kennedy might have joined the professional peloton later in life than is typical, but she is eager to make up for lost time. The rider showed in Innsbruck, barely a year into her professional career, that she can capably support a real contender against some of the best climbers in the world. Yet Kennedy’s ultimate ambitions are even loftier than that.

“I think I am capable of winning really hard races,” she says. “I have heaps to learn. I am still improving: physically, but particularly everything else – the skills and the tactics. I’m probably never going to be able to read a race as well as Amanda [Spratt] can. But I see myself being able to win big races.”