Grace Brown

Originally a cross-country and middle-to-long-distance runner, Grace Brown began her cycling career just eight years before becoming an Olympic champion, with her first race at the Australian Championships in 2016 when she was 23-years old.

Her switch from running to cycling came out of necessity. Hampered by stress fractures and various injuries, she decided to take up bike riding as it was less impact on her body.

She joined a local riding club in Melbourne as a way of socialising and meeting other riders, but it didn't take long for her competitive nature to kick in.

Grace climbed into the World Tour ranks in 2019 and immediately impressed, claiming gold in the Australian Time Trial Championship that year and winning stage three of the Tour Down Under.

In 2020 she enjoyed her first European victory with a win in the Brabantse Pijl in Belgium and placing second in the Liège-Bastogne-Liège.

Fast forward to 2021 and Grace was on track for an Olympic debut even though she still considered herself a newbie to the sport.

In February of 2021, she took silver in the Australian Time Trial Championship to future Tokyo Olympics teammate Sarah Gigante, before another silver three days later in the Australian Road Race Championship to Sarah Roy.

Overseas she enjoyed her first UCI World Tour win in the (159km) Brugge-De Panne in Belgium in April 2021. She followed it up with a third in the Ronde van Vlaanderen race over 152km.

At Tokyo 2020 Grace was co-leader of Australia’s women’s road race team with Amanda Spratt, but when attacks started coming from the peloton mid-race she was unable to go with the leaders and eventually finished 47th, 9mins 31secs behind Austrian Anna Kiesenhofer, who produced a major upset to win gold.

Grace then narrowly missed the podium in the women’s individual time trial where she finished fourth, just seven seconds off third place and 1min 8secs off gold medallist Annemiek van Vleuten.

In 2022, Grace returned from a shoulder injury to win her second Australian time trial title, along with another silver medal in the road race.

Later in the year, just days after competing in the Tour de France Femmes, she blasted her way to a gold medal in the time trial at the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham.

Grace, who went into the event as favourite, led at all three checkpoints before completing the 29km course through Wolverhampton in 20:05.20. England’s Anna Henderson finished 33.35 seconds back to claim silver, while New Zealand’s Georgia Williams took bronze in 41:25.27.

Later that year, Grace claimed silver in the time trial at the Road World Championships in Wollongong, NSW – a feat she repeated when the world championships was held in Glasgow, Scotland in 2023.

Earlier in 2023, Grace pulled off something of a coup to beat her great rival Amanda Spratt in a thrilling final stage to win the Women’s Tour Down Under.

Grace caught Amanda, a three-time winner of the race, in the last few kilometres of the 93.2km final stage and outsprinted her to the line. That win was enough to give her overall victory, 10 seconds ahead of Amanda.

At the Paris 2024 Olympics Grace competed on day one of the Games and delivered Australia its first gold medal in Paris with a dominant display in the women’s individual time trial.

The then 32-year-old defied wet and slippery roads to conquer the 32.4km course at Pont Alexandre III in a time of 39 mins 38 secs, to win by more than one minute from Great Britain’s Anna Henderson and America's world champion Chloé Dygert.

It was Australian cycling’s first ever Olympic medal in a women’s individual time trial and the nation’s first gold medal on the road since Athens 2004.

Two months later, Grace announced she would be retiring from the sport at the conclusion of the UCI Road Cycling World Championships in September 2024. With two world championships silver medals already achieved in her career, Grace had one more chance to go for individual time trial gold in Zurich.

Grace carried her Olympic form over to become the world champion, completing the 29.9km course in 39:07, 17 seconds ahead of Dutchwoman Demi Vollering.