Kristina Clonan

When she missed out on selection for the endurance team for the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games and the Tokyo Olympics, track cyclist Kristina Clonan decided a change was required.

Kristina transitioned from the Australian Cycling Team’s endurance program to reinvent herself as a world-class track sprinter.

And the switch paid off handsomely in 2022 when she won gold in the 500m time trial at the Commonwealth Games. Kristina upstaged Canada’s Olympic champion Kelsey Mitchell with a stunning ride, setting a new Commonwealth Games record of 33.234 – a record previously held by Australian cycling great Anna Meares. 

“It has been a long hustle,” Kristina said at the time. “Missing out on 2018 and then the Olympics I was like, ‘OK, what am I doing’.

“So it has been years of hustling and it is paying off finally. The sprint coach at the time identified me and when I missed out on the team for Tokyo I decided I should try this.”

As a teenager, the Sunshine Coast native won the 2015 Junior Oceania Road Race Championships and took bronze in the scratch race at the 2016 Junior Track World Championships.

Still on the endurance trajectory, Kristina won the elite Madison Australian title in 2018, tasted World Cup success with the Australian team pursuit squad and won the U23 national title.

Then came the reinvention as a track sprinter, which meant trimming back the training kilometres and stacking more weight on the leg press.

The results began coming quickly. Kristina won the 2020 elite women’s sprint, keirin and time trial national championships. Proving it was no fluke, she successfully defended all three crowns in 2021. 

At TrackNats in 2022, Kristina rode under 33 seconds in a 500m time trial for the first time. Once again, she swept the individual events to retain all three Australian titles and then broke through at international level with a gold medal in the time trial at the UCI Track Nations Cup in Milton.

At the 2023 TrackNats, she won her fourth sprint crown in a row in a fierce battle with rising star Alessia McCaig.

Then at the 2023 World Championships in Glasgow, Kristina raced to time trial silver, edged out by German superstar Emma Hinze by just 0.136 seconds.

After a career already marked by disappointment and triumph, Kristina’s advice to young athletes is: “Learn to enjoy the process. The highs are highs, and the lows are lows, but if you enjoy the sport, the training partners and the environment, you'll see through the lows.”

Kristina is completing a bachelor of business at Griffith University in Brisbane, majoring in property development and real estate management.