Mullins surprises to win Noosa GP

Team-mates Peta Mullens and Melissa Hoskins upstaged Commonwealth Games gold medallist Rochelle Gilmore with a bold breakaway to share the honours in the women's event at the Noosa Cycling Grand Prix.

While Mullens was awarded the women's criterion in a photo finish, she and Hoskins dominated the race together and went over the line hand in hand.

The pair had raced the bulk of the event in a six-woman breakway group but scorched away from the small pack shortly before the last three laps of the 1.25km street circuit after receiving the green light from Gilmore.

Riding in the peloton, Gilmore gave her Honda Dream Team teammates a fist pump and urged them to "go, go, go" as they passed.

Hoskins and Mullens took the advice and cleared out to win in 35 minutes 2 seconds.

"Mel put in this massive effort and then all of a sudden I turned behind and it was just the two of us," Mullens said.

"Ultimately we're always going for a sprint finish because Rochelle is unbeatable.

"But we like to show the other girls out there that we're stronger than that and we're more diverse than that and we can do anything."

Laura Luxford finished a distant third, 36 seconds behind, while Gilmore won the sprint finish for the main pack to be sixth in 36:18.

In a race which included a crash on the first lap, Mullens and Hoskins argued over who should claim the win rather than test each other on a sprint finish.

"We'd been arguing all the way up the straight who would take the win and Mel said to me 'do it for Bendigo' which is my local town," Mullens said.

"To run away with the one-two today is a dream."

Final results:

1 Peta Mullens 0:35:02, 2 Melissa Hoskings, 3 Laura Luxford 0:00:36, 4 Liz Young 0:00:37, 5 Nikolina Orlic