Brown looking to reclaim time trial crown at Australian Championships

Team BikeExchange will showcase a strong female outfit in this year's Australian Championships in Buninyong as they tackle the time trial, criterium and road race events.

Team BikeExchange riders Sarah Roy and Grace Brown in action at the Santos Festival of Cycling. Source: Velo

Time trial champion in 2019 and last year's runner up Grace Brown will be gunning for top spot again when she races against the clock on Wednesday, and will also compete in the road race on Sunday as she looks to add to her national championships tally.

And the 28-year-old believes she has put in the work during preparations for the events and is in the best shape possible to compete for the crown in both the time trial and road race this year.

"The Santos Festival of Cycling was a tough tour and it definitely highlighted that I have a bit of work to do before being at my top level," Brown said. "I felt that I built form throughout those four days of racing intensity and that should improve my shape coming into Nationals."

"My primary focus is the time trial, but from previous years I find the preparation for both events goes hand-in-hand. Come Sunday, the road race will be just as important.

"Given the global situation and restricted travel, it would feel more significant than ever to be able to take the Australian jersey back over to Europe and represent our country in the WorldTour peloton."

Two-time Herald Sun Tour winner Lucy Kennedy will challenge for the road race jersey fresh off the back of a second-place finish overall at the Santos Festival of Cycling, while former criterium champions Sarah Roy and Jess Allen will tackle Friday's event before joining Kennedy and Brown in Sunday's main event.

34-year-old Roy acknowledged the pressure on her and her BikeExchange teammates as a WorldTour team, maintaining the need for focus and smart racing throughout the events.

"There is always a bit of a target on our backs heading into the National Championship races, being the only WorldTour team with numbers here in Australia, and with that comes a fair bit of pressure," Roy said.

"I think it's important we race to our strengths and not lose sight of what's to come with the classics starting in a month's time." 

SBS will be providing coverage of the Australian National Road Cycling Championships. The time trials don't have any live broadcast, but stay tuned to the site for the results from Ballarat.

The elite men's and women's road races will be shown live on television on Sunday, February 7. The national criterium championships elite women's and men's races will be streamed live on the SBS Cycling Central website.