Chloe Hosking didn’t sign with another team after the collapse of the B&B Hotels squad late last year but that doesn’t mean she won’t be pinning on a number this year. The Australian headed straight from FNLD GRVL in early June to the United States, getting a chance to once again take on the criteriums.
Hosking had expected to head into a year heavy on criterium racing in 2020 after signing with US-based Rally Cycling, and was also set to do it in the jersey of the Australian criterium champion, after she swept her first elite title in the discipline on the hot dog circuit in the heart of Ballarat in January of that year.
However, 2020 was the year that COVID-19 quickly threw many well-thought out plans into disarray. Then she refocused squarely on Europe after signing with Trek-Segafredo for 2021 and 2022. To start the summer this year, she's back in the US.
“I'm jumping straight on the plane and going to race in America,” said Hosking from Finland, where she was taking on a 177km gravel event. “I’m doing all of the [Tour of America's] Dairylands criteriums and I'm doing a criterium in Boise, idaho and two criteriums in Salt Lake City. These are what I grew up racing."
The racing in the KwikTrip Tour of America's Dairyland starts on Thursday, June 15 in Jaynesville, Wisconsin, kicking off 11 consecutive days of criteriums in 11 communities across south-east Wisconsin. The third event, Giro d'Grafton, is the fourth stop of the American Criterium Cup, a 10-race series across the US. Hosking will also take part in the Boise Twilight Criterium on July 8 and the Salt Lake Criterium, July 15 and 16, with results from Boise and the first day of Salt Lake going towards the ACC series standings.
"I've always said that I wanted to go and race the crits in America, and so now I have that opportunity, and I'm doing it. And there's a real sense of freedom about being able to choose my program, being able to go to the races that I know I will enjoy and being able to do them without the pressure and also being able to ride my own bike, that's pretty cool," said Hosking.
Hosking will line up without teammates, planning to take advantage of her race experience and ability to launch off the wheels of other teams. She will also race on her new Hosking Bike, after launching the brand with a gravel and road bike.
The winner of La Course in 2016, who has around 40 professional victories on her tally, is currently based in Australia after having unexpectedly ended her European professional cycling career early when the team she had signed with for 2023, a planned new B&B Hotels women's squad, unravelled in December. Hosking, however, has far from turned her back on the sport and the 32-year-old has also not ruled out a return to the top tier in 2024.
