As the clock ticks down on Grace Brown's final months as a professional cyclist, she is hoping to deliver the ultimate swan song – a gold for Australia, or at least a first-ever medal for the nation in the women's time trial at the Paris Olympic Games.
The 32-year-old from Melbourne, who was a fourth-placed finisher in the Tokyo Games ITT, has lifted her game considerably since. She claimed silver at both the 2022 and 2023 World Championships, on the first occasion being 12 seconds behind Ellen van Dijk (Netherlands) and then six seconds back from Chloe Dygert (United States).
"I think it would be hard to have really high goals if I hadn’t come that close before: twice now at the World Championships. I can see that winning is possible," said Brown in a news release from AusCycling earlier this week. "You still carry a little bit of hurt that you weren’t able to do it in those opportunities.
"All sorts of thoughts go through your head when you are hurting in the middle of a race, but to know that twice I’ve been so close, just to have that extra incentive and say to myself, 'OK, you need to make up that extra five seconds,' every second counts."
The three riders who claimed the medals ahead of Brown at the COVID-19-delayed Games are not on the start line, with the first and third-placed Dutch riders Annemiek van Vleuten and Anna van der Breggen having since retired, and illness sidelining the second-placed Swiss rider Marlen Reusser. However, there will be no shortage of competition.
"The goal is to win it," said Brown. "There’s maybe four time triallists including myself that are capable of winning the race. It’s going to be a bit of a surprise who actually comes out on top and who misses the podium. It’s hard to put a definite bet on who.
"I’m aiming for that gold medal, and if I fall short and land on the podium, I’m still going to be really happy with that, but hopefully not fourth," laughed Brown.
With Reusser out, the clear favourites along with Brown are the two most recent World Champions in the discipline, Dygert and Van Dijk, the latter who has quickly returned to impressive form following the birth of her first child but has had to rebound from a broken ankle.
Then there is also Elisa Longo Borghini (Italy), who most recently made a mark in the discipline by beating Brown to the win the opening Giro d'Italia time trial. Demi Vollering's strength has been evident as a GC rider but there can be no doubt the Tour de France Femmes winner knows how to deliver on the biggest of stages plus the Dutch rider also claimed victory in the individual time trial at the Tour de Suisse last month.
Add in road World Champion Lotte Kopecky (Belgium), Christina Schweinberger (Switzerland), who came third at World Championships last year, and European Championships runner-up Anna Henderson (Great Britain) as among those in contention for a top five spot in the flat 32.4-kilometre time trial.
Still despite the hefty lineup of rivals as Brown heads into her second Olympic Games, she is going in with the assurance of a season where she has already swept up a sought-after victory at Liège-Bastogne-Liège, has had the benefit of a smooth lead-in to prepare and carries much more experience than in her first Games.
"There are so many things about time trialling that I’ve learned since then and I’ve really fine-tuned the race process," said Brown.
But will it be enough to deliver a magical swan song for the rider who plans to retire at the end of 2024?
There will be plenty watching to find out as Brown rolls from the start line as the second-to-last rider, before Dygert, at 15:19:30 (23:19:30 AEST) on Saturday July 28.
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