Olympic Games (France) - Press Release: Road cycling: Australia's Grace Brown rides slippery road to Olympic gold in Paris 2024 women's individual time trial

The world's best road cyclists took to the slippery streets of Paris and the neighbouring Île-de-France in the Paris 2024 women's individual time trial competition on 27 July.

Australia's Grace Brown had the ride of her life to take the first gold by an athlete from her nation at these Olympic Games.

"Being away from Australia a lot of the year, being away from my family, that's given me the impetus to work really hard and make it all worth it," Brown said. "Just to make Australia proud, winning the first gold medal for our nation, setting the medal table on its way. I hope I inspire the other athletes to push their limits and go after similar results."

The combination of cobblestones and rain caused trouble for many competitors, with world champions and medal hopefuls crashing left and right, including Taylor Knibb of the USA, who fell three times.

Despite the conditions, Brown remained focused on her tactics. "Because it was wet, we had to go a bit slower through the corners and that helped me take some little breaks along the way. I didn't really know that a lot of my competitors were crashing. So it sounds like I was lucky to stay upright in the end," Brown explained.

"If you're starting and you know that everyone's crashing, then you have a little bit more fear about the race. So it was good that I didn't know," the Olympic champion added.

She set the fastest times at every intermediate check, finishing 1:31.59 ahead of silver medalist Anna Henderson with a gold-medal time of 39:38.24. World champion Chloe Dygert, despite having to recover from a crash, secured the bronze.

This gold medal was a long-awaited triumph for Brown, who had finished second in the last two world championships, including to Dygert in 2023. Now, with gold around her neck, Brown finally stood atop the podium.