There is not even a hint that taking to the second step of the podium at a home Road World Championships time trial in Wollongong in 2022 and equalling the best-ever women’s elite result for Australia in the race for rainbows means job done for Grace Brown.
If anything, the pull of the rainbow jersey seems to have become even greater with proximity – there is a clear target at the race against the clock on Thursday, August 10, at the 2023 Road World Championships, and that is turning silver to gold.
“The time trial is a really big goal this year at Worlds,” Brown told Cyclingnews last month. “After coming second last year, we are hoping that maybe we can pull it together to win it. That's exciting – it's also daunting, but that's what time trialling is always like."
Last year it was Ellen van Dijk (Netherlands) who swept to victory on the 34.2km technical course around the streets of the Wollongong city centre, crossing the line 12 seconds faster than Brown, while Marlen Reusser (Switzerland) was a further 29 seconds back. This year the 36.2km course is a little further afield, with 242 metres of elevation gain featuring a 6% gradient to the finish line at Stirling Castle.
Brown is relatively fresh from the Tour de France Femmes, where she came fourth in the final stage time trial, which Reusser won, while her SD Worx teammates Demi Vollering and Lotte Kopecky completed the podium.
“The time trial in Pau was definitely a good test for worlds. It's not entirely the same racing on fatigued Tour legs, but it was a good reminder of what will be needed for the world’s time trial," said Brown in an AusCycling statement. "I hope that I can lift my level a bit from that performance.”
Kopecky, who has already raced on the track at the combined Cycling World Championships, won’t be lining up on Thursday, nor will last year’s winner, the currently pregnant Van Dijk, but there will be additions like Chloe Dygert, and the rider from the United States has clearly shown powerful form on the track.
Some who were targeting a peak for the Tour de France Femmes may be hoping their top form will hold through, but Brown was heading into the race perhaps still on the build’ after taking a race break in Australia beforehand to make sure she didn’t “hit my best a bit too early and then be on the tail end for Worlds”.
That race break included a considerable amount of training on the time trial bike to prepare and build on the work she had done in previous years, which she hopes will see her continue her steady upward trajectory in the time trial. At her first World Championships appearance in 2020, she came fifth, then in the 2021 Olympic Games came fourth before making it to second, and now there is only one slot step further for her to advance in the race for rainbows.
"The time trial is sort of an assembly,” Brown told Cyclingnews. “You just lay out every year a little bit more. So I've improved my position again and spent more time improving my time trialling physiology. I believe each year I've become better at it.”
The time trial is definitely the key aim at the Road World Championships, but not the only target in Glasgow as Brown too is one of the cards Australia will be looking to play in the 154.1km elite/U23 women's road race on Sunday, August 13.
“The course is quite crazy, actually. I went in and rode around the circuit, and yeah, it's a bit mental in the centre of Glasgow, but if I'm on a good day, then it can really suit me,” said Brown. “I guess I haven't really like pinpointed it as an exact target because so many years I've come into Worlds, I've done well in the time trial and then just like had a really bad day in the road race.
“I guess I'm trying a tactic this year of not putting pressure on myself about the road race. I think if I go into it a little bit more mentally relaxed, then maybe I can do better.”
