Career ends in 2024: Grace Brown - homesickness weighs heavier than double gold

Very few athletes succeed in quitting when it's at its best. But Grace Brown is one of them. She is leaving after her best season as the reigning Olympic and world time trial champion. However, she had already made the decision to hang up her bike before the two competitions. "I know I could have many more years in cycling, but I miss my life in Australia, my husband, my family and friends. And it's getting harder to leave every time," she said in mid-June 2024 when she announced her retirement for the end of the season.

>> Demonstration of power: Brown wins gold in the Olympic time trial

>> Brown new time trial world champion

Even Olympic gold and the World Championship title couldn't change that. "I've already been asked a thousand times whether I'll reconsider, but the decision has been made," she said after winning the rainbow jersey. Homesickness is always more of a factor for athletes from the fifth continent than for Europeans, for example, who are also often travelling but can at least see their loved ones from time to time. This is almost impossible for Australians, as the majority of the season takes place in Europe, including all winter training camps. There is only time to visit home shortly after the season or when the racing circus makes a guest appearance Down Under.

Grace Brown: From runner to professional cyclist

"I don't have a safety net during the season like the European riders. Many of my rivals don't understand what we have to leave behind privately during the year," Brown tried to explain her situation. But even before her two historic titles - never before has a woman won the Olympic and world individual time trial titles in the same year - the 32-year-old from the south of Australia was highly satisfied with what she had achieved. "What I have achieved goes far beyond what I would have expected."

In her youth, Grace Brown was a middle-distance runner on the track and also cross-country, but only at national level. However, it didn't turn out to be the perfect sport. "My physique wasn't really suited to running and I suffered from a long series of injuries such as stress fractures. After so many years of getting injured, I was fed up," she once told Velo magazine. "I commuted a bit on my bike, but that was it. But shortly after university, I bought my first carbon bike."

In Melbourne, where Brown had moved for her studies, she joined a club and rode a few criteriums. "The feeling of wanting to be competitive in this sport was there almost immediately. One day I was searching the internet for road races because I wanted to do a proper road race on criteriums."

First-time success at the Tour Down Under

The first thing on the agenda was the national championships. "I remember there was a button you could click to sign up, and I did," says Brown. Just over six months after discovering the road bike, she was at the start line for the title race in January 2016. She didn't finish the race, but it was the start of her successful career.

Good performances in a national racing series qualified her for higher challenges in Europe. In 2018, she rode alongside Lisa Brennauer and Elisa Longo Borghini for the British Wiggle High5 team for a few months, having previously become Oceania time trial champion and runner-up in the road race and received a scholarship from the Amy Gillett Foundation (Amy Gillett was an Australian cyclist who died in a training accident in Germany in 2005 when she was hit by a car while preparing for the Tour of Thuringia; the foundation's main aim is to make cycling safer in Australia). She finally signed her first professional contract in 2019 with the Australian team Mitchelton-Scott, which now competes as Liv Jayco AlUla.

Her second race in the new jersey was the Australian Time Trial Championships, which she won for the first time and by a clear margin. Then it was off to the Tour Down Under. "I had the impression that I wouldn't have many chances in a new sport, a new team," she recalled. However, she proved herself wrong. "On the third day, the sports director said to me: 'This stage really suits you, Grace'". He was proved right: Brown won the stage, celebrating her first professional victory after a "very, very, very long sprint."

Brown quickly establishes himself among the world leaders

It remained her only success in her first year, which she otherwise used to acclimatise herself to the big races and especially in Europe. But the very next year she established herself among the world's best. The Belgian classics - rather atypical for Australian professionals - initially proved to be a good place for Brown. In a season completely shaken up by the coronavirus pandemic, she crossed the finish line in second place at Liège-Bastogne-Liège after finishing 13th at Fleche Wallonne, just nine seconds behind winner Lizzie Deignan. Three days later, she then won the Arrow of Brabant ahead of Liane Lippert. Grace Brown also rode her first world championship race that year. She finished fourth in the individual time trial competition in Imola, Italy.

In 2021, Brown confirmed her strong Classics performances from the previous year. She finished eighth in Omloop het Nieuwsblad, second in Nokere Koerse and finally won Brugge-De Panne. She finished sixth in Dwars door Vlaanderen before coming third in the Tour of Flanders. She also won a stage of the Tour of Burgos. As it was her first, she was also celebrating her debut at the top of a multi-day race. The Olympic Games awaited her in September, where Brown came fourth in the time trial, seven seconds off the bronze medal.

In 2022, Grace Brown, who had just switched to Team FDJ, repeated her Australian time trial title and second place at Liège-Bastogne-Liège, this time only beaten by Annemiek van Vleuten. This time she finished the Ronde in seventh place, plus twelfth place for the premiere at Paris-Roubaix. She won a stage at the Women's Tour in England - she missed out on winning the overall classification by one second because Elisa Longo Borghini came third on the final day and overtook the Australian thanks to the bonus seconds. Instead, she won the Commonwealth Games time trial and a stage of the Vuelta.

Grace Brown - an all-rounder in the end

A week later, they returned home, even though the season had not yet ended. But the 2022 World Championships were held in Wollongong, Australia. "The longer I look at the course, the more I think it suits me well," said Brown ahead of the 34-kilometre race, in which she was not yet the favourite. "If I have a really good day, maybe I can win." However, Brown "only" had a good day and in the end she was 13 seconds off Ellen van Dijk's gold medal. Nevertheless, she collected her first international medal.

A year later in Glasgow, Scotland, Grace Brown was just six seconds off the gold medal, which this time went to Chloe Dygert. The trend: clear. But in 2023, the Australian not only proved her time trial qualities once again. She also made her breakthrough as a circuit rider in races that did not include high mountain stages. At the start of the year, she fulfilled her dream of winning the Tour Down Under, and she also won the Bretagne Ladies Tour in May and the Grand Prix du Morbihan shortly before that.

The classics suffered somewhat that year, she only finished in the top 10 at the Amstel Race in sixth place, but she proved in her final season that she can also win the really big one-day races. Because before Grace Brown became Olympic and world champion in the time trial, she won Liège-Bastogne-Liège in the sprint of a small group ahead of Longo Borghini and Demi Vollering, having previously been part of a leading group of three. After double gold, which is basically also triple gold, because she also became world champion with the mixed relay teamthat almost fell by the wayside in the aftermath.

A fitting farewell with victory in the time trial

While Brown was at least able to present her golden Lapierre time trial bike to the world public at the World Championships in Zurich, her only appearance in the rainbow jersey went almost unnoticed, even though it was the last race of her career. The world champion finished the Chrono des Nations in Les Herbiers near Nantes in the west of the country on the Atlantic coast with a victory befitting her status - the 26th of her career. Twelve of them came against the clock.

As Melbourne is to become the centre of her life again in the future, a second career in cycling - at least internationally - is considered unlikely. However, commentating a race here and there for television and returning to Europe to do so could be an option for her, as she said herself.

Grace Brown's greatest successes

• Olympic time trial champion 2024
• Time trial world champion 2024, also runner-up twice (2022 and 2023)
• Winner Liège-Bastogne-Liège 2024, plus two runners-up (2022 and 2020)
• Winner Classic Brugge-De Panne 2021
• Winner Tour Down Under 2023
• A total of 26 victories as a professional, twelve of them in time trials