Newly crowned Olympic Time Trial champion Grace Brown said she rode the highs of her gold medal for days this week before wrapping up her Paris campaign in Sunday’s Women’s Road Race.
The 32-year-old, who plans to retire at the end of this year, delivered Australia its first gold medal of the Games and was still pinching herself a week later.
But she conceded she didn’t quite have the legs to go with the race-winning move in the Road Race as American Kristen Faulkner launched a daring attack on her breakaway companions in the final 2km of the 157.2km epic to claim gold in three hours, 59 minutes and 23 seconds.
“The first few days after last Saturday’s win were pretty crazy,” Grace said.
“There was a lot of excitement and a lot of adrenaline.
“It takes a little bit out, but I felt like I recovered well so I won’t blame that on not having the best day today.
“It wasn’t a terrible day, but to be up there in an Olympic race you need to really be good so just not my day.
“It was a tough race, we did everything that we planned to do and were in the right places at the right times.
“But when we entered Montmarte (Hill) for the first time I was up there on the wheels that went ahead but just didn’t have the legs to follow the attack.
“You have to race with the legs you’ve got and my training was really focused on the time trial which was quite specific so there were a few things missing to be up there today.”
Grace crossed the line in 23rd place with Australian teammate Lauretta Hanson in 22nd, both five minutes behind the winner, while Ruby Roseman-Gannon was caught up in a mid-race crash and finished 39th.
The course started and finished in the shadows of the Eiffel Tower and included a 110km loop which crossed Paris’ left bank and the Hauts-de-Seine, Yvelines and Essonne departments before returning to the city for an 18.5km loop which included the ascent up Montmarte.
A mid-race crash caused a split in the bunch and allowed 12 riders to go clear before Marianne Vos and Blanka Vas escaped and tried to make it to the finish.
But they were caught by Faulkner and Belgian pre-race favourite Lotte Kopecky with 3km to go and that’s when Faulkner made the decisive final move.
Lauretta described the race as an incredible experience.
“Every time up Montmarte you could hardly hear yourself,” she said.
“The crowds were phenomenal, we went out there and gave it our best, unfortunately we had a little bit of bad luck losing Ruby in the crash, but we tried and that’s all you can ask for.”
Reece Homfray
