25/09/2024

"I feel a bit greedy" - Grace Brown's fairy-tale farewell continues as Australia take gold in mixed relay at 2024 World Championships

There's going out on a high and then there's the fairy-tale farewell that Grace Brown is embarking on currently. After Olympic gold in Paris earlier this summer, the Australian added the individual time trial world title a few days ago. Now, the soon-retiring 32-year-old has helped her nation to mixed relay team time trial gold in Switzerland also.

"I feel a bit greedy," Brown admits with a beaming smile in a post-race interview, after she and compatriots Michael Matthews, Ben O'Connor, Jay Vine, Brodie Chapman and Ruby Roseman-Gannon secured the world title by just .8 of a second from Germany in a thrilling finale in Zürich.

Matthews, O'Connor, Vine, Brown, Chapman and Roseman-Gannon capture mixed relay team time trial gold for Australia at the 2024 World Championships

"I needed a few more rainbow jerseys in my closet," the Australian, who can still add yet more glory to her palmares before retirement in the upcoming road race, continues jokingly. "This one is really cool and it's a great vibe to win with the whole Australian team!"

"When it's such a small difference there are so many places on a course where you can gain and lose time," Brown concludes. "It's hard to say where we made the difference but we just rode as hard as we could and we're happy that we did it."

"I feel a bit greedy" - Grace Brown's fairy-tale farewell continues as Australia take gold in mixed relay at 2024 World Championships — Brown already took the Rainbow Jersey in the individual time trial earlier this week

"It was very tough. Jay Vine wore me out right away, we were averaging 650 watts from the bottom to the top of the climb. It was a tough day, there was no chance to recover," adds one of the male team's representative's Matthews. "We had to stay together as a team as much as possible and keep the speed as high as possible. We had the fastest time on the way, that made us confident because we knew we had a strong women's team to finish it off."

Although the unique mixed relay team time trial isn't a discipline often raced by many in the peloton, it's fair to say Matthews enjoyed his experience of it. "This was a new experience for us. We were confident but you never know until you cross the finish line. We're still a bit in shock but once it sinks in that we're world champions we can really enjoy it," the 33-year-old concludes. "