Grace Brown: Q&A with the ARA Australian Cycling Team

Grace Brown is one of Australia's greatest individual time trial riders. Originally a cross-country runner, Brown made the switch to cycling in her early 20s following various injuries and stress fractures. The rest, as they say, is history.

Since then she has gone on to be crowned the Australian time trial champion four times.

She made her Olympic debut at Tokyo in 2021 where she missed a spot on the podium to finish fourth in the ITT (riding with a broken shoulder).

The following year she won ITT Gold at the Birmingham Commonwealth Games and won her first UCI World Championships silver medal in front of a home crowd in Wollongong. In 2023 she came within 6 seconds of clinching the world title in Glasgow to claim her second silver medal.

Read on to get to know more about ARA Australian Cycling Team athlete Grace Brown.

What is your full name? Grace Lowden Brown

What is your hometown? Camperdown

What is your home club? St Kilda Cycling Club

Tell us about your family. Both my parents are doctors and I have three brothers who are all in the science industry.

What's your favourite TV show? Peep Show

What's your cheat meal? A burger and chips

What's your coffee order? Strong flat white

What's your ideal holiday? A ski holiday

When and how did you learn to ride a bike? I sort of remember learning on our driveway at home and mum just holding me up on the bike and me trying to pedal. I don’t know how I went from that to actually being capable on my own.

Where is your favourite place to ride? Why? Because I am away from Australia so much, I think of Australian places and probably my favourite road in Australia is the road between Mansfield and Whitfield. You just ride up onto this ridge and you are along the ridge for ages, and there are hardly any cars, and beautiful Australian bush and you get views over the Alpine mountains and Victoria.

What's your favourite event? Why? Tour of Flanders. It's like a Belgian national holiday, it's a party on the Kwaremont. It's just a really good atmosphere and the race is always full-on.

Who was your sporting idol? I always say Susie O’Neill just because when I was a kid I always thought she was pretty cool. I had a Susie O’Neill Barbie that could swim.

What has been one of your career highlights? Definitely the UCI World Championships silver medals. I think the first one in Wollongong was really special, and just exciting, it was fun and having all my Aussie fans there. I was up on the hot seat for ages because I started quite early, it just felt like a bit of a party.

What do you hope to have achieved by the end of your career? I think I've achieved way more than I ever thought I would but of course your goals keep pushing out. I think the one thing I really want is an Olympic medal. I think I’d be pretty satisfied with that.

If you weren’t a rider what would you be? This changes day-to-day. When I was younger I always wanted to be a foreign diplomat or some cool job like that but now that I've been a cyclist and travelling so much the last thing I want to do when I stop cycling is continue travelling. I would want to be my own boss and be an entrepreneur.