26-year-old Australian Grace Brown is the second new signing for Mitchelton-SCOTT women following a stand out 2018 that saw her officially join the professional peloton in Europe.
Brown claimed the bronze medal in the road race and fourth in the time trial at the Australian Championships, and fifth overall at the Women’s Tour Down Under before capping off an Australian summer that put her on the radar with a gold and silver medal in the time trial and road race at the Oceania Championships.
Like many of her new teammates, Brown’s performances earned her the Amy Gillet Foundation scholarship and subsequent start in the second half of the season with Wiggle High5. The Victorian capped of a breakthrough year with her debut Australian selection, supporting Amanda Spratt to the silver medal at the world championships.
Grace Brown:
“I’m really excited to be stepping up into the professional peloton with Mitchelton-SCOTT. It’s going to be a huge learning curve for me, but I’m looking forward to really challenging myself.
“I’m a bit of an all-rounder on the bike and I’m hoping that I can be a really useful domestique next year. I’ll be aiming for good performances during the Australian summer. After that it will be a little bit of trial and error because a lot of races will be new experiences for me.
“Knowing some of the girls and on the team and having raced with a few makes the transition a lot less daunting. It makes it a lot easier to know what to expect in the year ahead when there’s going to be a whole lot of other unknowns. I know that the team is really hard working but also super supportive of each other’s effort. I’m really looking forward to being part of that successful equation and doing everything I can for the team.
“It’s really awesome to be following in the footsteps of other Amy Gillet Scholars and girls who have been through the Cycling Australia development program. It shows how important those initiatives are to provide the transition from racing domestically in Australia to being in the WorldTour.”
Martin Vestby – Sport Director:
“We have seen Grace racing mostly in Australia but she is a talented girl with some good all-round skills. She is a rider we see we can develop, refine some of her skills to give her some real strengths, and take some really good steps in the coming years.
“For her, the biggest challenge next year will be to race a lot more, so a full European season is going to be an adaption for her. We see her doing a lot of different races to build different skills and learn more of the European scene to use this first year as a stepping stone.
“We saw in our team camp already that she knows the Australian girls and she fits well in the team. She is a social girl who has an Australian background and that is at least one less thing that is going to be new for her so it should make her transition into the team a little easier.”
Grace Brown
Date of Birth: 7th July 1992 (26)
Nationality: Australian
Place of Birth: Camperdown, Victoria
Turned Pro: 2018
Joins Mitchelton-SCOTT: 2019
Top results:
– 1st 2018 Oceania Championships – Time Trial
– 2nd 2018 Oceania Championships – Road Race
– 3rd 2018 National Championships Australia – Road Race
– 4th 2018 National Championships Australia – Time Trial
– 5th 2018 Women’s Tour Down Under – Overall
