Her switch to riding from running in her twenties made her flawless ride in the wet all the more remarkable, Reynolds said.
“What is really impressive is this late-comer to cycling went out and smashed them in terms of her bike handling … to keep her bike upright and ride so hard. She has got no right to be that good at bike handling.”
Grace Brown looked determined as she prepared for the race to start.Credit: AP
Reynolds said Brown’s calm under pressure was a defining trait and would have helped her in the tough conditions.
“She is just super level-headed,” he said. “Seeing others crashing and she stayed upright, that’s a classic Grace Brown situation. She would be thinking ‘I know exactly what I have to do here’.”
Brown herself told Nine she couldn’t have asked for a better day.
“It’s raining, but it really didn’t dampen my spirits. Rain doesn’t bother me too much,” she said after her win.
Reynolds said Brown’s winning pace would have been sufficient to have her in a competitive placing in a men’s time trial.
Time trial riders had limited visibility and were often only able to see seven or eight metres in front of them, conditions that would not be safe in a pack ride, he said.
“Because of the riding position for modern time trial [riding] you are almost blind,” he said. “It is not really about safe riding.”
Reynolds, a former executive at Cycling Australia, said Brown had carved her own path since arriving on the competitive cycling scene, identifying time trialling as her speciality.
Still, Reynolds said she would be one to watch in the upcoming road race which was notoriously difficult to predict.
The rain-slicked streets of Paris provided the perfect conditions for Australia’s Grace Brown to win the women’s cycling time trial event.Credit: AP
Reynolds said women’s cycling was no “financial playground” and predicted Brown, who holds a master’s degree in business and had already announced her plan to retire this year, would now likely look to build on her career.
“Grace Brown is going to go back to work,” he said.
Reynolds said that unlike some Australian professionals, Brown regularly made the trip home for the summer’s domestic competitions.
“When she was here she would sometimes be a part of the club’s regular Sunday morning ride from St Kilda to Mordialloc and back,” he said.
That 44-kilometre trip took the club pack about 90 minutes, Reynolds said Brown could complete it in about an hour.
He joked that it had been noted she was yet to be spotted for the club’s 5.30am start on a mid-winter ride.
Camperdown Cycling Club treasurer Matt Clark said Brown’s win was a great inspiration for the club and everyone in her home town.
He and his wife and three boys – all cyclists – stayed up overnight to watch her race live as she went from an uncertain start to claiming gold.
“Just at the start as she came down the starting ramp she was a little bit hesitant, but she regained herself and got the gold.”
Brown hadn’t ridden with the Camperdown club in her younger years, but had been a supporter through donating jerseys and cycling gear for its younger members, he said.
Clark said Brown’s father Anthony Brown, who had worked as the local GP, had been a club member for years and had encouraged her to take up the sport after she suffered injuries while competing as a runner.
He said it was remarkable to go from taking up competitive cycling as an adult to beating the best cyclists in the world.
“To get the first [Australian] gold at the Olympics … is an amazing achievement, just tremendous.”
With Debbie Cuthbertson
News, results and expert analysis from the weekend of sport sent every Monday. Sign up for our Sport newsletter.