Paris Olympics 2024: Grace Brown powers to first cycling gold

Grace Brown overcomes rain to finish first place at Paris Olympics 2024.

On the first day of the Paris Olympics 2024, the individual time trials (ITT) grant the first medals in cycling events, with Grace Brown (Australia) powering to gold in the women’s race.

A silver medalist in the ITT of the 2023 UCI Cycling World Championships held in Glasgow and across Scotland (United Kingdom), Grace Brown covered the 32.4km from the Esplanade des Invalides to the finish on the Pont Alexandre III bridge in 39’38’’24 (49.0 km/h) to get the better of Great Britain’s Anna Henderson (+1’31’’) and the USA’s Chloé Dygert (+1’32’’).

In line with the opening ceremony that captured worldwide attention on Friday evening, rain fell on the women’s ITT race but that did not prevent a spectacular event.

Slovenia’s Urška Pintar was the first to start, at 14:30 local time, and Afghanistan’s Yulduz Hashimi quickly impressed as she set the provisional best time.

The crowds roared for French stars Audrey-Cordon Ragot (9th, +2’13’’) and Juliette Labous (4th, +1’41’’), especially when the latter set the provisional best time from Belgium’s Lotte Kopecky (6th, +1’56’’).

But Grace Brown was already en route to the best time, and that appeared to be sealed after Dygert went down in a left-hand turn. The reigning UCI ITT World Champion eventually saw the silver medal escape her by a margin of 0.87’’.

Succeeding Kazakh Zulfiya Zabirova (1996), the Netherlands’ Leontien van Moorsel (2000, 2004), American Kristin Armstrong (2008, 2012, 2016) and Dutchwoman Annemiek van Vleuten (2020), Brown brings Australia their first ever Olympic Games gold medal in a road cycling event.

“I had a plan to pace the race to win gold”, Grace Brown said with an immense grin. “I executed my plan pretty much to perfection, if not better, so I can’t ask for a better day! It’s raining but it’s not dampened my spirits.

Rain doesn’t bother me too much. I know that you have to take the corners a little bit slower, be a little bit more conservative, but I know that everyone was doing that.”

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