Wollongong 2022 rider guide: Australia's Elite Women
NATLearn all about the seven Elite Women selected for the Australian team at the 2022 UCI Road World Championships in Wollongong.
Georgia Baker
- Age: 27
- Club: Northern Districts Cycling Club
- State: Tasmania
- World Championship participations: none
Launceston’s Georgia Baker took up competitive cycling at age 14. She put her focus into track cycling and won three junior world titles on the velodrome.
Baker has competed in track cycling at two Olympic Games: Rio 2016 and Tokyo 2020. She was a world champion in 2019 as part of the Australian team pursuit squad.
That success came after Baker underwent heart surgery to fix an abnormal heart rate in 2017.
This year, Baker signed with Team BikeExchange-Jayco and claimed her first professional road win at the Lotto Thuringen Tour in Germany.
The accolades continued when Baker won three gold medals at the Birmingham Commonwealth Games. After conquering the points race and team pursuit, she capped off an Australian team performance by sprinting to victory in the road race.
Despite her extensive track background, Wollongong 2022 will be Baker’s first UCI Road World Championships at elite level.
Grace Brown
- Age: 30
- Club: St Kilda Cycling Club
- State: Victoria
- World Championship participations: 2
Hailing from Camperdown in Victoria, Grace Brown was originally a middle- and long-distance runner. After one too many stress fractures, she switched to cycling at the age of 23 – and it’s turned out to be an astute choice.
Her first road race was the 2016 national championship in Buningyong. After gaining experience in the domestic National Road Series, Brown enjoyed a breakout year in 2018, when she placed third in the road race national championships and won the Oceania time trial championship.
She was awarded the 2018 Amy Gillett Cycling Scholarship and parlayed that into a top-tier professional contract by joining the GreenEdge team (then named Mitchelton-Scott) in 2019.
The move led to immediate success when Brown won the first of two elite time trial national titles.
Since then, Brown has built a reputation as one of the world’s foremost time triallists and all-rounders. She excels over lumpy terrain, is never afraid to try a solo attack, and packs a fast sprint from a small group.
Among her top results are wins in Belgian one-day races Brabantsje Pijl and Brugge-De Panne, podiums at the Ronde van Vlaanderen and Liege-Bastogne-Liege, and top-five placings at the UCI World Championships and Olympic Games.
Brown became Commonwealth champion in the individual time trial at Birmingham 2022.
She has a bachelor’s degree in international relations from Melbourne University.
Brodie Chapman
- Age: 31
- Club: University of Queensland CC
- State: Queensland
- World Championship participations: 3
Originally from Mount Glorious near Brisbane, in a former life Chapman did most of her riding on the mountain bike and as a teenage bike courier.
After some success in the domestic road peloton in 2018, Chapman – who was now based in Melbourne working as a digital content editor in the cycling industry – captured attention with a breakout performance.
Sixth place in the road race national championships earned her a spot on the Australian national team for the Herald Sun Tour where, much to everyone’s surprise, Chapman upset the likes of Annemiek Van Vleuten to win the race overall.
She was picked up by team TIBCO – Silicon Valley Bank for two years before landing a WorldTour contract with French team FDJ Nouvelle Aquitaine Futuroscope, where she carved out a niche as a dependably strong workhorse.
Chapman has taken her own opportunities where possible, most notably winning the Race Torquay in 2020, but has built her short career around helping Grace Brown, Cecilie Uttrup Ludwig and others succeed.
Despite her late start to professional cycling, Wollongong 2022 will be her fourth UCI Road World Championships.
Alexandra Manly
- Age: 26
- Club: Central Districts CC
- State: South Australia
- World Championship participations: 3
After growing up in Kalgoorlie in Western Australia, Alex Manly moved to Adelaide, where she developed as a teenager through the South Australian Institute of Sport.
She produced excellent results as a junior rider, including multiple national titles on track and road, plus two world titles on the track.
Since 2015, Manly has split her time between Australia’s endurance track program and the professional road peloton.
In 2018, Manly won a Commonwealth gold medal with Australia in the team pursuit. A year later, she became a world champion in that discipline, plus an individual track world champion in the points race.
After taking a pause from road racing to make her Olympic debut on the track in Tokyo, the fast-finishing all-rounder returned to Team BikeExchange-Jayco this year and claimed her first professional road race wins, including her first UCI WorldTour victory.
Manly enjoys spending time outdoors, whether hiking, snorkelling at the beach, or living the van life.
Sarah Roy
- Age: 36
- Club: Parklife CC
- State: New South Wales
- World Championship participations: 5
Sydney’s Sarah Roy had her background in triathlon before switching to road cycling in 2009. However, hip and knee injuries forced her out of competition for two years.
In 2014, Roy won the criterium national title while racing on a biycle borrowed from a local bike shop. Since those early days of her career, Roy has filled a niche as a hardy sprinter and strong all-rounder, and she has won two stages of the OVO Energy Women’s Tour in Great Britain.
Arguably, her biggest win was an impressive solo ride in the 2021 road race national championship in Buninyong, when she went clear with 30 kilometres remaining.
Roy recently made her international debut in track cycling, competing in the individual pursuit at the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games. There, she also won a bronze medal in the road race.
She raced for six seasons with the GreenEdge outfit before transferring to Canyon-SRAM in 2022.
Roy has a sports science degree and a master’s in physiology.
Amanda Spratt
- Age: 34
- Club: Penrith CC
- State: New South Wales
- World Championship participations: 9
Amanda Spratt grew up in the Blue Mountains in Sydney’s west.
A little surprisingly for a featherweight climber, Spratt started as a junior BMX racer. She even represented Australia at the 1998 BMX World Championships.
Spratt plied her early trade on the track as much as the road, leading NSW to victory in the inaugural women’s team pursuit Australian title in 2007.
She won a bronze medal at the UCI Junior Road World Championships in the time trial, and also won the under-23 road time trial national title in 2008.
However, she’s come into her own at the elite level since 2012, when she won the first of three road race national championships in Buninyong.
Over the past decade, Spratt has produced a consistent stream of results in the pro peloton, including a stage and overall podium at the Giro Rosa, multiple victories at Emakumeen Bira, and a hat-trick of overall wins in the Women’s Tour Down Under.
An expert in hilly one-day races, the Penrith Cycling Club rider has podium results at Liège-Bastogne-Liège, Trofeo Alfredo Binda and the Amstel Gold Race.
These will be Spratt’s 10th elite world championships. She won silver at Innsbruck 2018 and followed it with bronze the next year in Yorkshire, becoming the first Australian woman to win two medals in the elite road race.
Josie Talbot
- Age: 26
- Club: Camden CC
- State: New South Wales
- World Championship participations: none
Wollongong’s own Josie Talbot makes her home on the slopes of Mount Keira, just metres from the UCI World Championship road race course.
In her teenage years, Talbot showed plenty of ability on the road and track. She claimed the junior Oceania road race championship in 2013, the same year she won the junior omnium national title.
Talbot became a junior track world champion in 2014 when she was part of the Australian team that won the team pursuit. She also won the junior criterium national title.
She spent a few years alternating between domestic racing and the American crit scene in the USA, and also wore the green and gold of Australia for a stint in Belgium and the Netherlands in 2019.
Despite repeated injuries in the last two years, Talbot has become one of the standouts of Australia’s domestic peloton, placing second twice in the Gibraltar to Inverell and, this year, finally capturing her first National Road Series win at the Tour of Gippsland after many close calls.
In April, Talbot notched up the biggest result of her career, becoming the Oceania road race champion when she won the hilly Tour de Brisbane.
This hardworking rider will enjoy the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity of racing the UCI Road World Championships in her hometown.
More: Learn about Australia's Elite Men's squad for the 2022 UCI Road World Championships.
Feature photo: Casey Gibson
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