Grace Brown and Saya Sakakibara have been collectively awarded the Sir Hubert Opperman Trophy, with the 2024 AusCycling Bicycle owner of the 12 months award shared after each delivered a sequence of highly effective outcomes on high of gold medals on the Olympic Video games.
Sakakibara added the UCI BMX racing World Cup total together with wins throughout 4 rounds to gold in Paris. Brown added the time trial world title to her Olympic triumph within the self-discipline, put Liège-Bastogne-Liège on her win tally and he or she was additionally a part of Australia’s profitable blended relay staff on the Highway World Championships.
“Each Saya and Grace stood out with their distinctive performances throughout all the yr that culminated of their Olympic gold medals, gained in completely dominating kind,” stated Brad McGee, a member of the AusCycling Awards Committee. “Saya, going by means of unbeaten in all of the rounds and taking the gold medal. Grace, profitable by a minute and a half.”
The final time the award, often known as the Oppy medal, was shared was in 2000 when Brett Aitken and Scott McGrory shared the prize.
“2024 has been a momentous yr for me on so many ranges and it feels very particular to have my achievements recognised by Australian biking,” stated Brown. “The checklist of earlier Oppy winners is stuffed with our sport’s heroes, and it is an enormous honour so as to add my title to that checklist.”
Former winners of the Oppy embody Cadel Evans, Caroline Buchanan, jai Hindley, Richie Porte and Anna Meares.
Brown additionally, in fact, gained the ladies’s highway bike owner of the yr whereas the boys’s highway class was taken out by Ben O’Connor who completed fourth on the world rankings in 2024 after taking an extended checklist of spectacular outcomes that included a Vuelta a España stage win and second total in addition to runner up spots on the the UAE Tour and the Tour of Alps and likewise the silver medal behind Tadej Pogačar on the World Championships highway race.
“After we appeared on the great amount of performances, we took a second, stood again, and went, ‘Wow. Let’s simply recognize the yr that’s been’,” McGee stated.
“Extraordinary throughout a number of disciplines, para-cycling and able-bodied. A number of gold medals from Paris. That’s earlier than we dive into the skilled ranks on the highway: Ben O’Connor and non-Olympic outcomes, World Championships and World Cups within the BMX. It’s been a rare yr.”
AusCycling elite rider of the yr winners
- Bicycle owner of the yr – Grace Brown and Saya Sakakibara
- Workforce – Males’s Workforce Pursuit: Oliver Bleddyn, Conor Leahy, Kelland O’Brien and Sam Welsford
- Ladies’s BMX Freestyle – Natalya Diehm
- Males’s BMX Freestyle – Logan Martin
- Ladies’s BMX Racing – Saya Sakakibara
- Males’s BMX Racing – Izaac Kennedy
- Ladies’s Mountain Bike – Rebecca Henderson
- Males’s Mountain Bike – Ryan Gilchrist
- Ladies’s Highway Para-cyclist – Lauren Parker
- Males’s Highway Para-cyclist – Alistair Donohoe
- Ladies’s Monitor Para-cyclist – Emily Petricola
- Males’s Monitor Para-cyclist – Korey Boddington
- Ladies’s Highway – Grace Brown
- Males’s Highway – Ben O’Connor
- Ladies’s Monitor – Georgia Baker
- Males’s Monitor – Matthew Glaetzer
- Ladies’s Cyclocross – Isabella Flint
- Males’s Cyclocross – Tristan Nash
- Ladies’s Gravel Bicycle owner – Tiffany Cromwell
- Males’s Gravel Bicycle owner – Brendan Johnston
- Ladies’s Esports Bicycle owner – Kate Trdin
- Males’s Esports – Josh Harris
