Twenty-six-year-old Melissa Hoskins announced her retirement on Wednesday. The Australian last raced the team pursuit at the 2016 Rio Olympic Games and opted for a retirement “test run” before finalising her decision. Her dreams of calling curtain on her career following Olympic gold where dashed by a disastrous crash that put her in the hospital four days out from the team pursuit qualifiers.
“Rio obviously didn’t finish the way that I wanted it to finish for me or for the team,” Hoskins told Cyclingnews. “I didn’t want to make a rush decision in the heat of the moment, especially given the circumstances. Spending time in a normal environment, which was what it would be like if I actually retired and seeing if I enjoyed normal life was really important to me.”
Hoskins' "normal life" is still far from normal. She's recently engaged to Rohan Dennis (BMC Racing). The pair, who will wed in February 2018, split their time between Girona, Spain, La Massana, Andorra and Adelaide, Australia.
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"I had the sense that it was time for a new chapter," said Hoskins. "Cycling can be an extremely selfish sport, and when you have two people – me and Rohan – in the same household trying to be the best of the best… We've done really well over the past five years, but I think now where he is with his career and where I was with mine, another four years until the next Olympic cycle would have been really hard."
Hoskins has had two shots at the Olympics. She was part of Australia's ride-off for bronze at the 2012 London Olympic Games. The three-rider squad was beat by the Americans and finished just outside the medals. Four years later, Australia's four-rider team headed to Rio expecting to challenge Great Britain for gold.
In the end, they were lucky to race. Hoskins was stretchered off the track with a suspected broken pelvis and remained on crutches until the eve of the qualifying rounds. She rode both the first two rounds but sat out the final where the team managed fifth place.
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