Chloe Hosking will be lining up at her fifth edition of the Deakin University elite women's event at the Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race on Saturday and perhaps her last.
The Australian sprinter – who has a victory tally of around 40 including La Course, Commonwealth Games gold and a Giro d'Italia Donne stage – wasn't expecting to be potentially waving goodbye to her Women's WorldTour career at the race which she won in 2018. Now Saturday's 143km race could be either a last hurrah or perhaps a lifeline. Either way the 32 year old plans to make the most of it.
"If I win a WorldTour race that’s 400 points and teams want that," Hosking told a pre-race media conference. "I want to have a really strong showing tomorrow whether or not that is going to net me a contract for 2023."
"It would be fantastic [to get a contract] but at the end of the day, I want to have a race that I’m proud of. And if it is the last WorldTour race of my career, I can be really happy that I was able to do this race, one of my favourite races, and, while not totally finishing on my terms, at least trying to grapple a little control back of the situation.”
The collapse of B&B Hotels team threw Hosking's plans of an orderly lead into retirement over the next two years into disarray. Though, Hosking has never been one to give up easily, telling Cyclingnews earlier this month that "I always feel like I am a person that does well when my back is against the wall but maybe this is just one too many times.”
That fighting spirit has been clearly evident, with Hosking out doing repeats of Challambra while in Geelong racing Bay Crits and then hitting the slopes of the local climbs when she returned to Canberra.
While clearly there has been no sitting back waiting for her career to drift away, although with an almost completed law degree to add to her communications degree her options are wide open, Hosking isn't going to keep it alive at any cost either.
“I have had some conversations with teams and contract offers which I have said no to," said Hosking. "I think I have been pretty vocal about women deserving a minimum salary and not having to race for less and I think my career also warrants a salary that is not just me scraping by on the poverty line. I don’t know why I should have to settle for anything less."
Hosking has spent 13 years as a professional cyclist, finding her own way to Europe and chasing her own opportunities after finding roadblocks among the traditional pathways to becoming a professional cyclist from Australia. She has raced for some of the world's top teams, from Team Columbia Women when she started out to Trek-Segafredo for the past two seasons.
Whatever happens on Saturday as Hosking lines up with the national team in Geelong at the Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race, Hosking is taking a stance that she hopes will make the sport a better place – whether that is with her, or without her.
"Maybe people are sick of me and want me to shut up," said the ever-forthright Hosking. "I’m not going to because I have a platform that I can use and even if this is the end of my career I hope that it just enables other women to think ‘why am I saying yes to something that is less than’."
"This is a career that warrants more than a minimum salary and I know I can still have an impact in cycling," said Hosking after listing off some of her many wins. "But maybe my impact would be bigger if I stepped away now to try and positively impact other female athletes.”
