Melissa Hoskins

Australian cyclist Melissa Hoskins had a successful career on the track where she won a World Championship title in addition to competing at two Olympic Games. Hoskins specialised in endurance events and competed in multiple team pursuit races. She began her competitive career when she was 16 after she was awarded a cycling scholarship by the Australian Institute of Sport. At the 2012 UCI Track Cycling World Championships she won silver in the team pursuit and the scratch race. This earned her selection for the 2012 London Olympics where Australia finished in fourth place in the team pursuit after losing to Canada.

Hoskins won more medals in the team pursuit at the Track World Championships with silver in 2013 in Minsk and a bronze in 2014 in Cali. In 2014 Hoskins also rode at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, but only competed in the scratch race, as the women’s team pursuit was not on the programme. The following year the Track World Championships took place in Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines, just outside of Paris. Hoskins, Annette Edmondson, Ashlee Ankudinoff, and Amy Cure won the team pursuit gold medal, beating the team from Great Britain that had dominated the event for the previous four editions. Australia’s winning time broke the world record, previously set by Great Britain, by almost three seconds, with Hoskins later describing the performance as the defining result of her career.

Australia were one of the favourites to win the team pursuit title at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics. Just prior to the event, however, the Australian quartet of Hoskins, Ankudinoff, Cure, and Georgia Baker suffered a crash during a training session. Hoskins, who was walking with the aid of crutches, rode in the qualification round, but was dropped for the final, where the Australian team ultimately finished in fifth place.

Hoskins also had success on the road, winning her first major race in 2012 with victory in the Tour of Chongming Island stage race in China. She rode in the team time trial at the UCI Road World Championships, winning silver in 2012 and 2014, along with a bronze in 2013. While not as prolific on the road as on the track, Hoskins still had several high-profile results. She finished in tenth-place in the road race at the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow and was second overall at the 2015 Women’s Tour Down Under, which included individual victories on stages two and four.

Hoskins retired from cycling in May 2017 and married fellow cyclist Rohan Dennis the following year. Tragically she died in December 2023 in an automobile accident where the car was driven by Dennis. She was 32. In May 2025 Dennis received a two-year suspended sentence after pleading guilty to one aggravated count of creating the likelihood of harm.