Grace Brown (FDJ Suez Futuroscope) made it back-to-back national time trial victories with her ride around the Federation University campus, clocking a time of 40.59 to take the win by 38 seconds over Georgie Howe (Jayco-AlUla), with Brodie Chapman (Trek-Segafredo) 1'05 back in third.
Warm and dry conditions provided a near perfect day for Brown, who improved on her time from last year by 30 seconds, clocking in an average speed of 41.87 kilometres an hour.
She was asked if the pressure of having other competitors bringing more competition this year affected her performance.
"It doesn't change too much what I do, it's an individual event, all you do is focus on doing your best race, I just have to go and do my best race," said Brown. "I haven't looked at my numbers yet but I think it was a solid event for this time of year. It's always hard to produce my best numbers in January but I think I did a good race for this time of the year."
Brown's margin was significantly less this year despite her improvement, and she spoke in glowing terms about the battle for competition in the Australian time-trialling ranks at present.
"I'm really impressed with the Aussies at the moment, I think Georgie Howe is going to get better and better at the moment and continue to improve," said Brown. "I better improve next year or she'll have me if she improves by the same amount as last year.
"She's a real threat and it's awesome to have Brodie in a time trial. It's awesome to have people around, pushing me to be better and better."
In the Under 23's it was Izzy Carnes (ARA Skip Capital) who took the victory, finishing with a time of 43'47 that was good for seventh in the elite category, two minutes and 49 seconds behind Brown.
Carnes finished 1'09 ahead of nearest rider teammate Lucy Stewart (ARA Skip Capital) and 2'46 ahead of Haylee Fuller in third.
"I'm really stoked to come away with the win in the end. It's a very big step up, but I'm super excited. The biggest thing for me was to get in with the elites and see where I fit in the mix. We've got Grace Brown and Georgie Howe - who I know is a weapon - and I was trying to judge their times from previous years to see where I fit in.
"I was stoked to be somewhere, not too close, but somewhere in there."
Carnes next heads over to the Tour Down Under and potentially to the Cadel Evans Road Race before moving on to Europe later in the season for a racing block.
