Simone Grounds' back-to-back triumph at the Australian Masters National Road Championship

Grounds contested all three women’s masters events – road race, individual time trial and criterium – and ranked as the favoured rider in all three.

The Championships were held in wet conditions in Victoria’s Gippsland region.

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Grounds said she was “stoked” to win all three events for the second year running.

“I am stoked to get the win, when you get three golds it is a bit hard to improve on it apart from going back-to- back,” she said.

“It’s a pretty tricky thing to do because the fields vary so much from year to year and this years field was different to last years, so I couldn't really do any research on my opponents.

“At his level, it makes it difficult because all three races are individual events, so its handy to know how my opponents would ride, so I just had to control my performance and put faith in the work I’ve done in the lead-up and depend on outfoxing everyone.”

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Grounds said she had to employ markedly different tactics in each race to be successful.

“My coach Gus Dawson and I took different tactics into each race and I just had to be good enough to execute them,” she said.

“I was a marked rider, so I had to be strategic because if I made a move everyone followed me, so I just sat in the peloton in the road race and then sprinted to the finish, but in the criterium, I stayed at the front and made them chase me and that worked.

“I have been working on my power in training. I do lots of sprinting efforts but to be successful in all three events I needed a varied training regime.

“It was wet in the road race, but I don’t mind riding in the rain, it sometimes means that the bunch rides a bit more defensibly, but I adjusted well to the negative tactics.”

The National champion will now take some time to re-assess her future options.

“I think I’ll regroup now; I have done a lot of elite racing this season so I’ll rethink my goals because I have to juggle a full-time job and two children,” she said. “But I will focus on the track championships in Brisbane in April.”