Rhodes, back from injury, wins fourth Australian Criterium Championship

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Alexis Rhodes has celebrated her new contract with GreenEdge-AIS by winning the Australian Elite Women's Criterium Championship for the fourth time in her career. Teammate Melissa Hoskins took out the Under 23 title by crossing the line seven seconds in arrears, followed by Annette Edmondson.

Lauren Kitchen, wearing her new Rabobank kit, claims the bronze medal in the Under 23 division.

Rhodes, defending Australian Road Champion, escaped on the back straight of the 12th lap and never looked back. Thursday evening's win was in identical style to that of new teammates Amanda Spratt and Shara Gillow at the Jayco Bay Cycling Classic earlier in the week – a time trial style effort to maintain a consistent gap.

"One hour criteriums are a little different to a three-hour road race but I've been training really hard the last couple of months and I've got a really good team," said Rhodes who will race on Saturday in defence of her 2011 road race title.

"If I don't win on Saturday, I really hope one of my teammates do," Rhodes said. "Hopefully we can really dictate the race like we did tonight, but there are probably other people who have a lot of other ideas as well."

It was a fabulous return for Rhodes, having been off the bike for the past six months due to surgery on a blocked iliac artery, with Thursday's criterium her first race back. Rhodes said that with that in mind, the win ranked as her best in the criterium having previously won the title in 2004, 2006 and 2007.

"This one's probably a little bit more meaningful, just because I haven't raced in six months so it's always nice," the 27-year-old explained. "It's a nice little gauge of where my form is and hopefully it will be good come Saturday."

Hoskins hot run of form continued with her under 23 title, having won the Jayco Bay Classic on Wednesday. The 21-year-old said the buzz of her first overall success on the road at the event, made it difficult to stay focussed on Thursday for the nationals.

"We knew we'd be under attack from people like Chloe [Hosking] and pretty much every other person in the race because we've been such a dominant team the last four days," Hoskins explained. "We predicted it; it happened; it was aggressive; it was hard.

"There was a point there where I'm sure there were a few sprinters in a bit of trouble and I was happy to see Alex up the road because it took the pressure off us. I was pretty confident in her time trialling ability and I just had to hold on for that last corner and hold on for a sprint again."

Adding to GreenEdge-AIS' success, was Tiffany Cromwell who took out the sprint championship.

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