World Championships: Injuries force changes to Australian elite women's team

Reigning Commonwealth Games road race champion Chloe Hosking (Ale Cipollini) and former junior world time trial champion Jessica Allen (Mitchelton-Scott) have been drafted in to Australia's road race squad for the upcoming UCI Road World Championships in Yorkshire, UK, due to Mitchelton-Scott duo Grace Brown and Sarah Roy suffering from injuries, Cycling Australia has announced.

The Australian team will be led in the 149.5km road race from Bradford to Harrogate by 2018 Worlds road race silver medallist Amanda Spratt. She'll be supported by Mitchelton-Scott teammate Lucy Kennedy, Canyon-SRAM's Tiffany Cromwell, Lauren Kitchen (FDJ Nouvelle Aquitaine Futuroscope) and Brodie Chapman (Tibco-SVB), with Hosking and Allen now completing the seven-woman team for the race, which takes place on Saturday, September 28.

"I'm very proud to be selected in the Australian cycling team for my first elite road World Championships in Yorkshire at the end of the month," Allen, who won the junior TT title at the 2011 Worlds, wrote on Twitter. "I wish my awesome teammates Sarah Roy and Grace Brown all the best in their recovery as they are unable to compete due to injury."

Hosking – who's recovered from the concussion sustained in a crash at the RideLondon Classique in August – also took to social media, posting a picture of herself in her Commonwealth Games national kit on Instagram, and writing: "It is always an absolute honour and privilege to pull on the green and gold.

"Sorry to see two of my fellow Aussie road cycling ladies unable to compete in this year's Worlds due to injury but happy that I could confidently put my hand up and say I'm ready to race for Australia and be named as a replacement. Pumped," she wrote.