Melissa Hoskins


Melissa Hoskins is a former Australian track and road racing cyclist. She topped the general classification in the 2012 Tour of Chongming Island. She was a member of the Australian track cycling team pursuit team that finished in fourth place at the 2012 Summer Olympics. Hoskins announced her retirement from professional Cycling on the 2nd May 2017.

Personal

Hoskins was born on 24 February 1991 in Kalamunda, Western Australia. She attended Walliston Primary School before going to high school at Carmel Adventist College in Western Australia. She then went to Murdoch University Western Australia where she pursued a Bachelor of Sports Science., she lives in Perth, Western Australia. In February of 2018 she married to cyclist Rohan Dennis. She gave birth to a son at the end of that year.

Cycling career

Track

As a track cyclist, Hoskins specialises in endurance events. She started track cycling when she was fifteen years old following participation at a Western Australia Institute of Sport talent identification event. She started competitive cycling when she was sixteen years old. Her event is the Team Pursuit. She has a cycling scholarship with Australian Institute of Sport and Western Australian Institute of Sport. She is a member of Northern Districts Cycling Club. She is coached by Gary Sutton and Darryl Benson. Her primary training base is in Adelaide, with a secondary base in Verese, Italy.
Hoskins finished 3rd in the team pursuit at the 2011 Beijing World Cup in Beijing. She finished 1st in the team pursuit, 2nd in the omnium, and 3rd in the individual pursuit at the 2011 Australian Track Nationals in Sydney. She finished 2nd in the team pursuit at the 2012 Track World Championships in Melbourne, Australia. She finished 1st in the team pursuit and 4th in the individual pursuit at the 2012 Australian Track Nationals in Sydney, Australia. In the team pursuit event at the 2012 Summer Olympics Test Event in London, her team set the fastest time in the event on the opening day of the competition. She was the team's leader in the event but her gate failed to open properly. Her team eventually earned a gold in the event. She earned a silver medal in the scratch race at the 2012 World Championships.
She competed for Australia with teammates Annette Edmondson and Josephine Tomic in the women's team pursuit at the 2012 Summer Olympics. They finished in fourth place after losing to Canada in the bronze final.

Road

Hoskins also competes in road races and began racing professionally with the Orica-AIS team in 2012, specialising in sprint finishes on the flat. She won the first and third stages and topped the general classification in the 2012 Tour of Chongming Island, a category 2.1 stage race, and followed this by finishing second in the one-day Tour of Chongming Island World Cup.

Palmares

;2009
;2010
;2011
;2012
;2013
;2014 – Orica-AIS 2014 season
;2015