Groves, Edmondson win criterium titles

Kaden Groves capitalised on his team's strong performance to snatch the men's criterium title at the national road cycling championships in Ballarat.

After 40 laps of racing on a 1.1km circuit, 22-year-old Groves (Team BikeExchange) edged in front from a break of three to win from Nicholas White (Team Bridgelane) and seasoned teammate Luke Durbidge on Friday night.

"Everything went to plan. We wanted to make it a really aggressive, hard race and try and put our big rivals under pressure," Matt Wilson, sports director at Team BikeExchange, told cyclingnews.com.

"The guys did an awesome job, especially Durbo, he was super and we got the win. It's the first win for Kaden in 12 months so it was great for him to get the win, get that monkey off his back and head to Europe with a win under his belt."

In the women's criterium, also over 44km, track cycling star Annette Edmondson triumphed from Ruby Roseman-Gannon while defending champion Chloe Hosking (Trek-Segafredo) was third.

"This is pretty special. I've been after this one for a while," said Edmondson, who entered as an individual but worked with her national track teammates to secure the victory.