Camperdown cycling export Grace Brown hopes to one day compete in Women's Warrnambool Cycling Classic

The 30-year-old will have less than two weeks to savour Tuesday's Tour Down Under victory before contesting the Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race's elite women's course and heading back to Europe.

As it stands Brown would need an exemption to compete in the women's Warrny - held on February 5 - as it is not a UCI-certified race.

The 2022 Commonwealth Games gold medallist would like to see the Melbourne to Warrnambool Cycling Festival become a UCI event but understands it would be "a bit of a jigsaw puzzle" fitting it in the calendar.

"I think that would be really cool," she said.

"It's a matter of fitting it around the other races in Australia to make it easy for teams to stay. Because at the moment it's like a week after Cadel that all the teams have already been in Australia for a month and it's just a week longer.

"Maybe if it was more in-between Tour Down Under and the Cadel Evans Race it could work."

Brown said she'd always wanted to compete in the Melbourne to Warrnambool Cycling Classic however it just hadn't worked out with her racing commitments.

Up until last year's addition of the women's classic there was no women-only race, with females competing in a separate category within the main event.

Brown would like to see the women's race - which starts in Colac and ends in Warrnambool - extended to the full classic distance of 267 kilometres.

"I would love the women to do the full distance as well but we have a cap on the number of kilometres that our races can be. The full distance is well over that," she said.

Reflecting on her first Tour Down Under victory, Brown said she was "elated" at the time. It was a memorable finish for the Camperdown product, who was third overall going into the third and final stage.

She outsprinted Australian Amanda Spratt to win the 93.2km stage from Adelaide to suburban Campbelltown and clinch the overall title.

The FDJ-Suez rider chased down her Aussie rival with a few kilometres to spare.

Spratt finished second overall, 10-seconds behind.

"It felt a little bit surreal because the day before on stage two I didn't have the best day," Brown said.

"But it sort of brought it all together and things just worked out almost perfectly on the last day for me to win there and take the win overall. It was very cool and nice to share it with my team who did a mountain of work for me during the tour."

Following the race, Brown was able to celebrate her triumph with "the people that mattered" - her team, friends and family.

"That's really special, you don't always get that when you win a race," she said.

"Sometimes you win and then everyone packs up and goes home."

MORE SPORT:

Our journalists work hard to provide local, up-to-date news to the community. This is how you can access our trusted content: