19-year-old Sarah Gigante (Tibco-SVB), who beat out defending champion Grace Brown and Mitchelton Scott's teammate Amanda Spratt, who finished fourth, for the Australian women's elite time trial title Wednesday afternoon said she could not believe she had won the title.

"I'm absolutely thrilled," Gigante said in a Cycling Australia press release after her victory over Brown and Roxalt Attacker Emily Herfoss.

"The time trial is always a race of truth and I came here wanting to do my best.

"I was supposed to be in the 'hot seat' ....... I got so excited I probably put a hole in my new skinsuit."

Gigante won both titles last summer with a solo victory in the final lap of the under-23 and elite women's road race when she attacked the breakaway group of Shara Giraud (FDJ Nouvelle Aquitaine Futuroscope) and Mitchelton Scott's Sarah Roy.

Gigante, along with compatriot and 2018 national road race winner Shannon Marseed, will step up to the US-based women's team Tibco-SVB for 2020, while fellow Australian Brody Chapman will leave the team at the end of 2019 to She left and joined Giraud in the FDJ Nouvelle Aquitaine Futuroscope.

"I can't believe I won the elite women's time trial. I don't think I've ever won an elite women's time trial in the top five, and I think I've probably only won one race," she added about her 2019 road race.

Gigante will compete in the national criterium championships in Ballarat on Friday night before defending her road race title in nearby Bunyonyon on Sunday.