South Australian Alexis Rhodes has claimed her fifth national title with victory in the elite women's criterium on the opening day of the 2012 Mars Cycling Australia Road National Championships.

Rhodes added a fourth criterium title to her wins in 2004, 2006 and 2007 after breaking clear of the bunch with 12 laps remaining in the 30 lap (33km) event raced in windy, cool conditions on the Sturt Street circuit of Ballarat's CBD.

She finished seven seconds clear of GreenEDGE-AIS teammate Melissa Hoskins, who led home the bunch for silver with South Australia's Netti Edmondson third. Hoskins claimed the under 23 gold medal as the first young rider across the line with Edmondson second and Lauren Kitchen third in the under 23 division.

"One hour criteriums are a little different to a three-hour road race but I've been training really hard the last couple of months and I've got a really good team," said Rhodes who will race on Saturday in defence of her 2011 road race crown and recently signed a contract with the GreenEDGE-AIS professional women's team.

"if I don't win on Saturday, I really hope one of my team-mates do," Rhodes said. "Hopefully we can really dictate the race like we did tonight, but there are probably other people who have a lot of other ideas as well."

Rhodes has come back to racing after a six month break during which she underwent surgery to repair a blockage of the iliac artery that supplies blood flow to her legs.

"I had a lot of scar tissue there, so they had to open my stomach up, clean my artery out and make a little graft and sew it back together again," said Rhodes whose surgeon was the same man who operated on fellow cyclist Stuart O'Grady for the same complaint.

Rhodes says her major goal for 2012 is to earn Olympic selection which would be a phenomenal achievement for the 27 year old who, in 2005, sustained severe injuries, including seven broken bones in her back and chest trauma in the road accident that claimed the life of her friend and Australian team mate Amy Gillett.

Source: www.cycling.org.au