Olympic cyclist pleads guilty to wife’s car death

Former world cycling champion Rohan Dennis has pleaded guilty to a car crash in Australia that killed his wife, fellow Olympian Melissa Hoskins.

Hoskins died in hospital on December 30, 2023, after being hit by a vehicle driven by Dennis outside his home in Adelaide.

The 34-year-old was initially charged with dangerous driving resulting in death and driving without due care, but on Tuesday he admitted to a lesser charge – a charge aggravated by creating a probability of harm.

Dennis, who has two children with Hoskins, will be sentenced at a later date.

Few details are known about the circumstances that led to Hoskins’ death.

However, Dennis’ guilty plea means he admitted to driving a car when Hoskins was in close proximity, knowing that such an act was likely to cause harm or being recklessly indifferent to whether it would do so.

“Mr. Dennis had no intention of harming his wife and this charge does not attribute responsibility to him for her death,” the retired athlete’s lawyer told the court.

Hoskins was the 2015 world team pursuit champion and two-time Olympian, and her death sparked an outpouring of tributes from around the world.

She and Dennis married in 2018.

Dennis retired at the end of the 2023 season after a career in which he won stages at the Tour de France, Giro d’Italia and Vuelta a España.

A multiple world champion on both the road and the track, he won bronze in the road time trial at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, after having won silver in the team pursuit at London 2012. He also won a gold medal at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games. the Commonwealth in 2022.