Olympic cyclist pleads guilty over wife’s car death

Former world champion cyclist Rohan Dennis has pleaded guilty over a car incident in Australia which killed his wife, fellow Olympian Melissa Hoskins.

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

The 34-year-old was initially charged with dangerous driving causing death and driving without due care, but on Tuesday he admitted a lesser charge – one aggravated count of creating the likelihood of harm.

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

Few details are known about the circumstances leading up to Hoskins’s death.

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

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

Hoskins was a world champion in the team pursuit in 2015 and a two-time Olympian, and her death triggered a wave 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 Espana.

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