Sarah Roy puts aside crashes to notch up rare home win Women's elite criterium champion Sarah Roy. Photo: Ballarat Courier NSW's Sarah Roy, a former triathlete, survived a crash-marred race to win the women's elite criterium title at the Australian road championships in Victoria on Thursday night. Roy, 27, won the 33-kilometre race in humid conditions on the fast 1.1-kilometre circuit at Ballarat from Victorian Peta Mullens and Lauren Kitchen, who is also from NSW. In the same race, the under-23 title went to South Australian Jessica Mundy from Western Australia's Rebecca Mackey and Queensland's Emily Roper. And earlier in the men's under 23 race, NSW's Caleb Ewan won from South Australian Robert McCarthy and Queensland's Alex Wohler. The women's race was marred by two crashes. The first involved seven riders on the bottom corner during the second of 30 laps and took out race contenders Gracie Elvin and Chloe Hosking from the ACT. The second crash was with 50 metres to go in a sprint to the line and involved South Australian track endurance star Annette Edmondson. But for Roy, that took nothing away from her victory - a rare one at that. "It's so exciting," she said. I don't think I have ever won a race in Australia, let alone a national championship. So I'm pretty happy. Asked how she would celebrate her win with Saturday's women's 102 kilometre road race on the hilly Buninyong course still to come, Roy said, laughing: "I don't know ... if you've seen the size of me, but I don't think I'll be contesting the road race. I will be out there. I will give it a go. I always give it 100 per cent, but I know that course isn't suited to me. So I might just soak this up while I can. In the 33 kilometre men's under-23 criterium, Ewan burst through in the last 200 metres to finish well clear over McCarthy and Wohler. It was a brilliant victory by Ewan, who also placed fourth in the men's under-23 road race at last year's world championships in Florence, Italy. Ewan, 19, will ride this year on the Jayco-AIS team and join the Orica-GreenEDGE professional team as a stagiaire (trainee) near the end of the season. But in Thursday night's race, he had no teammates to help him. So up until the last uphill straight, Ewan followed his coach Bradley McGee's advice and kept a low profile to "let the other people work." "That forced [Avanti] to do that because obviously they didn't have anyone in the [main] break, so it was perfect for me," Ewan said. I was in a perfect position coming into the last straight - not too close to the front and not too far back - and it worked perfectly in the end. For much of the race the peloton, led by the Avanti team, was in pursuit of South Australian Harry Carpenter, who on Wednesday was the men's under 23 time-trial silver medallist but missed gold by a meagre 0.2 seconds. Carpenter attacked after five laps and stayed away until four to go, when he was caught. NSW's Sam Spokes played his best card by launching a solo attack with one lap to go, but he was also reeled in before the finish. For Ewan, it was an ideal scenario. He began his sprint 200m out and after racing clear, he turned with arms aloft to see distance to the peloton. "I just made sure I had enough time to put my hands in the air," he said. Ewan, who is not only a sprinter but a strong hill climber, is now firmly focused on Saturday's 132.6 kilometre men's under-23 road race. "That's the big one to win and all my preparation is pretty much for that," he said.