Chloe Hosking is one of the most successful Australian road cyclists of all time. She has notched up over 40 wins in her career, including sprint victories on the iconic Champs-Élysées and at her home Commonwealth Games. But speaking to Guardian Australia at a coffee shop in Canberra, Hosking is in tears. They are tears of disappointment and tears of frustration.

In early December, Hosking’s professional team, French outfit B&B Hotels, collapsed. The 32-year-old was in Tenerife, Spain, training solo at altitude ahead of what she hoped to be a big 2023, when she was pulled into a Zoom call. “One of the moments that really stood out to me,” she says, “I was obviously very disappointed, and I was told to smile. I was like: ‘I don’t have a job, my 13-year career is over. Why should I smile?’”

Hosking had spent the last two seasons at Trek–Segafredo, a major World Tour team. But midway through 2022 she decided to accept a contract from B&B Hotels, worth $150,000 per year for two years, starting in January. B&B Hotels were seemingly a team on the rise – the men’s squad had raced three consecutive editions of the Tour de France, sprint legend Mark Cavendish was due to sign with them, and for the first-time, they were forming a women’s team. “So it was an established team,” says Hosking. “It wasn’t like I was coming into something new, with red flags around it.” She even turned down another contract offer.

It seemed the perfect way to end a glittering career, during which time Hosking had witnessed first-hand the professionalisation of women’s cycling – from pocket money in her early days to a good salary as she moved towards retirement. “This would have been my last two years as a professional – I’d set that up in my mind, working towards the Paris Olympics,” she says.

And then, it all fell apart. A major sponsorship deal did not materialise and those behind the B&B Hotels team pulled the plug. “How are teams allowed to sign riders if they don’t have the financial backing to execute the plan?” Hosking asks. But no amount of anger would bring her a new contract; suddenly, she was left scrambling. “Ever since that moment I’ve been in problem-solving mode.”

Hosking would have ordinarily been an attractive prospect for many pro teams, but with the contract season in cycling running from January-December, most already had full rosters. Other riders impacted included Olympic gold medallist Anna Kiesenhofer and French champion Audrey Cordon-Ragot.

“I’ve been contacting every team,” Hosking says. “There have been a few riders recently announcing their pregnancies, so as soon as I’ve seen that I have reached out to the teams being like, ‘do you want to fill the spot? I’m available for a year.’ Nothing has come of that yet, but my life motto has always been that the worst anyone can say is no. So I’ll always ask the question. Right now all I’m getting is no, but all it takes is one yes.”

Financial issues afflict all sports, but are particularly prevalent in cycling, where teams come and go, are heavily-dependent on season-by-season sponsorship deals and TV rights are held by race organisers rather than the competing teams. B&B Hotels is far from the first team to leave riders out of pocket.

“I’m not naive,” says Hosking. “I’m not the first person to be affected by this. And I won’t be the last. But it’s hard – it’s been mentally draining, it’s physically exhausting. And on top of that, you have to keep training, because if you want to get a contract, you’ve got to be able to prove that you’re capable of performing.”

Hosking has picked up some riding opportunities over the Australian summer of cycling, and will ride for the national team at the Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race this weekend. She is pursuing every avenue – her husband Jack even took to LinkedIn, asking his network for sponsorship leads. “I’m reaching out now because I need help if my wife is going to continue her exceptional career,” he wrote.

So far, nothing has materialised. Hosking has been offered a European contract, but on a salary that was not financially viable. Unless a contract arises in the coming weeks, Hosking will be forced to retire.

“The hardest thing about this is that I’m facing retirement when it hasn’t been my choice,” she says. “I had a contract, I had another contract offer. And then I just made a bad decision. I’ve navigated a 13-year career that I’m really proud of, and I made one bad decision. And now my career is facing its end, when I don’t feel I’m done with the sport.”

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Hosking was an active child as she grew up in Canberra. “I was playing basketball, tennis, Little Athletics,” she says. Her father was a keen cyclist; one day, following a running injury, Hosking asked to start riding. “I think he’d been waiting for the day, because there was a bike ready,” she adds. The pair would ride together around Lake Burley Griffin. “We’d do sprint sessions and he’d offer me $20 if I beat him. I never got the $20.”

On graduating from high school, Hosking enrolled in law at the Australian National University but first went on a gap year to Europe. “Then I just never came home,” she says. At the time, there were few pathways for professional road cycling for women. “It’s not like I ever set out that this is what I was going to do. I’ve seen that transition now, where women can say: ‘I’m going to become a professional cyclist.’” Her first contract was $15,000, but she had to pay for some of her own expenses. “So the money disappeared pretty quickly.”

Hosking grew with the sport. She began winning stages at races across Europe and Asia, making her name for herself in the sprints. The money eventually followed, as investment poured into women’s cycling. “Probably for the last six years I’ve been making proper money out of cycling,” Hosking says.

In 2018, the Australian won the gold medal in the road race at the Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast – which she describes as the best win of her career. “That was super special,” Hosking says. “It’s easy to be consumed in the tunnel of what’s going on right now, but if I step back and look at my career as a whole, I can be really proud of it. If it ends now, I haven’t failed.”

For some years now Hosking has been studying online towards a law degree. She says she has always been interested in player rights, particularly for women athletes, but that her recent personal experience has only consolidated this as a likely next career. “I always had the desire, but this has really cemented that,” she says. “I’m a fighter – I want to fight for women athletes.”

The current ordeal, she says, has underscored “my frustration at some of the positions that women can find themselves in, particularly in sports. I’ve been offered a contract to keep riding, but it’s a contract that isn’t a liveable wage. I’ve won the Commonwealth Games, I’ve won La Course by Le Tour de France, I won a stage at the Giro d’Italia – this is a career that deserves more than the minimum wage.

“And I know that some women would say yes to that [offer],” she says. “But it’s just so against my values to do something for free. This is my work, I deserve to be paid for it. I’m not going to do it for free. If I can’t get a contract at a wage that allows me to perform at the level I know I’m capable of, then I want to put my energies into helping women making a career out of their sports.”

On Saturday, Hosking will race in her first, and possibly last, World Tour event of 2023. Amid all the contract turmoil, she’s been training hard on the streets of Canberra to ensure she’s in top condition.

“I have a point to prove,” she says. “This is an opportunity to have a showing that can either get me a contract, or it’s going to be my last-ever professional race. I want to go out on my terms.”