Rohan Dennis and Melissa Hoskins had it all, with their Olympic dreams fulfilled, world championship medals secured and a young family bursting with love. Then something went terribly, terribly wrong outside their $2.45million mansion
They were trackside sweethearts, the girl with the freewheeling spirit and immense talent and the brilliant cyclist who you always wanted in your team.
They fell in love the same year they both became Olympians, at London in 2012, and took home gold medals at world championship cycling events.
Melissa Hoskins from country Western Australia and Rohan Dennis from Adelaide would make a life together, marrying in 2018 and having two children.
They would enjoy a high-flying international life sharing interests in travel, an appreciation for fine wine and their deep passion of cycling, as they moved from Spain to Australia to Andorra and back home again to finally settle into the next chapter of their lives.
Still in their early 30s, fit and with their first child, a son, gearing up to going to school, the Dennises finally felt ready to take over the investment home they had bought four years earlier and rented out.
Their young family’s future looked bright, and then came the events of the evening before New Year’s Eve, when tragedy shattered a quiet wealthy Adelaide neighbourhood.
Track stars: Melissa Hoskins and Rohan Dennis started dating in 2012, the year they both competed in the London Olympics, her pursuit team coming fourth, his taking silver
The young couple fell in love, sharing their passion for cycling and forging a life together in Australia and in Europe
Residents along Avenel Gardens Road in Medindie, in the South Australian capital’s inner north, heard little behind their high hedges and thick stone walls of what happened some time after 8pm on December 30.
In 10 weeks time, Adelaide Magistrates Court will hear about Rohan’s $70,000 dark grey 2022 Volkswagen Amarok Highline V6 striking his wife Melissa, resulting in her death soon afterwards from catastrophic injuries.
Melissa allegedly jumped onto the bonnet of the Amarok and grabbed at a door handle before the vehicle was driven off and she fell to the ground.
It is also alleged the 32-year-old may have been dragged along by the vehicle, with the incident captured on a neighbour’s security camera.
Rohan, 33, has been charged with causing death by dangerous driving, driving without due care and endangering life and was released on bail to appear in the Adelaide Magistrates Court again in March.
Locals in this neighbourhood are bewildered as to how this could have happened, as are friends and family of both Melissa and Rohan, and the international cycling world.
One former international Australian female cycling star, who did not want to be named, confided: ‘People know both of them and while they are saying “God bless you Mel, I hope you are looking down on your kids” they are also saying this is terrible.’
By 2015, things were getting very serious, with both still pursuing their cycling dreams and Melissa about to achieve the pinnacle of her career, a team Pursuit Gold Medal
Melissa allegedly jumped onto the bonnet of the Amarok and grabbed at a door handle before the vehicle was driven off and she fell to the ground. Yellow paint marks the road at the site
After retiring from professional cycling in 2017, Melissa and Rohan decided to marry (above in February 2018) and became pregnant soon after with their first child, a boy
The retired star said Melissa was among many Australian women cyclists who had happily given up their careers following an Olympics to marry their partners and have children, while the man continued on with his career.
‘She was very easygoing and supportive. Rohan quit his own pro tour career at the end of last year and that’s always a period of adjustment.
‘Melissa was always friendly (to other women cyclists) and talented. Rohan’s a very quiet sort of guy. I suppose we’ll find out at some point.’
The attractive and petite Melissa had started competitive cycling at just 16 in Western Australia, specialising in gruelling endurance events.
Her career began taking off in the same year she met Rohan, finishing second in the team pursuit at the 2012 Track World Championships in Melbourne, prior to them both going to London.
From the moment they started dating, Melissa’s friend and former team manager Rochelle Gilmore said this week, Melissa ‘committed one hundred per cent to all of the troubles and difficulties he went through in his career’.
In December 2018, the Dennis family welcomed a son, with Melissa staying at home and the couple planning for their future by buying a $2.45m home the next year
By 2021 there was another little one in the family, a girl, and the couple would start dividing their time between Spain, Andorra and Adelaide as Rohan’s pro cycling career burgeoned
Melissa’s pursuit team came fourth, Rohan’s took silver. She would go on to compete at the 2014 Commonwealth Games, and the following year achieve the highlight of her career, a team Pursuit Gold Medal at the 2015 UCI Track Cycling World Championships.
The couple had met one another’s families in WA and SA, and their relationship had become ‘serious’.
Rohan’s career was shooting skyward as he competed in Europe Grand Tour cycling races, earning a reputation as the sort of performer who could pull off a Tour win for his team.
In 2017, Melissa retired from professional cycling, and she and Rohan decided to get married, holding their ceremony in February 2018, which Rohan described as ‘the happiest day of my life’.
Just days before Melissa’s death, the couple shared a wholesome family photo in front of a Christmas tree.
Rohan was seen smiling from ear to ear in the photo shared on Instagram as he posed with Melissa and their two young children.
‘Merry Christmas from our family to yours,’ he wrote in the caption.
Several social media posts have since resurfaced of Rohan boasting about his wife and their two children.
Just two weeks ago, he posted an image of himself and his wife laughing in a car on the way to a wedding.
‘I finally did it, I finally made @melissmdennis lose the plot #lifegoalachieved,’ the caption read.
When a friend replied ‘it was only a matter of time’, Rohan responded with laughing emojis: ‘She was much harder to crack than I thought’.
Melissa Hoskins (left) died after allegedly being struck by a ute in Adelaide ‘s inner-north on Sunday and her husband Rohan Dennis (right) was allegedly behind the wheel
Rohan Dennis posted this alongside the selfie of the smiling couple going to a wedding on December 15
Two weeks before she died, Melissa took this selfie of the couple laughing in a car on their way to a wedding, with Rohan joking that it had taken an effort to crack his wife up
Within a few weeks of tying the knot, Melissa fell pregnant with their first child and gave birth to a son in December of 2018.
The following year they bought a 1905 house on Avenel Gardens Road in Medindie, one of many sprawling colonial mansions in the suburbs, for $2.45m.
But with Rohan’s European cycling career burgeoning, the couple rented out the property and divided their time between southern Europe and Adelaide.
Apart from his success and earnings racing for outfits such as Team Ineos and Team Jumbo–Visma, back home he was awarded the 2018 AIS Male Sportsman of the Year, and Cycling Australia’s Sir Hubert Opperman medal, which he had also won in 2015.
Life looked sweet for the Dennis family, who then welcomed a second child, a daughter, in 2021.
Images of the young family on their social media pages show them enjoying Europe, and relaxing with their kids in between Rohan’s professional race fixtures.
In 2022 he won his fourth Australian National Time Trial Championship, and led the Tour de Romandie in its early stages.
His decision to retire from professional racing in 2023 did not come without some misgivings.
He described it as a ‘rollercoaster of emotions’, but took the opportunity to make his way back to Australia on what he joked was a ‘bucket list’ world tour, visiting places like Dubai and the pyramids in Egypt.
The aftermath of last Saturday’s tragedy which left Melissa Hoskins dead, her children motherless and her husband facing charges
Rohan and Melissa lived a charmed life, dividing their time between Europe and Adelaide, enjoying their shared interest of cycling, wine and travel
According to residents in the same street as the Dennis family, they had only been in the house a few weeks, hardly time to get to know the other locals or be invited to the neighbourhood Christmas drinks.
‘Nobody knows them,’ one neighbour told Daily Mail Australia.
After last Saturday’s tragedy, a pile of clothes could be seen on the street, which was also marked with yellow arrows painted by crime scene investigators.
Rohan was seen on Tuesday for the first time since that tragic night wearing white shorts and a blue T-shirt outside his home.
He said nothing, but an hour earlier he had sent two friends outside to make an impassioned plea on his behalf.
The two mates, one Spanish and the other Australian, begged the media to not film his children.
‘They need privacy and they need to grieve,’ the Spanish friend said. ‘This is a terrible time for us.’
Rohan’s children could be heard laughing and then crying before they were driven from the house by the two friends.
Rohan Dennis leaves the family house for the first time, on Tuesday, days after his wife died just metres up the road after an incident allegedly involving his ute
Melissa’s parents said they are still trying to come to terms with their horrific loss.
‘Words cannot convey our grief, sadness and the tragic circumstances of Melissa’s passing,’ they said in a statement.
‘Myself, Amanda, Jess and families, are utterly devastated and still struggling to process what has happened.
‘Not only have we lost a daughter and sister, her children have lost their mum, a freewheeling spirit, a giver with a big heart, patience and zest for life.
‘She was the rock of their life and ours and we need to honour her memory so they can grow up knowing who she was, what she stood for and what she gave to everyone whose life she touched.’
They added that her funeral will be held in Perth with a memorial service in Adelaide after the Tour Down Under.
‘We now need to deal with our grief privately and will be making no further comments. We ask that media please respect our privacy and that of Melissa’s children,’ the statement read.