'I'm learning how to mentally be a road racer' - Olympic gold medalist Lily Williams looking for breakout season in 2026

Lily Williams has achieved the dream of a professional athlete's lifetime, winning not one but two Olympic medals, one of them gold, and a world title on the velodrome. But when it comes to road cycling, the US expat living in Marseille is hoping that her four full seasons of racing in Europe with Human Powered Health will finally bring a breakout season in 2026.

The 31-year-old finished second to Lorena Wiebes (SD Worx-Protime) from the breakaway on stage 2 of the UAE Tour Women last year, but is still looking for her first European victory and feels confident she has finally cracked the code in road racing.

"I didn't have any [of the] real major results that I would have liked to have, honestly, but one of my big goals at the end of last season was to be more consistent, and this year I was super, super consistent," Williams told Cyclingnews at the team's gathering over the winter.

"This past year is the first year I've actually been participating in the bike race and meaningfully contributing to the outcome, and that's really exciting."

While Williams relied on her impressive power and strength on the track and, earlier in her career, in cyclo-cross and the US road scene, European road racing has such a steep learning curve that it has taken years to master.

"I've had no major jumps in my progression. It's just been steady, steady, steady, but hopefully we're getting to a point where I start to consistently get on podiums," Williams said.

"Since I've been racing in Europe - 2025 was my fourth season - I feel like I'm finally starting to reach a critical mass of race experience and race knowledge at these races, which, frankly, just takes time. Coming from the US and not having raced [in Europe] as a junior, I've just been far behind people who've been racing these roads for a long time."

Her top results have been a podium in Dwars door Vlaanderen and Nokere Koerse in 2024 and the Spring Classics remain her top goal. Williams explains that positioning and knowing the courses is crucial for success, especially in the Classics.

"I'm so much better at saving energy when it's important and then knowing when to push and knowing how to push just a little longer than maybe I would have in the past - believing in it a little bit longer. Then, all of a sudden, you're in the selection, as opposed to, you know, stopping on a climb, and then the person you were with making it back and getting into it.

"I had so many of those moments in my first years - but I'm learning how to mentally be a road racer. And of course, there's still so much room to move - the only thing that has really moved the needle in my performance has been my accumulated race experience.

"You have to know if you need a lead-in to a certain climb, if that climb is going to affect three climbs down the course, and on which side of the road going into this turn puts you in the best position to do [something] on this specific part of the 'berg.

"So it really is all those tiny, tiny details that I think I made up for a lot of just by being strong in the past. [Last] year was the first where I started to actually use my physical ability in any meaningful way, because of knowing where to be and when to go hard."

Persistence and confidence are Williams' other keys to success.

"Most races I finished thinking, 'I'm just really not that good'. But the truth of the matter is, people only care about your good results. No one cares about your bad results. So you need to approach every single race as an opportunity to improve, regardless of what the result is, and you have to commit to the long game.

"Certainly, I'm not the best person with my physiology, or of my cohort or whatever, to try to be a professional cyclist in Europe, but I have seen a lot of people come and go, even just in the years that I've been here. You have to really commit to going through some kind of frustrating experiences in order to benefit."

One of those frustrating experiences was the Tokyo Olympics, where the USA went into the team pursuit as World Champions. Williams raced the qualifying, during which the team finished third. However, she was replaced by Megan Jastrab for the first round, during which the team went significantly quicker but still missed out on the gold medal final at the hands of Great Britain. She was also on the bench when the USA beat Canada for the bronze medal.

"Paris was like a redemption project from Tokyo," Williams explained. "I wasn't expecting to win or anything. I just wanted to go through the process and prove to myself that I could be there and could compete at the Olympics.

"And after the Olympics ... I kind of actively discouraged any sort of attention from it, because it was something that for myself and for my own career, and I wanted to keep it that way - I wanted it to be my own private reward with, of course, the people who were there the whole time with me."

Aside from being a good bullet point on a resumé, Williams said the momentum of that victory carried over into the 2025 road season. "It's given me a lot of confidence for moving forward as a professional."

Williams' 2026 season starts with the Mallorca Challenge from January 24-26 followed by the Vuelta CV Feminas (February 8), Setmana Valenciana (February 12-16) and Omloop Nieuwsblad (February 28).

Whether or not she would continue racing on the track was still up in the air, she said.

"I have no definitive plans right now. I would like to keep doing some track racing, and I don't know what that looks like yet. It's not very easy to combine both right now, with all the track racing happening during the biggest part of the road calendar and then Worlds being many months after that. I think the schedule is not great, but we just have to see how things go."

For the 2026 season, Williams and Human Powered Health are hoping that they will have a lot more luck than in 2025, when crashes and illnesses ruled them out of significant results.

"I think we showed in the very first races of the year in Mallorca [a podium and a fourth place] that we are a capable team, and we have capable people here, and our support is amazing.

"We're in the WorldTour, and we belong here. Then, we missed some really important people throughout the season, and that's another part of it, too. We just kept pushing through, and hopefully in 2026, we get rewarded with some good luck."