For the first time in 10 years, Georgia Williams has properly enjoyed a Kiwi summer. No long rides, no training plans to stick to, no pressure to get ready for another season. In fact, she didn’t even take a bike to Auckland with her.
The 30-year-old retired from the sport last year after an illustrious career which saw her become a mainstay on the World Tour, the highest level of women’s cycling, as well as the dominant force in local cycling, winning five elite time-trial national championships and four elite road national championships.
It makes her the country’s most successful women’s cyclist, with those nine titles putting her ahead of Melissa Holt (eight) and former track team-mate Rushlee Buchanan (five).
Williams finished her career with EF Education-TIBCO-SVB, signing off the 2023 season with one of her best years on the bike, highlighted by two stage podiums and third overall in the general classification at the Tour Down Under.
Her decision to retire may have come as a surprise to some, but after 10 years in the same job, it was time for a change.
“Thinking about racing just didn’t excite me as much as it used to. I was more excited to do something else,” she says.
The scars of a career spent elbow-to-elbow in the peloton were also lingering. She racked up a shopping list of injuries throughout her career – a broken hip, sacrum and pubis – as well as a series of concussions that left her with headaches.
“I feel like I was getting less confident on the bike… and you need to be really confident and be up to taking risks when you’re racing to be at the top level. I was getting more and more hesitant.”
Williams jokes that maybe now she’s in her 30s, her brain doesn’t have the same appetite for risk as it once did.
“I thought about crashing or breaking a bone, and then I would think I just don’t have the mental and physical energy to be able to come back from that. When you’re young and you crash, you want to get back to training as soon as possible. But I was thinking if I broke my collarbone, I wouldn’t want to ride the trainer for four or five weeks… that motivation was lacking.”
Williams first broke through on the track, winning a silver medal in the team pursuit at the Junior World Championships in 2010. She started mixing in road cycling three years later. It wasn’t easy – she lived in Italy for eight months of the year, unable to speak the language, and surrounded by team-mates and room-mates who couldn’t speak English either.
“I don’t know how I did it back then, it was really hard… I was just really isolated and alone, but I didn’t realise it then. I was just happy to be over there racing my bike,” she says.
Williams and her BePink team would drive all over Europe to race, sometimes spending up to 10 hours in the back of a van. Her parents had to help her out with money as she barely got paid anything.
It laid the foundations for her success though. A move to what was then known as Orica-Scott followed in 2017 and she went on to spend six seasons with the Australian outfit, helping them through the most successful time in their history.
Along the way, Williams showed off her talent in the time trial, finishing a career-best 11th at the World Championships in 2018 and securing a bronze medal in the Commonwealth Games in 2022.
All the while, she was showing young girls in New Zealand that you could be successful in professional cycling, even if you came from the other side of the world.
Many of the country’s best female cyclists – Niamh Fisher-Black, Henrietta Christie, Mikayla Harvey, Ella Harris – have broken through while Williams was riding on the World Tour.
When Auckland’s Ella Wyllie, one of the most promising young climbers in the sport, joined the pro ranks this year, she credited Williams for leading the way.
“Someone who inspired me to do so was Georgia Williams, she used to ride for GreenEDGE Cycling, and seeing her success in Europe was really inspiring – especially because of how tough it is to make it from New Zealand,” the 21-year-old said after signing with Team Jayco AlUla.
Williams has had messages from young girls asking her how they can make it to the top as well. Another girl she’s now coaching travelled over and watched her race at the Tour de France last year and wants to make it to the pinnacle of cycling too.
It’s fitting then that after inspiring the next generation, she’s now helping them follow in her wheel. Williams has started a coaching business – Momentum Coaching – and is working with a range of riders, young and old.
“I think it’s just such a rewarding job to help someone improve in sport that they really like and enjoy. Just seeing them even be so satisfied with a training session they nail, it makes me really happy,” she says.
Her vat of knowledge – dealing with injuries, concussion, riding through a global pandemic, her battle with RED-S – makes her better equipped than most to pass on advice.
“I look back at that… I went through it all for a reason. I learned so much about myself, but I also want to help other people with all of those things as well, so they don’t have to go through what I did,” she says.
Williams is also working at races too, acting as a sports director for Australian team ARA Skip Capital. She crossed the ditch last month for the road nationals and the Tour Down Under, while she’ll be the main sports director when the women’s team heads to Europe.
On the bike, Williams could do a bit of everything. It’s no surprise that now she’s stepped off it, she’s doing more of the same.
