American Olympic champion Lily Williams will join UAE L\u2019IMAD in 2027 on a two-year deal as the 31-year-old makes the first team switch of her racing career.<\/p>\n
Williams will leave Human Powered Health after racing her entire road career with the U.S. team to move to one of the strongest squads in the women\u2019s peloton.<\/p>\n
The Marseille-based American brings her track pedigree to UAE as an Olympic champion in team pursuit along with her solid road racing skills.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have been on the same team for my entire career up until this point,\u201d Williams said. \u201cI started cycling after a career in running, and I needed time to build the skills and race knowledge as a rider before I was ready to make a step to a top team. Now I am 100 percent prepared to be a key rider in a lineup that is capable of winning monuments and grand tours alike.\u201d<\/p>\n
Williams, 32, says the switch will help her take a step up after several seasons racing in Europe.<\/p>\n
Making a big move<\/h2>\n
Williams has finished second on a stage of the Giro d\u2019Italia Women and third at Nokere Koerse, and is a versatile rider across one-days and stage races. She can also work as a lead-out rider in the bunch sprints as well as ride into breakaways.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow that I will be on one of the world\u2019s top teams I expect that I will have the support and resources to make another jump in my career, and I expect to be in more selections fighting for the win or attacking with a teammate,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Team president Melissa Moncada said UAE believes Williams still has room to develop.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are confident that our team will provide her with the right tools to continue her journey in the world of cycling in the best possible way,\u201d Moncada said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/velo-cdn.outsideonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/GettyImages-2289444268.jpg”] Andrew Hood Updated August 26, 2026 07:45AM American Olympic champion Lily Williams will join UAE L\u2019IMAD in 2027 on a two-year deal as the 31-year-old makes the first team switch of her racing career. Williams will leave Human Powered Health after racing her entire road career with the U.S. team to move […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[226,71],"class_list":["post-2113018","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-crawlmanager","tag-velo-outsideonline-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2113018","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2113018"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2113018\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2113018"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2113018"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2113018"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}