WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — Lily Williams is considered one of the best female cyclists from America.
Her racing season this year started in January at the women's Tour Down Under in Australia.
"I have had a very long season, I think I'm not the only one," Williams said. "I think the Olympic year is long for everyone."
Williams is a Tallahassee-born and raised professional cyclist that races around the globe. This year alone she's raced in Belgium, Spain and Italy to name a few places.
Currently, her focus is on Colorado Springs preparing for the summer games.
"We're here for three and a half weeks," Williams said. "We're about halfway through our altitude block and then we go do our final preparations in Belgium."
In Paris at the Olympics, Williams will race in two team events called the team pursuit and the Madison on the velodrome.
She credits Florida with nurturing her talent. Her parents still live in Tallahassee while she calls France home.
"Growing up in Tallahassee laid the foundation for everything because I was a cross country and track and field runner in Florida in high school, and eventually in college as well," Williams said. "Being an athlete from a young age in Florida was really important for my experience as an athlete in my development."
She won a world title in the team pursuit back in 2020. While many expected the same team to take home gold in the Tokyo Olympics, they came away with a bronze for Team USA.
We asked Williams what she defines as success while competing at the Paris Olympics. She says she's put in the work to win this summer and her teammates have done the same.
"It's pretty impossible to put expectations on results," she said. "You can know how fast we're going to ride; we can know what our fitness level is but the whole point of the Olympics is that it's kind of a random mix bag. People come out of nowhere and people you think are going to do really well do not. So, I'm looking at Paris as kind of my redemptive Olympics just to go back, really enjoy myself."
Once the Olympics end, she heads back to racing the road and some of the biggest races in the world.