Having already won two road race titles and three time trial titles, Georgia Williams clearly does not want another title heading into the New Zealand Road National Championships. In fact, the 28-year-old BikeExchange-Jayco rider says it is the most nerve-wracking race she faces each year.

In other seasons, he races for or with the support of his teammates, but when he competes in a race for the national title, he is competing alone and for himself.

"I just enjoy the pressure and do what I can do," Williams told Cycling News the night before the time trial.

"I have to be really smart. The girls with their teammates can take advantage of that, but I just have to focus on that and go into the race with a clear race plan." [She won time trial and road race titles in 2018 and 2021, and the time trial in 2019; the only year since 2018 that she has failed to win at least one jersey with a silver fern on it is 2020, when she started the season in Australia When she started the season, she suffered a concussion in the weeks before the event and was unable to race.

In a way, the year of rest may have paid off in 2021, when he escaped from a two-man breakaway in the first few kilometers of the race and won a two-man sprint to the finish.

"When I came back, maybe I wasn't seen as much," Williams said. Williams said. 'I had won before, but not the year before. This year, all eyes will probably be on me and my every move.

Another difference from last year is the training runs. Williams struggled to recover after crashing and suffering a concussion at last season's Giro d'Italia Donnay, and as soon as he returned to racing at Paris-Roubaix Fam, he crashed and hit his head again. Then, as soon as she returned to racing at Paris-Roubaix Femme, she fell again and hit her head. This ended her season, and she faced another long and complicated recovery process.

"I needed a few more weeks of training to get back to where I was last year, but I was able to spend almost three months at home over the summer, which was great," Williams said in a Cycling New Zealand release.

The New Zealand championships will be Williams' first race in four months, and he is entering his sixth season with BikeExchange-Jayco, with a 32.5km time trial that includes the Te Milo climb on Friday and a joint U23 and elite Sunday She will compete in the race. The women's road race is a 109 km race of three laps around a circuit that starts and finishes in Cambridge and includes the Maungakawa climb, which covers more than half of the 488 m elevation gain included in each lap.