Lily Williams plays down Track Champions League rivalry with Katie Archibald – ‘There’s no beef’

Reports of conflict between Track Champions League rivals Lily Williams and Katie Archibald have been greatly exaggerated.

“There’s no beef,” Williams assured Eurosport, ahead of the third round of action in Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines on Saturday.

“I think it’s a friendly rivalry,” she continued. “This is the first time I’ve been in a position like this…

“If I beat someone like Katie that’s good because she’s the standard and it means I’ve performed to a high standard. It doesn’t mean that I’m happy because I beat Katie.”

In fact, Williams admitted to being a big fan of the rider from Glasgow: “I have always really admired her,” Williams said.

“Not just from a cycling side. She seems like a very intelligent, thoughtful, nice person. It’s been nice to get to know her, because I’ve entered the conversation a little bit. She’s far stronger and more experienced than me, so it’s just an opportunity to see what I can do and try to figure it out, with her as the person to beat. I’m really enjoying the opportunity.”

The American, having won the scratch race earlier in the evening, was in a great position to relieve Archibald of the women’s endurance leader’s jersey. All she had to do was finish the race within a few positions of the Brit, but ended up being the eighth rider knocked out, while Archibald went on to win the event.

“She said she had really good legs this week and went in a little too confident,” said Archibald.

Williams agreed wholeheartedly with that assessment.

“I felt really good, and thought I could get myself out of any problems,” Williams said. “I got a bit lazy. I didn’t move when I needed to. You let your guard down for two seconds and someone is going to take advantage.”

Williams had been surprised to find herself in that position in the first place, after winning her second scratch race of the series, in almost the exact same way as the first.

“At no point in the race last weekend did I really attack,” she said. “I was just following in the line, looked back and people were just swinging in the wheel. And then there was that space and you have to make the decision – I can try to force this, or I can sit up and wait. I took a couple of laps to really commit to that effort.”

Her staying out was at least partly down to the rest of the riders obliging Archibald, in the blue leader’s jersey, to do all the work of bringing her back.

“Pretty much no-one was assisting Katie in that chase, which obviously helped me,” Williams said.

“I was pretty shocked that the same move happened two weeks in a row,” she added. “After it happened in Mallorca I was sure there was no way it was going to happen again. I was committed to sprinting in Berlin, because I thought that’s how it would go.”

She would be even more surprised if she was allowed to repeat the move for a third time in Paris this weekend.

“If that happens again then shame on the bunch,” she said.

Williams has admitted to not having the best preparation for the series and was not expecting to find herself as the closest challenger to Archibald in the TCL.

“It’s crazy because I took a three-week break after the end of the road season,” she said. “I had 15 or 16 race days on the road after Worlds, then took three weeks off. I moved to another country, which was not exactly a stress-free experience.”

When she got back on a bike, in her new home of Aix-en-Provence, near Marseille, Williams conceded: “I was just trash. It’s pretty surprising that I’ve been getting any results, but man, form is truly a mystery sometimes.”

Having started the Track Champions League from what she saw as a low base “in theory my form should be improving the more I train.”

Despite the setback of the Berlin elimination, which provided “a good learning moment” Williams is “feeling confident. I have the advantage of Katie in the leader’s jersey, because everyone is looking at her, so she has more obligation and more pressure.”

In fact Williams seems impervious to pressure, which may be in part due to being a relative newcomer to track cycling.

“I’ve only been racing mass start since Tokyo [2020],” she said. “There’s still so much that I need to be exposed to.”

This weekend Williams’ plan is to “go for a good result in the elimination. I think it’s the easier race to plan and control. Generally the elimination is my more consistent event, because the scratch race is so wildly unpredictable most of the time.”

“You can’t plan for anything in a scratch race,” Williams admitted.

Rather than making a move herself, Williams expects another rider to take a gamble.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if one of the other top riders tries something,” she said. “I think I have to just follow the race and keep your eye on the key people who are going to force the race. Just stay positioned and follow the moves when they’re good. You only know what that is in the moment.”

Williams, who rides for Women’s WorldTour outfit Human Powered Health on the road, is hopeful for an improvement in the fortunes of her partner Gavin Hoover.

Hoover was the inaugural winner of the Track Champions League men’s endurance competition in 2021 but has had less success in the last two editions, and especially since experiencing his first serious athletic injury.

“He had a really good Olympics, then won Champions League and then got fried,” Williams said. “Which is why he probably got injured and is now building his fitness back. It’s the first time as an athlete that he’s been injured so lucky him but it’s also an important learning experience.

“We’ve done a really bad job of doing well at the same time. One of us is [always] doing well and the other is s**t. There’s no time when we can both celebrate together, so hopefully that will happen.”