Cory Williams introduced he’ll change allegiances in 2024, shifting from L39ION of Los Angeles to the Miami Blazers. Dominating criterium races for over a decade, Cory Williams, 30, is the youthful brother of Justin Williams, and the 2 co-founded L39ION in 2018 to advertise variety and inclusion whereas increasing alternatives to race as professionals.
The duo are behind Williams Racing Improvement, which based the Miami Blazers in 2021 and spawned the Austin Aviators in 2023 as a co-ed workforce based mostly in Texas. After 5 seasons with L39ION racing in tandem along with his brother, the youthful Williams confirmed the transfer on social media the final week of December.
“It’s with a mixture of feelings that I share I’ll be leaving L39ION of Los Angeles subsequent 12 months. The journey has been nothing in need of superb,” Williams wrote on social media.
“To my teammates these final 5 years have been the most effective years of my profession thus far! Our dedication to creating the game extra inclusive and a secure place to be your self was inspiring to say the least and I’ll cherish each race we gained collectively.
“Whereas my position could change, my love for legion will keep the identical! Our purpose at Williams Racing Improvement is to create an electrical involvement and to convey you the most effective leisure! And we are able to’t wait to placed on a present for you all.”
Cory Williams started the 2024 season with the Miami Blazers racing in Belize on January 1, the place he completed second within the Krem New Yr’s Day Biking Basic.
Born in Los Angeles, Cory Williams now represents Belize in worldwide occasions, profitable the nationwide highway race championship this previous summer season and taking prime 10s within the highway race and ITT of the Caribbean Highway Championships. He additionally gained a highway stage on the Redland Bicycle Basic and 12 different podiums in one-day races.
The Blazers are of their fourth 12 months as a US home elite squad with a concentrate on criterium and one-day occasions. In 2023, the Blazers notched key UCI victories from riders profitable particular person time trial championships for his or her house nations, Joshua Kelly for Barbados and Oscar Quiroz for Belize. Brandon Feehery added a US title on the elite males’s novice criterium championship.
Lizzy Gunsalus and Betty Hasse anchor CCB girls’s workforce
The CCB p/b Levine Legislation Group elite girls’s biking workforce, based mostly close to Boston, Massachusetts, confirmed a nine-rider roster for 2024 might be anchored by a pair of 20-year-old US nationwide champions, Betty Hasse and Lizzy Gunsalus. The squad’s presenting sponsor, Levine Legislation Group of Mooresville, North Carolina, returns for a seventh 12 months in help of the ladies’s improvement squad.
Hasse gained the ladies’s U23 time trial title whereas Gunsalus took the U23 cyclocross victory. A key departure for the workforce is collegiate monitor and cyclocross nationwide champion Natalie Quinn, who moved to EF Training-Cannondale.
“The true check of a improvement workforce just isn’t measured by the wins on the season however by the success of our athletes as soon as they depart our program. Whereas we actually rejoice these wins, particularly our three under-23 nationwide champions this 12 months with Natalie [Quinn], Betty [Hasse], and Lizzy [Gunsalus], we’re past thrilled to see our riders efficiently transfer onto the subsequent chapters of their careers. It means we’re doing our job,” mentioned workforce Sports activities Director Lauren LeClaire.
New on the roster is Ella Brenneman, who turns 19 on January 10. She gained the ladies’s junior criterium nationwide championship this previous season, and added a silver medal within the junior particular person time trial then a silver at cyclocross nationwide within the U23 race behind Gunsalus. Sabrina Hayes rode final season for the Fort Lewis Faculty highway workforce and earned 9 prime 10s at criteriums throughout Tour of America’s Dairyland and Intelligentsia Cup race weeks.
Along with Levine Legislation Group, different persevering with companions embrace Basis Biking, Buddies & Household Dental of East Windfall, Rhode Island, ProThirteen Teaching, in addition to bike supplier Cannondale.
CCB Worldwide biking membership started in New England in 1976 and is now the longest continually-running elite workforce within the US that now competes solely as a girls’s multi-discipline race workforce. The workforce plans so as to add an prolonged European racing block on their calendar for 2024, with the majority of the schedule remaining a home mixture of highway, criterium and gravel occasions.
The CCB p/b Levine Legislation Group 2024 roster: Gunsalus, Hasse, Hayes, Brenneman, Kate Seiler, Kendall Chase, Katherine Rusch, Ella Grier and Cécile Lejeune.
Atlanta Rise latest NCL-owned workforce fill rosters
The Atlanta Rise Biking Membership is the third US home, co-ed workforce created by the Nationwide Biking League, becoming a member of the Miami Nights and Denver Disruptors. The 2024 co-ed roster consists of eight males and 5 girls, representing 4 international locations.
As a US home elite squad, the brand new Atlanta Rise might be eligible to earn workforce factors within the American Criterium Cup collection and might be eligible for choice as a workforce within the NCL race collection. Whereas the workforce kits haven’t been unveiled, the workforce colors are pink and black, which mirror the daring look utilized by the host metropolis’s massive skilled sports activities groups Atlanta Falcons, Atlanta United and Atlanta Hawks.
Promising native expertise Joshua Meyers, a 21-year-old biology main at Georgia State College, raced as a junior with the Mission Devo Biking membership on the highway and on the monitor. Final 12 months with Metro Atlanta Biking Membership, he gained the Cat 4 males’s race at Spin the District Hapeville and the Cat 3 /4 males’s division at Sunny King Criterium.
One other younger Georgia native is Caleb Landgrebe. The 20-year-old raced three seasons with the DDP Elite improvement workforce within the US and spent final summer season in Belgium gaining expertise in one-day races, which landed him a victory at Grote Prijs Schuiferskapelle.
Veteran riders with connections to Georgia embrace Atlanta-native Jon Brock, Brock Mason of Macon, Lucas Pressure of Eatonton and Belgian Quentin Goossens, who earned a PhD in engineering from Georgia Institute of Know-how in Atlanta. Clayton Travis joins from Velocious Sport, the place he had 11 prime 10s in criteriums final season. David Davenport, 21, rode for the Denver Disruptors improvement squad final 12 months and claimed seven podiums.
Elizabeth ‘Izzie’ Harden additionally strikes from the Denver Disruptors, and has Georgia connections as a junior at Piedmont College. With twin citizenship within the US and Nice Britain, Harden scored a bronze medal at US junior criterium nationals in 2019 and gained the junior girls’s total title at The Gateway Cup. Fellow Briton Ruth Allen lives and works in Atlanta, and joins the workforce from a 12 months with Goldman Sachs ETF’s Racing.
Different girls on the workforce embrace Canadian Kara Lilly, criterium veteran Carlie Cooper, who strikes from Amy D. Basis, and Megan Sybeldon, who rode the previous two seasons with Crew Skyline.
