Jess' Profile

Jess Roberts was born and grew up in Wales, where she first took to a bike to ride for the Towy Riders club near her home in Carmarthen. 

Success in the junior ranks came on both the road and the track in the early stages of Jess’s career. In 2016, Roberts won a silver medal in the points race at the UCI Junior Track World Championships in Aigle, Switzerland, and two bronze medals at the UEC European Junior Track Championships in Montichiari, Italy, in the omnium and the team pursuit.

On the road, she showed her promise with victories at several European races in 2016 and 2017 before graduating to the senior ranks in 2018, riding for Team Breeze alongside current Great Britain track teammate Megan Barker. 

Roberts underscored her potential by winning the road race at the Great Britain National Road Championships in Stamfordham in 2018. The following year on the track, the European Games in Minsk, proved a fertile hunting ground for Roberts as she came away with two medals, a gold in the Madison with Megan Barker, and silver in the team pursuit with Barker, Jenny Holl and Josie Knight. She also claimed omnium gold at the UEC U23 Track Championships in Gent, Belgium.

On the road, she won two stages of the Bretagne Ladies Tour, from a bunch sprint and a breakaway solo. She finished fifth overall and second in both the points and youth classifications. Roberts caught the attention of the Mitchelton-Scott World Tour team and signed a contract beginning in 2020, which saw her ride an interrupted road programme around the Covid-19 lockdowns. 

A tricky year in 2021 saw Roberts take an extended period off the bike due to injury, and her contract with Mitchelton Scott (then Team BikeExchange) came to an end at the end of the year. She was picked up by Norwegian-based Team Coop-Hitec Products. 

A resurgent Roberts returned to both the track and the road in 2022, and she showed she was back to her best form, winning a silver in the scratch race at the European Track Championships in Munich, and a bronze in the same event at the UCI World Championships in Paris later in the year. 

Roberts was drafted into the team pursuit squad in 2023, and helped them on their way to medals at two Track Nations Cups, a bronze in Jakarta, Indonesia, and a gold in Milton, Canada. 2024 has continued to produce strong results for Roberts and the team pursuit squad as they compete for places in the squad for the Paris Olympic Games.

Early 2024 saw Roberts and the team pursuit squad deliver strong results as they worked towards the summer’s Olympic Games. A silver medal for Roberts at the UEC European Championships in Apeldoorn, Netherlands, alongside Knight, Meg Barker, Neah Evans, and Anna Morris was the first success of the year; individual honours followed in Adelaide at the Tissot Track Nations Cup, where Roberts claimed bronze in the elimination race. A team pursuit gold medal followed at the final Track Nations Cup of the year in Milton, Canada.

The Paris 2024 Olympic Games themselves saw Roberts selected for her first ever Olympic Games in which, after a tumultuous build-up for the team, she came home with a hard-fought bronze medal in the team pursuit. 

Roberts ended her year with a bang, joining the defending team pursuit world champions to win her first world title at the UCI Track Cycling Championships in Denmark. She quickly followed this up with a strategic performance that saw her win a silver medal in the omnium.

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