LONDON — Melisa Rollins is hanging up her off-road wheels to embark on a top-tier road career after EF Education-Oatly confirmed a two-year WorldTour contract beginning in 2027. The two-time Leadville 100 champion and reigning US cross-country marathon national champion said she had reached the height of her off-road career and is revelling in the chance to test herself in a new discipline.
“When the opportunity came for me to go and race for EF Education-Oatly, I was actually initially kind of like, ‘No, I think I'm really, really comfortable. I really like what I'm doing. I'm able to support myself. I feel like I've found a spot where I'm good,’" she said in a team announcement on Monday. "But then I thought about it more and wondered, is this the top? Is this where I want to be? Or do I want to try something new and really see what I'm capable of in a different discipline? Long story short, that's how I found myself saying 'yes' and giving it a whirl. That's super exciting.” Having raced a mix of road, gravel and mountain biking, Rollins won her first Leadville 100 title in 2024 and again this year, while last season she won Chequamegon and SBT GRVL and finished third overall in the Life Time Grand Prix. This year she also claimed the cross-country marathon national title and finished second at Little Sugar MTB.
“I started racing off-road. I always did the longer endurance races, and it just happened to turn into the Life Time Grand Prix series, so that really worked out for me," she said. "That started as a hobby, so I’ve only been racing at the front of these races for the last two or three years, but once I started getting good, I feel like I’ve kind of reached the summit of my goals for the off-road races.” Rollins, who will relocate from Utah to Europe to compete exclusively on the road, has previous European experience from several years ago with Virginia's Blue Ridge Twenty24 in Belgium and Luxembourg. "It's not like I'm going in completely blind. I got the full experience. I got to race in Belgium when I was over there, and I feel like that's kind of special. I raced in Luxembourg, and I loved it," she said. "I just really liked that style of racing with a steep, five- to 10-minute climb. I think when there's something really hard in the course that makes it selective, that's where I found that I really enjoyed it.”
Rollins said a broken elbow earlier this year inadvertently prepared her for the WorldTour step. “I learned that you can overcome sadness and rise higher than you were before the setback. It takes trust, it takes dedication, it takes all the things that got you to the place where you were before the setback to overcome it. And with a new mindset, you'll become even stronger," she said. "I think it set me up to make this move, actually. I'm not sure that I would have been ready for this had I not broken my elbow earlier this year and come back from it in such a strong and dominant way.” Her switch follows a standout off-road run that included third overall in last season's Life Time Grand Prix, a series where Swenson and Gomez Villafañe claimed fourth titles this year.