Mavi García has postponed her planned retirement and will continue racing into 2027 after signing a one-year contract extension with UAE Team L’IMAD.
The 42-year-old Spaniard returned to the UAE project for the 2026 season expecting it to be the final campaign of her professional career. Instead, a year in which García has remained competitive at Women’s WorldTour level while taking on an increasingly important support and leadership role has convinced both rider and team that there is still reason to continue.
García will therefore begin another professional season at 43, extending a remarkable career that only began at UCI level relatively late in her sporting life.
“Overall, I’m very happy,” García said of her 2026 season. “There are always things I would have liked to do better and that, because of a crash or for another reason, didn’t turn out as I expected.
“But so far I’ve had a very good level of performance and I think I’ve been able to contribute a lot to the team.”
Photo Credit: GettyGarcía’s UAE return was supposed to be her final season
García’s relationship with the UAE team has effectively come in two separate chapters.
She originally raced for the project in 2022, during the first season following UAE’s arrival in the Women’s WorldTour, before moving to Liv Racing TeqFind and subsequently spending two years with Liv AlUla Jayco.
Her return for 2026 was initially intended to close her professional career.
Much had changed during the four years García spent away.
“I left the team when it had only been created one year earlier, and when I came back the change was quite big,” she said. “It has grown in every sense, both in terms of structure and the level of the riders and organisation.”
That development has also changed García’s place within the squad.
UAE Team L’IMAD now possesses considerably greater strength in depth, with Elisa Longo Borghini, Paula Blasi, Dominika Włodarczyk, Silvia Persico and others giving the team multiple options across stage races and one-day events.
García has consequently been able to move between chasing results herself and using her experience in support of the team’s principal leaders.
She raced all three women’s Grand Tours in 2026 and was included in UAE Team L’IMAD’s Tour de France Femmes squad built around Longo Borghini, where her mountain experience added another layer to one of the deepest teams in the race.
García remains competitive at 42
The extension is not simply a reward for García’s experience.
Her performances during 2026 have shown that she remains capable of competing at Women’s WorldTour level despite being one of the oldest riders in the professional peloton.
García began the year with second overall at the Tour Down Under, finishing second on the final stage as Noemi Rüegg secured the overall victory. It was an immediate demonstration that García had retained the climbing level required to influence major stage races.
She subsequently completed the Vuelta España Femenina, Giro d’Italia Women and Tour de France Femmes, balancing her own ambitions with increasingly important support duties.
Her contribution was particularly valuable at the Tour, where García finished 20th overall while UAE concentrated much of its effort around Longo Borghini, Blasi and Włodarczyk.
That collective approach ultimately delivered one of the strongest team performances of the race.
Longo Borghini finished third overall, Blasi fifth and Włodarczyk seventh, while UAE won the team classification. The Tour de France Femmes 2026 review showed how the team’s depth became increasingly important as the race moved into its decisive mountain stages.
“There have been quite a few special moments,” García said.
“The most recent was at the Tour, when on the final day we achieved the podium with Elisa, and also at the Vuelta.”
Her form has continued beyond the Tour. García finished third at Kreiz Breizh Elites Féminin in late August after playing an aggressive role in the decisive four-rider selection, another indication that there has been no sudden late-season decline in her ability to influence races.
A very different role from García’s first UAE spell
The significance of García extending her career becomes clearer when compared with her first spell at UAE.
In 2022, she was one of the team’s principal leaders and produced one of the strongest seasons of her career.
She finished third overall at the Giro d’Italia Donne and collected two Women’s WorldTour victories. The second came in Brittany, where García won the 2022 Classic Lorient Agglomération after escaping with Amber Kraak and beating the Dutch rider in their two-up sprint.
Four years later, UAE can ask something different of her.
There will still be races where García has opportunities to ride for herself, particularly on difficult one-day courses and climbing-heavy stage races. At 42, however, her experience has become an equally important part of what she offers.
García herself sees that as one of the main reasons to continue.
“2022 here was the best year of my sporting career and I learned so much from the team,” she said.
“Now the team has given me the opportunity to finish my sporting career here, helping the young riders and the team improve with everything I can contribute. That gives me satisfaction and makes me want to be part of the team’s continuous improvement.”
That mentoring role has particular value within a roster containing several riders still establishing themselves at the highest level.
Blasi has emerged rapidly as a major stage-racing talent, finishing fifth overall at the Tour de France Femmes in only her second professional season. UAE have also continued investing heavily in their future roster, including the signings of Lily Williams for 2027 and Pfeiffer Georgi on a three-year contract.
García offers something that cannot easily be recruited through results alone: more than a decade of experience navigating Grand Tours, championship races and the tactical demands of the biggest events on the calendar.
Starting late has shaped García’s remarkable longevity
García’s longevity is particularly unusual because professional cycling was not the starting point of her sporting career.
She competed in duathlon and triathlon before concentrating seriously on cycling, reaching the professional peloton much later than riders now emerging directly from junior development programmes.
That unconventional route helps explain why she views continuing at 42 differently from someone who has spent their entire adult life racing professionally.
“Maybe there are people who don’t understand it at my age, but this year I have really enjoyed racing with the team,” García said.
“I’m at a point where I can finally say that I have learned everything there is to learn in this sport. Because I started so late, everything happened differently.”
There is still a competitive calculation underneath that enjoyment.
Racing into her forties would make little sense if García could no longer operate at the required level. Second at the Tour Down Under, a full three-Grand-Tour programme and another podium in late August suggest that point has not yet arrived.
“Anyone would pay to have a job that used to be their hobby, and I consider myself very fortunate to be able to continue doing a little more of what I love most,” she said.
“Especially considering that my level is still very high. It can also be a motivation for other riders because, after all, this is a job where you always have to keep breaking barriers whenever possible.”
UAE Team L’IMAD value García beyond her results
Team president Melissa Moncada made clear that García’s extension is about more than adding another rider capable of producing Women’s WorldTour results.
“We are very happy that Mavi has chosen to continue her journey with us,” Moncada said.
“Her value to this team goes far beyond the results she can achieve in races. Mavi brings experience, leadership, knowledge and an extraordinary work ethic, and she has become an important figure for our young riders.”
For UAE, García’s return in 2026 has also provided a useful measure of how far the organisation has developed since its first season.
“Her return in 2026 allowed us to rediscover someone we already knew, but also to see how much our team has grown since 2022,” Moncada said.
“We are proud that she has decided to continue with us and we are convinced that she still has a great deal to give to this project.”
The atmosphere García found after returning to the team has been equally important from her perspective.
“It’s very important to be able to feel comfortable and be in a good environment with the girls, and I have that here,” she said.
“We have spent a lot of time together this year and we are becoming more and more united. When you spend so much time away from home, that is really, really important.”
García’s 2027 race programme remains open
Neither García nor UAE Team L’IMAD have yet decided exactly what her 2027 season will look like.
Another programme containing all three Grand Tours is therefore far from guaranteed.
Her schedule could instead become more selective, combining races where the terrain gives García a realistic opportunity for her own result with events where her climbing strength and experience can be used around the team’s younger leaders.
“Of course, the objective will be to help the team in many ways and continue enjoying the races I take part in,” García said.
“We still have to discuss what I will do and in what way. I’m ready for anything, as always, but this time we’re going to take it a little more calmly.”
What had been expected to be García’s farewell season has therefore become something else.
She will race on at 43, remain with the team where she enjoyed one of the strongest seasons of her career and enter 2027 with a role extending well beyond her own results.
For a rider whose professional career began unusually late, retirement can wait for at least one more season.
