Ella's Profile

Born in Pontyclun in South Wales, Ella Maclean-Howell has dreamed of competing in the Olympics since she was a schoolgirl watching the likes of Becky James and Dani King winning gold medals for Team GB at the Games.  

She first started in their footsteps, on a track bike at Maindy velodrome in Cardiff when she was eight, not long after 2012, picking up the bug and joining the Maindy Flyers CC and riding alongside the likes of Zoe Backstedt.

Soon, it was mountain-bike racing that seemed to be Ella’s calling and she had decent success at youth level before an 11th place finish at the 2017 world championships in Val di Sole suggested there may be some serious promise.

In the years that followed, Maclean-Howell made her way through the Welsh Cycling academy set up before joining the British Cycling programme as a junior. In recent years, she has had success domestically, but 2024 has been her breakout year with 10 top-10 finishes in the under-23 category at mountain-bike world cups, including a second place finish in the short-track at Nove Mesto in MayThe highlight of the season that far was surely a silver medal in the under-23 women's short-track event at the UEC mountain-bike European Continental Championships in Romania.

Selected for her first ever Olympic Games this summer in Paris, Ella took on the women’s race with gusto, showing her skill and gaining invaluable experience in a stacked field. Finishing 23rd in her Olympic debut, MacLean-Howell proved she was in good form which followed her to the world championships where she took a silver medal in the under-23 women’s XCO event, proving there’s plenty more to come from this young rider.

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