{"id":50897,"date":"2025-12-11T21:45:30","date_gmt":"2025-12-11T21:45:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/greenedgecycling.com\/2024\/?p=50897"},"modified":"2026-04-21T13:53:00","modified_gmt":"2026-04-21T13:53:00","slug":"team-talk-georgia-baker-on-baking-farm-life-being-a-taekwondo-black-belt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/greenedgecycling.com\/2026\/team-talk-georgia-baker-on-baking-farm-life-being-a-taekwondo-black-belt\/","title":{"rendered":"Team Talk: Georgia Baker on baking, farm life, & being a taekwondo black belt"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Georgia Baker<\/strong>\u2019s childhood in Launceston, Tasmania was an idyllic one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When she wasn\u2019t at school or playing one of the many sports she competed in growing up, she helped out on her family\u2019s farm. Now spending much of her year in Europe while racing in as a pro, she reflects on that time with fondness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI really loved growing up in Tasmania and I was lucky to grow up here. When I was younger, I grew up on a farm and I lived there with my family,\u201d<\/em> Baker says from Tasmania, having returned home for the off-season. \u201cLooking back, my childhood was so much fun. I was always outside, helping my dad on the farm and always doing something on the weekend.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Baker\u2019s father wasn\u2019t a farmer by trade \u2013 in fact he helped to run the family construction business as his full-time job. The farm was more of a passion project that much of the family happily got involved with.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe had about 110 acres. On the farm, we had crops and we had sheep and cattle as well. My dad was a builder by trade. We had a company called the Baker Group so my dad would work full-time for the company and then on weekends he would farm,\u201d<\/em> she explains. \u201cFarming was kind of a hobby. Our family helped, and a lot of our weekends were spent wandering around the farm and helping dad.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
A young Georgia Baker with the sheep on her family farm<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMy favourite thing was to drive the utes. When I was young, my dad would put his ute in neutral, and I could just see over the steering wheel, I would just have to steer the ute while dad fed the sheep off the back of the ute. I really loved doing anything with my dad and my family. I also loved it when we had shearing days. The shearers would come to the property, and I would help with the wool and marking the sheep.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Leaving the farm<\/strong><\/span>
Life at the farm couldn\u2019t last, though, as Baker and her sister got more involved in sports. In the end, it became too difficult for her parents to juggle full-time jobs and a farm while bringing their two daughters to the various sports they were involved in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe farm wasn\u2019t too far away from town, but it was getting a bit hard for my parents to manage everything with our sports as well as the farm and normal work. I was really active as a kid and my parents encouraged it for us to try different sports and different things,\u201d<\/em> Baker says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before she discovered cycling, Baker was involved in a plethora of sports, from netball to swimming. Perhaps the most surprising one is taekwondo, where she achieved the rank of black belt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNobody ever believes me, I always have to get my blackbelt out just to prove it. They\u2019re always like \u2018can you remember anything, can you remember any of your moves?\u2019 but to be honest I don\u2019t think I can. I was very young,\u201d<\/em> she says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI remember I was introduced at a race and they said: \u2018Georgia Baker, also a black belt in taekwondo\u2019. That was a lot of years ago, but I\u2019ll take it.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Georgia with her father Patrick<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Like her teammate Amber Pate<\/strong>, Baker ultimately found a love of cycling through triathlon. By her own admission, the cycling leg wasn\u2019t her strongest \u2013 not helped by the fact that she was doing it on her mountain bike \u2013 but it was definitely her favourite.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A chance to explore it further came when the Tasmanian Institute of Sport selected her as part of a talent identification programme. She was initially picked for rowing and basketball, but Baker was determined to do more cycling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t get selected for cycling because they didn\u2019t want to intrude on any sports that you were already participating in,\u201d she explains. \u201cI asked if I could do the \u2018cycling come and try day\u2019 and they said that was fine. I wasn\u2019t interested in basketball because I played netball and my parents were super against rowing because of the early mornings. So, I went up to the velodrome, the Silverdome, in Launceston and I really loved it. That\u2019s how it all started.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The moment it changed<\/strong><\/span>
As Baker got more into cycling, so did her family and her father bought his own bike so he could go riding with her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHe hated me going out on the roads by myself in Tasmania so he got a bike to come with me. Then, my dad started racing, and my uncle got involved and my cousin and it ended up being a sport that a lot of my family started doing, which was really cool,\u201d<\/em> says Baker.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Georgia’s father, who passed away in 2015<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

While Baker loved cycling, being a professional was not immediately on her radar. She just loved the sport and wanted to see how much she was capable on. Baker impressed early on, and it didn\u2019t take long before she began to realise just how much the sport meant to her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI loved the Olympics, and I was obsessed with that when I was a kid, but at the time, I didn\u2019t think I could go to the Olympics,\u201d<\/em> she says. \u201cI remember the moment when I thought I wanted to do it as a job, it was my first national championships.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI got selected for our state team and raced at track nationals. I got third in the scratch race and I was overwhelmed. I thought it was the best thing and I even cried because I got third and I was so happy. From that moment, I really wanted to make something out of it, and this was a sport I wanted to do.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the time, Baker was still competing regularly in netball, but she soon realised that if she wanted to make the most of her cycling talent then she\u2019d have to go all in on it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The decision to focus on cycling paid off for Baker and she eventually made her Olympic Games debut in 2016, before returning to take part in her second in 2021 in Tokyo and third at Paris 2024. Since 2022, she\u2019s been racing with the Liv AlUla Jayco<\/strong> squad on the road, and she scored her first WorldTour stage win with the team this season at the Tour of Guangxi.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Georgia with her mum, dad, and sister after winning a world title on the track<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Spending time with the family<\/strong><\/span>
The road off-season means a well-earned trip home to Tasmania to spend time with her family. With a job that has her travelling the globe for much of the year, there aren\u2019t too many opportunities to go back to Australia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When Baker is at home with her family, it gives her the chance to do things she doesn\u2019t get the chance to do when she\u2019s in the thick of a season, such as baking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI really enjoy the process of baking, it\u2019s really good for my mind and switching off a little bit,\u201d<\/em> Baker says. \u201cWhen I\u2019m at home, I like to cook and bake a lot more and then give them away to my family or people who come over. My favourite thing, which I do a lot with my sister around Christmas time, is to bake biscuits. We make kiss biscuits, which is a recipe that has been in my family for years and years.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt was my great grandmother\u2019s recipe. They\u2019re two shortbread biscuits stuck together with raspberry jam and then icing and sprinkles on top. My great grandma used to make them for us at Christmas time so we would get a tin of them.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Top photo: Sprint Cycling<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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