{"id":305842,"date":"2025-07-31T05:51:17","date_gmt":"2025-07-31T05:51:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/305842\/"},"modified":"2025-07-31T05:51:17","modified_gmt":"2025-07-31T05:51:17","slug":"who-is-kim-le-court-pienaar-meet-the-tour-de-france-femmes-history-maker","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/305842\/","title":{"rendered":"Who is Kim Le Court-Pienaar? Meet the Tour de France Femmes history-maker"},"content":{"rendered":"

For the second time in a week, Kim Le Court-Pienaar buried her face in her hands. Wearing the yellow jersey at the Tour de France<\/a> was a fantasy that had never even crossed her mind growing up, 9,000km away, on an island in the Indian Ocean. Now, with a stage victory in the town of Gu\u00e9ret<\/a>, she had achieved it twice.<\/p>\n

A smile beaming across her face, she took to the podium to receive her honours. \u201cI think just having it on my shoulders is already a dream come true for me,\u201d she said. \u201cWell, stage three<\/a>, having it on my shoulders, was really a dream come true \u2013 I was living it like it wouldn\u2019t happen again, and now it\u2019s happening again. It\u2019s really amazing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Le Court\u2019s pro career, still only 18 months old, has been one of historic firsts. She\u2019s the first Mauritian \u2013 male or female \u2013 to compete at cycling\u2019s highest level, after signing for WorldTour squad AG Insurance-Soudal. She\u2019s the first African to win a Monument<\/a>. And, only as of Sunday, she\u2019s the first African woman to lead the Tour. \u201cTo be honest, I think I\u2019m still a little bit shocked,\u201d she said at the time.<\/p>\n

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Her path to the yellow jersey has been unconventional and unique. From overcoming a malaria scare, to abandoning her road racing career, and later emailing teams to ask for a contract, here\u2019s how she worked her way to the Tour\u2019s top step.<\/p>\n

Born in Curepipe, the second biggest town in Mauritius, Le Court jokes that her childhood consisted of \u201cbeaches and coconuts\u201d. She was brought up by a Scottish mother and a Mauritian father, of French descent, alongside an older brother, who too would later become a road cyclist.<\/p>\n

At three years old, however, Le Court\u2019s life came under threat. Diagnosed with malaria on a trip to France, she ended up in a coma, given a 10% chance of survival. \u201cIn France, they didn\u2019t really know what malaria was,\u201d she told Sporza<\/a>. \u201cThey kept saying it was a fever. Because of this, they caught it very late, and the disease had already penetrated deep into my body.\u201d<\/p>\n

In time, the doctors were able to treat her and find a cure \u2013 \u201cmiraculously,\u201d her father told Le Parisien<\/a>. The day after she woke up, she rode a bike through the corridors of the hospital. \u201cIt was as if I was destined to be a cyclist,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

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\"Kim<\/p>\n

Le Court’s Tour de France Femmes stage win in Gu\u00e9ret brought a second stint in the yellow jersey. <\/p>\n

(Image credit: Getty Images)<\/p>\n

Inspired by her brother, Le Court got her first proper bike when she was 12. She raced against the boys at home in Mauritius, for lack of a large enough girls\u2019 field, before moving to South Africa in her teenage years. There, she dived into mountain biking, a discipline in which she now counts multiple Continental-level medals.<\/p>\n

In 2015, then only nineteen, Le Court joined her first UCI road team, a British squad called Matrix Fitness. One of her first races was the UK’s Women’s Tour, where she finished dead last, an hour down. The following season, she swapped to a Spanish team, but the level still proved too high.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt didn\u2019t go very well at all,\u201d she remembers. \u201cI was a DNF or last place in every race, so it really wasn\u2019t a memory to remember.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her European dream over, she packed her bags and moved back to South Africa. She\u2019d then spend the next seven years competing on her mountain bike \u2013 winning big races like the Cape Epic and Swiss Epic \u2013 and working part-time as a bike fitter.<\/p>\n

Come the summer of 2023, however, and Le Court was ready to give road racing another stab. \u201cI\u2019d achieved all my mountain bike goals, so I wanted a new challenge,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy husband started sending emails [to teams] in August, which was actually very late \u2013 I only realised it was extremely late once I was in a team in 2024, and contracts were already getting signed in March. I don\u2019t know how I got the chance. I think I maybe reached the right person at the right time.\u201d<\/p>\n

That person was Natascha Knaven-den Ouden, the then manager of Le Court\u2019s current AG Insurance-Soudal. \u201cWhen I \u2018discovered\u2019 her, she was already older than most development riders,\u201d says Knaven-den Ouden. \u201cWhat stood out wasn\u2019t just her numbers, it was how she raced: smart, committed, instinctive. It was with incredible mindset. That\u2019s the kind of talent you see when you look beyond power numbers and truly understand racing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Within months of joining the squad, Le Court was winning big. She did the double at the Mauritian National Road Championships in June, and the following month, won her first Grand Tour stage at the Giro d\u2019Italia Women<\/a>. Less than a year later, she took a momentous victory at Li\u00e8ge-Bastogne-Li\u00e8ge<\/a> \u2013 \u201cI only knew I was the first African to win a Monument after the race,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

The victory, celebrated in her national jersey, thrust Mauritius into the global spotlight. An island, smaller in size than the English county of Worcestershire, had produced one of the best talents in the sport.<\/p>\n

\"Kim<\/p>\n

Li\u00e8ge-Bastogne-Li\u00e8ge was only Le Court’s second pro victory. <\/p>\n

(Image credit: Getty Images)<\/p>\n

Having targeted stage wins in last year’s edition, Le Court came to this Tour de France Femmes<\/a> with the goal of winning the yellow jersey. \u201cShe\u2019s focused and she knows what she wants,\u201d says her team-mate Sarah Gigante. \u201cShe\u2019s also really kind and appreciative as well. I think that\u2019s super important in a leader.\u201d<\/p>\n

Second on stage one, a third place the following day was enough to move her into the race lead. So special was the feat that she refused to believe it at the time, telling her team staff at the finish line in Quimper that she \u201cwanted to see it for myself\u201d. The confirmation soon came, and so did the tears.<\/p>\n

Back home, the prime minister of Mauritius, Navin Ramgoolam, toasted the \u201cremarkable achievement\u201d of Le Court\u2019s yellow jersey on social media. \u201cShe is an inspiration to our youth, and a source of immense national pride,\u201d he wrote. \u201cThank you for flying the flag for our country so high.\u201d<\/p>\n

Le Court\u2019s first stint in yellow would only last a day. Now, after outsprinting her GC rivals to win stage five, she\u2019s taken the jersey back. Can she keep it until the end? \u201cWe\u2019re going into the mountains now and I don\u2019t know how I\u2019ll do against the pure climbers,\u201d she says. Still, she adds: \u201cAnything can happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

It all feeds into Le Court\u2019s ongoing, wider goal \u2013 something that transcends the Tour and the colour of the threads that make up her jersey. \u201cI want to keep on growing African cycling for women, and for men, in general, and try and motivate the young women out there that it\u2019s possible,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

\u201cTen years ago, I was barely finishing races \u2013 I almost gave up on the sport \u2013 and now I\u2019m sitting here with yellow on my shoulders at 29 years old. It really is possible.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Tour de France Femmes<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For the second time in a week, Kim Le Court-Pienaar buried her face in her hands. Wearing the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":305843,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5309],"tags":[2000,299,36],"class_list":{"0":"post-305842","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-france","8":"tag-eu","9":"tag-europe","10":"tag-france"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114946289506557691","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305842","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=305842"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305842\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/305843"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=305842"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=305842"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=305842"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}