This article was first published in Rouleur 137.

Good day, I hope this message finds you well. My name is Ian (Kimberley's fiancé), and I am reaching out to you as I am trying to help Kimberley reach her real potential and chance her dreams to race on the road again. I know it's very late in the season, but it’s worth a try.

Kimberley is an outstanding rider, who has been making waves in the cycling community. Her remarkable victory at the Cape Epic 2023 and Swiss Epic 2023 serves as a testament to her dedication, skill, and immense potential within the world of cycling. She would make for a super rider, amazing stage racer and great classic rider. She is also a great team player that is not scared to work for someone.

I am excited to share some comprehensive insights about Kimberley with you. To facilitate a deeper understanding of Kimberley's capabilities and achievements, I would like to forward you her detailed CV along with a comprehensive power analysis report. This information aims to showcase her strengths and highlight how she could be a valuable addition to a professional cycling team.

As you know it’s not easy for riders to get into teams and any help would be appreciated. If you know of any team that is still looking for riders or refer us to anyone that could possibly still help Kimberley it would be greatly appreciated. Kim is willing to start at the bottom and will prove herself with the first few races! The challenge is just for her to get into the correct team…

It is the winter of 2023 and Ian Pienaar is sending this email to every single professional women’s cycling team for which he can find the contact information. He’s doing so because his future wife, Kimberley Le Court, doesn’t dare. She’s been burned by this world before, chewed up and spat out by the brutal merry-go-round of elite sport during her first stint racing in Europe in 2016. The Mauritian rider believes in herself, but another rejection, another setback, might be the final straw. She does not want to read any emails that say ‘no’. If there is good news, her fiancé will tell her.

“I was like, you’re crazy, this is crazy. He sent it on LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, email, everything, again and again,” laughs Le Court, speaking two years later, now happily married to Ian. “We actually started to get replies though, it worked.”

When she looks back, the 29-year-old can recall the exact moment she received the message she had been dreaming about for so long: “It was the middle of November, so I’d really started to lose hope. But Natascha Knaven (founder and former manager of AG Insurance-Soudal Team) emailed me and asked if I could have a Zoom call. I was on the way back from picking up my wedding dress with my mum. When I got home my whole family was at my house because I was about to get married. Natascha said, ‘I actually have a wedding present for you: you’ve got a contract.’ I could not speak. I was shaking, crying, so emotional. It was one of the best moments of my life.”

That moment, which Le Court will never forget, was so fuelled with feeling because of the tortured road she’d been on to make it to that point. Growing up on the beaches and in the forests of Mauritius and Madagascar (“proper island life” as she describes it), Le Court had begun her journey on two wheels on a mountain bike, before finally deciding to give the road racing scene a shot in Europe when she turned 18. The reality that she discovered of trying to make it to cycling's top table, however, had almost closed the door for Le Court forever.

“In Mauritius when I was growing up, there weren’t many girls racing so I only knew what my level was against boys. I went to South Africa and based myself there, racing mountain bikes and building connections,” says Le Court.

“It was in 2015 when I got an offer to join Matrix Pro Cycling [a British Continental team] and so I signed for them when I turned 18. My first race was the Tour of Britain, and I came last by about an hour. It was disastrous. I didn’t finish any of my races. I then signed for a Spanish team, but had a terrible year. I got a kidney infection, broke my toe, then started the Giro and crashed, breaking 10 or 11 ribs. I was mentally broken and so I called my parents and told them I was done with cycling. It was the hardest thing to say because throughout all these years, they’ve made so many sacrifices for me and gave me financial support, it felt like it was all for nothing.”

The reason that dark realisation was not the end of her time racing bikes, Le Court says, is because she went back to the very root of why she started cycling in the first place. Leaving Europe, Le Court moved to Cape Town and took up a job doing bike fits at a Specialized store. Alongside that, she raced mountain bike stage races, and just enjoyed riding her bike.

“I did races with one of my friends and we just stopped at water points, ate chocolate and took photos,” says Le Court. “I carried on racing in South Africa but with no pressure at all, and I got contacted by a mountain bike team to see if I wanted to race Cape Epic in 2021. I loved it and I kept going back each year to do it again. In 2023 I actually won the event. I had an amazing year on the mountain bike then and that’s what made me think about trying things on the road again, even though I was so scared of rejection. My husband wanted me to go for it, because we both knew I’d regret it in a few years if I didn’t try.”

Natascha Knaven of AG Insurance-Soudal Team will always be grateful she took the time to open and read the email which dropped into her inbox from Le Court’s husband just over two years ago. Signing a rider who then had very little experience on the road was undoubtedly a risk for the Belgian team, but Le Court has gone on to pay back that investment and beyond. She says that as soon as she went on her first training camp with AG Insurance at the end of 2023, she noticed a marked change in her experience compared to when she had come to Europe seven years before.

“I was extremely nervous when I flew to Calpe because I didn’t know if I would feel left out of it,” she says. “I was scared to be judged for who I was and where I came from, but I felt very welcomed. I phoned my husband after two days on camp and told him I already felt at home. The team has good sponsors which allow them to look after the riders really well.”

She adds that having the experience of riding for a small nation and being on low-budget teams made her appreciate the extra support that comes with being on a World-Tour squad even more: “Small things like getting shoes and water bottles, even having someone ring you and ask how your mental state is, that was all new to me. Riders nowadays complain if the flight is delayed by a few hours and they have to wait at the airport, or sleep at the airport hotel. I remember when I would have to sleep on the floor of an airport if the flight was delayed.

Le Court won Liège-Bastogne-Liège this season (Image: Getty)

“In 2023 I went to the African Championships on the mountain bike and the toilet pipe which was connected to the shower overflowed and flooded the room. We still had to sleep in that room for a week. In Africa, for example, the food disappears in 15 minutes. People run for the food and take all that they can. It’s a different culture. I know what it feels like to have come from nothing to what we get now and I feel like we are treated as queens.”

The understanding that Le Court had when it came to the gravity of the opportunity she was given by AG Insurance was part of what drove her success in her first season with the team. In a year that was supposed to be about finding her feet in the WorldTour peloton and gaining experience, the Mauritian rider found herself riding to 11th place at Trofeo Alfredo Binda, one of the most prestigious one-day races on the women’s calendar. She came ninth at Brugge-De Panne and 10th at Paris-Roubaix Femmes. Those who didn’t know the name Kim Le Court before 2024 were learning it very quickly.

“I was shocked. When I started that season at the Tour Down Under my biggest fear was if I could even keep up with the bunch. I started getting top 10s in one-day races and the team was so excited and happy. I didn’t really realise how good that was because I was used to mountain biking where it doesn’t work like that,” says Le Court. “The Classics were a big shock because I’d never done cobbles in my life – I didn’t even know they existed until we did a recon. I just did it though, I knew I had one chance and I had to grab it with everything I had. It was once in a lifetime.”

Being part of an environment where she felt supported and respected was crucial to Le Court’s surprise breakthrough results last year. She says that working with former professional rider Jolien d’Hoore, who is now a sports director at AG Insurance-Soudal, was important for her development as a rider.

“She’s been there and knows what it takes. She really believes in me. When I came 23rd at my first Flanders, I got back on the bus and she said, ‘Kim, you did a top 25 at your first Flanders, that’s not a normal thing to be able to do. Next year, we will go for the podium.’ When she says things like that, it motivates me, but it is still hard to picture myself there,” Le Court says.

“It is easy to think that it’s not possible to do that where I come from: Mauritius, Africa. From sleeping in the toilet to being on the world stage, it doesn’t make sense in my brain, but I know how lucky I am, which motivates me.”

The big win came for Le Court at the 2024 edition of the Giro d’Italia Women. On the final stage of the eight-day race, the AG Insurance rider took a commanding win from the breakaway in L’Aquila, out-sprinting the two riders she was with and confirming her place as one of the biggest talents in the women’s peloton. Unsurprisingly after her results that year, offers from other WorldTour teams came flooding in for Le Court (she had only signed a one-year contract with her current squad), but the Mauritian rider was keen to stick with AG Insurance-Soudal who had given her a lifeline in the sport when no one else would.

“I wasn’t used to all the attention, so it was overwhelming, but I took a step back and realised that AG gave me my career,” says Le Court. “I wanted to win my first WorldTour race with them, which I did at the Giro, and then really build myself as a rider alongside them. They have a long-term vision which I wanted to be part of. I’m also a very loyal person and I had no reason to jump ship.”

Signing a two-year contract extension with her team gave Le Court the stability and time she needed to work on her weaknesses during the off-season. She notes that her first year with the team was a whirlwind of learning in which she was trying to get used to the packed calendar of racing she had and a new environment. Over the winter, she began working with a mental coach and nutritionist, “really getting all the boxes ticked in the right way, slowly but surely”.

The approach paid dividends at the start of this year, with Le Court finishing third overall at the UAE Tour, her first race of the season. She went on to come fifth in both Strade Bianche Donne and the Tour of Flanders, before the biggest win of her life so far came at Liège-Bastogne-Liège Femmes. Le Court approached the finish line with the group of pre-race favourites, including Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift winner Demi Vollering, and outsprinted them at the finish, celebrating with visceral emotion as she crossed the line. It was a race Le Court says she had been targeting for the whole season, and a victory that has firmly taken away the underdog status that she might have once had.

“I knew I belonged with the best in the world, but it was difficult to say out loud that I could be the best in one of the hardest races,” she says. “Liège was a crazy race and I had a lot of lows during the day. It was so special to me and was the one Classic I really wanted to win. I know people will expect it from me now, but it doesn’t matter to me, I’ve always gone into the race with the mindset of doing everything I can to win. Whether I’m the underdog or not doesn’t really change that.”

Back home in Mauritius, Le Court, who is now 29, says the support she has received is unprecedented. If we were to go back and watch the pride and emotion on her face as she hears the national anthem of Mauritius play on the podium of Liège-Bastogne-Liège, it would become clear how much representing her country means to her. Le Court rides in the colours of her national flag after winning the National Championships last year (something she says has been a point of contention due to it resembling the World Championship rainbow jersey), and could not be prouder to put her small country on the map.

“Everyone is talking about me. I got a call from the Prime Minister, which was crazy. They are super proud. I do get some negativity from other countries, like the Belgians say I look like Lotte Kopecky [the current world champion], but my flag is beautiful,” says Le Court.

She is motivated to help more young riders from Mauritius make it to the highest level of professional cycling: “I have told some of my friends and young riders in Mauritius, ‘Let me focus on my career now and when I get those contacts I will try to open doors for you guys.’ I was once in their position and I want to give them that hope. I already try to share my experience. This has all happened much later for me than I expected.

“It would also be good if teams or companies looked for more talent outside of Europe because there are thousands of girls out there who are strong enough and belong in the peloton, but they don’t have the opportunity to do it, or they can’t do it alone. I had my husband who helped push things for me, and maybe others aren’t so lucky. We could all be doing more to help share more opportunities.”

Le Court is of the belief that the more victories she can take, and the bigger profile she can create for herself on the world stage, the more likely she is to have an impact on the next generation of talent from Mauritius, and this is one of the key things that drives her. Her results so far in just two years as part of a WorldTour team are breathtaking, and prove that her husband, Ian, did the right thing by forcing the European peloton to notice his wife’s talent when he sent that life-changing email.

While Le Court is now based in Girona for the season and her husband in South Africa, she and Ian keep in touch by playing video games online together in her spare time, as well as plenty of long phone calls: “I’m alone a lot so we play these computer games together which is how we connect when he’s not here,” says Le Court. “I also do puzzles. I think I’ve done some of them five or six times and I also have music on all the time. I like techno, a bit of 80s and 90s, then I also like trying new recipes from cooking videos I find on TikTok.”

Above all, Le Court is prepared to make the sacrifice of being far away from her husband and her family because she knows the huge potential she has in her sport. The results in Flanders and Roubaix, as well as her Ardennes victory and performances in stage races point to Le Court being the perfect type of all-rounder who could target Grand Tours in the future. She’s still figuring out what she is best at, Le Court stresses, but it’s clear she’s a fast learner. With the progression she has made so far, it seems like nothing is off limits for this plucky, determined dreamer – perhaps even the biggest prize of them all.

“I’m starting to believe in myself more. The Tour de France this year really looks like nine days that are suited to Classics-style riders – though I knew there is the mountain at the end,” says Le Court.

“I think it could be very exciting for me. We haven't decided fully yet if I will go for the general classification or stage wins. But of course, who wouldn’t want the yellow jersey?”