On the fourth edition of the Tour de France Femmes with Zwift, the spotlight and the cameras will mostly be focused on a handful of champions, either destined for the final podium or already familiar with it. Behind the likes of Vollering, Niewiadoma, Kopecky, Van der Breggen, and Ferrand-Prévot, a number of riders have already begun to break through, achieving results that haven’t gone unnoticed by experts or by the very rivals they’ll be battling this summer. They may not be wearing yellow this year, but the official Tour website invites you to discover four women on their way up, each at a different stage of their rise, and each with the potential to shine briefly or lastingly somewhere between Brittany and the Alps. French rider Dilyxine Miermont, Dutch star Puck Pieterse, Mauritian talent Kim Le Court, and New Zealand’s Ally Wollaston have no intention of just making up the numbers.
Kim Le Court-Pienaar: "I'm so hungry I want to taste everything"
Two years ago, Kim Le Court-Pienaar wouldn’t have dared to dream of turning prolet alone winning a stage of the Giro or Liège-Bastogne-Liège Femmes. In fact, as a child, the seven-time Mauritian champion, now 29, never imagined herself on a bike at all. “In Mauritius, cycling wasn’t a known sport. In my family, we used to say that a cyclist on the road was just a nuisance!” she laughs. But then, through a friend, her parents signed up for a cycling challenge - the “100km” - and her brother took up racing, eventually trying his luck as an amateur in France. And since Kim always wanted to follow in Olivier’s footsteps, she did the same. “To try and make a career in cycling, you really have to leave Mauritius. In my category, I only raced against boys. I was doing pretty well, but I wanted to see how I compared to girls. That’s why I went to South Africa as a junior.” Her new home country also happens to be a stronghold for mountain biking, the discipline she focused on for years after a first, “horrible experience” of road racing in Europe. But, with her husband's support, her second attempt turned into a success beyond anything she expected. Extremely versatile, Kim still doesn’t know where her limits lie. And for her second Tour de France, she’s dreaming of winning a stage.
Kim Le Court-Pienaar (AG Insurance-Soudal Team) Born on 23 March, 1996, in Curepipe (Mauritius)
Teams:
2015: Matrix Fitness
2016: Bizkaia-Durango
Since 2024: AG Insurance-Soudal Team
Key results:
2024: 1st in stage 8 of the Giro d'Italia / 10th in Paris-Roubaix Femmes avec Zwift
2025: 1st in Liège-Bastogne-Liège Femmes / 1st in stage 1 of the Tour of Britain / 3rd in the UAE Tour / 5th in the Tour of Flanders / 5th in Milano-San Remo Donne / 6th in La Flèche Wallone Femmes
Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift results:
2024: 36th overall, 8th in stage 1, 4th in stage 4
Fun fact:
With a Mauritian father and a Scottish mother, Kim Le Court-Pienaar “grew up bilingual.” She speaks both French and English fluently: “I went to a French-speaking school. But today, 98% of my life is in English. Sometimes, I struggle with French in interviews.” Still, it’s in French that she gave us this interview, with just a few occasional slips into English.
Let’s set the record straight: is it correct to call you Kim Le Court? I prefer Kim Le Court-Pienaar! I like to keep my childhood name and add my married name at the end. My full childhood name is Le Court de Billot. But that’s way too long, so we stick with Le Court!
You also have three first names: Mary Patricia Kimberley! Unfortunately, my parents couldn’t decide on just one, so they gave me all three (laughs)! But Kimberley is the one they actually used. Honestly, it should’ve been listed first, I don’t know why it ended up in that order.
But everyone calls you Kim, right? Yes, Kimberley sounds way too formal.
So, Kim, you were a mountain biker before switching to road racing two years ago, after a rough first attempt in 2015 and 2016. We hear your husband played a key role in helping you find a team. Yes, that’s true. I had won the biggest stage races in MTB and was starting to feel a bit bored. I like to challenge myself. My husband and I had a chat just before I won the Swiss Epic, in August 2023. I had a horrible experience in road racing back in 2015 and 2016, it really made me hate the sport. But seeing how women’s cycling had evolved made me want to give it another shot. He said, “Let’s try!” But I was really scared. I had zero contacts. I was afraid of being rejected and hitting a wall. It felt like such a long shot. I honestly didn’t believe it would work. But he was absolutely convinced someone would give me a chance, he just said we had to try. He told me, “Don’t worry, I’ll take care of everything.” He wrote a long email and sent it to every single team. Seriously, all of them. Big teams, Conti teams, WorldTour teams… He went everywhere: LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram. Any platform he could find, he sent emails. And if we didn’t get a reply, he sent another one, and another, until they were probably sick of us. I was scared they’d think we were crazy or just annoying. That they’d hate us. But it worked!
"People say an athlete's mindset is 70%. I say it's 90%."
AG Insurance-Soudal Team gave you a shot, but very few teams actually replied to you. I completely understand why most teams didn’t want to give me a chance. I had no results on the road. That’s totally normal. I was really lucky to come across Natascha den Ouden, the team founder, and her husband. They were looking for talent outside the current peloton. AG Insurance gives opportunities to riders like me. They take the time to support you and really help you grow. So yes, I was very lucky to get in touch with this team. And it’s all thanks to my husband. He’s the reason I’m even here talking to you today.
Still, you’re the one doing the pedaling. Of course, it’s up to me to do the job. But he opened the door. And without that kind of support, as a high-level athlete, you don’t get anywhere. People say the mental side of being an athlete is 70 percent. I say it’s 90.
Did you expect to perform so well right from the start in 2024, like finishing 10th in Paris-Roubaix Femmes avec Zwift? Not at all. I honestly thought I’d just be a domestique. I expected to be trying to survive every day. I didn’t even know if I could hold my place in the peloton. I remember telling my teammates at our first camp in December 2023 that I was excited to be the best teammate I could be. At the Tour Down Under, I worked for Ally Wollaston and Sarah Gigante, and it went well. Sarah won. After the race, people told me it was my first WorldTour race and I rode so well that I shouldn’t worry about my future. I thought maybe it was true. At the Cadel Evans Road Race, we had no leader and I finished 9th. I was really disappointed. Coming from mountain biking, a Top 10 didn’t feel like a good result. You’re happy with a podium, but you’re there to win because there are only 40 riders. But road racing is completely different. I saw that in the way the team reacted. A Top 10 in a WorldTour race is actually something to be proud of. At Strade Bianche, I came 25th. The team was impressed. Then I finished 11th at Trofeo Binda. But it was at the Tour of Flanders, where I finished 23rd, that I truly felt like I belonged.
Why there, specifically? My sports director Jolien D’Hoore is a former pro. I admire her. She knows exactly what it takes to be the best. At the finish, she said to me: Kim, what was that? Where have you been all these years? This was your first Tour of Flanders, the weather was terrible, and just finishing would’ve been impressive. Maybe a Top 50 at best. But Top 25? That’s insane. You were in the group sprinting for 11th place.Then I finished 10th at Paris-Roubaix, even with a wrist injury. So bit by bit, I started to believe. But never in my life did I think I’d win a stage at the Giro. And I had been sick for the two days before. When Jolien tells me I can be the best, I believe her. My husband says it too, and that’s sweet. But I always figured he says it because he loves me. With Jolien, it means something else.
"Winning a stage is the dream. And if there's something more, it's a bonus."
Winning a stage on the Giro in your first pro season sounds almost unreal. Yes. Especially since I started 2024 without any real training, no mental preparation, no nutrition plan, nothing. I had broken my sacrum in 2023 and only got the contract at the end of November. So at the first team camp, I was completely out of shape. 2024 was really a survival year. But in 2025, I showed up super prepared, trying to check every possible box to be at my best. I wanted to see if preparing like the top riders actually made a difference. And it absolutely does.
Your efforts paid off with that win at Liège-Bastogne-Liège Femmes. As early as February, I could feel it was going to be a good season unless something went wrong. Of course there was San Remo and Flanders where I wanted to go for the podium or the win. But Liège was the one that suited me best, the one I was truly targeting. I had been thinking about it since the Tour de France last year after that fourth stage that finished in Liège.
You finished fourth there. Yes. On the bus, Jolien said to me, "Wow Kim, incredible. Next year we're coming back and you're going to win Liège." That stuck in my mind for a long time. And it's really special to have achieved that goal.
You seem like you have no limits. Is winning the Tour one of your new ambitions now? Most riders have very specific goals. But I want to win everything. I'm so hungry that I want to try it all. Last year, I felt great during the first five stages, even though I had Covid, which we only found out afterward. For the Tour, I prefer to go step by step. The first goal is to win a stage. That’s the dream. And if something more happens, then it’s a bonus.
The high mountains are still a bit of an unknown for you. But your third place on Jebel Hafeet during the UAE Tour was already a promising sign. Yes, the way I climbed that day really surprised me because I was still far from my best form. At the Tour, I’ll be on a completely different level. So it’ll be interesting. I haven’t really tackled big mountain stages against the very best yet. If everything goes well, I think I’ll manage. But we’ll see.
