Kim Le Court (AG Insurance-Soudal) found redemption on stage 8 of the Giro d’Italia Women: In her first season on the Women’s WorldTour, the 28-year-old from Mauritius outsprinted Ruth Edwards (Human Powered Health) and Franzi Koch (DSM-Firmenich PostNL) in L’Aquila to win her first professional road cycling victory.
“I have no words. Being in this bunch and on the start of any race this year in the WorldTour has been a dream, of course it’s something I’ve always wanted, it’s always something you dream of, but you never know if it’s possible,” said Le Court after the stage.
Back in May, Le Court admitted in a Cyclingnews feature that she sometimes lacked confidence in her own abilities, but her stage victory has shown to herself and the world that what she can do.
“I always see the others as stronger than me, and today proved that it’s possible. It’s not only for me, but this is for the team, we’ve had a bit of bad luck in the Giro, and it’s super cool to finish in this way,” Le Court said.
Her way into the Women’s WorldTour peloton was anything but straightforward: After two seasons in Europe in 2015 and 2016, Le Court returned to her adopted home country of South Africa. In 2023, she took up mountain biking before being offered a contract by AG Insurance-Soudal for 2024.
In the Spring Classics, Le Court turned heads with a string of good results culminating in a tenth place in Paris-Roubaix. She won the Mauritian national championships in June and lined up at the Giro in a spectacular white champion’s jersey with red-blue-yellow-green chest bands, at first sight indistinguishable from the world champion’s rainbow jersey.
Le Court moved up further and further in the general classification in the first half of the Giro and was placed fifth overall after four stages but lost time on stage 6 and then shipped 16 minutes on stage 7. But this time loss meant that she was no danger to the GC riders on the final stage.
“I lost a lot of time in GC, so my GC work was over, and we went into today to have fun, and the tactic was to actually win the stage with either my teammate Gaia [Masetti] or me. I had nothing to lose, so it was all or nothing. I gave it everything, pretty crazy that I crossed [the line] first,” she finished.
