The 2025 UCI Road World Championships in Kigali will be a unique event in the history of the sport. Cycling’s first Road World Championships ever to be held in Africa opens up opportunity to a continent where the sport is growing rapidly in parts.
Cycling is a sport with hundreds of narratives playing out at any one moment. The likes of Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) and Demi Vollering (FDJ-SUEZ) will grab the headlines during this World Championships, but there will be so many more stories to tell of African riders competing in the biggest race of their lives.
Kim Le Court-Pienaar (Mauritius)
Coming into these World Championships, Kim Le Court-Pienaar is undoubtedly Africa’s biggest rainbow-band hope. The AG Insurance-Soudal rider has had quite a remarkable year; becoming Africa’s first Monument winner at Liège-Bastogne-Liège in April, before winning a stage at the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift and holding the yellow jersey for four days. Now, her focus is on winning the women’s elite road race in Kigali on a course that will suit her.
Le Court-Pienaar has truly joined the elite echelons of the women’s peloton this season, but her route to the top couldn’t be much more different to many of those she is now competing against. Born in Mauritius, Le Court-Pienaar moved to South Africa as a child. With financial help from her family, she first made the leap to race in Europe as a teenager in 2015, but had to return to South Africa the following year after struggling to make ends meet, despite competing in some of the biggest races in the world.
After years racing mountain bike, the now-28-year-old made it back to Europe for the 2024 season, with AG Insurance-Soudal taking a chance on her. She’s known to be a determined and mentally strong figure. She puts that down to the fight that she has had to get to where she is.
“Coming from so far and coming from a country with very, very little opportunities has put me in a different headspace than I think most girls in that bunch,” she told Cyclingnews last year. “I think I want it a lot more.”
After the year that…
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