Kimberley Le Court-Pienaar still feels the nerves that led her to swear she would never ride the Lloyds Tour of Britain again - but the desire for redemption is stronger.
The Mauritian AG Insurance-Soudal rider won stage one of the UCI Women's WorldTour stage race last year, but a crash on stage two saw her unable to continue a day later.
Injury-Hit Year and Comeback
It has been another injury-hit year for Le Court-Pienaar, who sustained a fractured wrist at the Tour of Flanders in April, but a stage win at the Tour de France Femmes has proven that comebacks are becoming her thing.
“When I finished last year, I told the team I didn't want to come back,” admitted the 30-year-old. “It really scared me because of the experience I've had. But then throughout the year, we discussed it and we saw that the route is a really nice route.
“Me and my teammate Gladys [Verhulst Wild], who also had a horrendous crash last year, are both here and we want to not have that page in the book where it's a question mark. We want to turn the page and have it green. We want to redeem ourselves and come back and have revenge. That's why we're here.”
Overcoming Trauma and Anxieties
Le Court-Pienaar suffered a bone bruise and skin abrasion on her sacrum after her crash last year but re-enters again as one of the favourites for the largest free-to-attend sporting spectacle in the UK.
“You get a bit traumatised by things like that. Also, since my crash in Flanders, it's always been a bit of a scare,” Le Court-Pienaar added. “My wrist is still a bit sensitive. It's not fully healed yet. So, of course, you get a bit scared if you do something funny or something happens and you fall again.
“Coming back to a race where you DNF'd from a crash is not always ideal. But I think coming back and trying to finish it off in a good way is the best way you can climb over that obstacle.”
Stage Win at Tour de France Femmes
It was an approach Le Court-Pienaar applied in the Tour de France Femmes, where her stage six victory came following a mechanical failure during the race. Having also crashed early in the stage, she fought her way back to bridge to a breakaway group before beating Cédrine Kerbaol to the line with a sprint.
“I like doing things for other people and making people proud and happy more than I want to do it for myself. That's just how I am,” Le Court-Pienaar explained. “When I won in the Tour, the team did an insane job. Without them, I would not come back to the peloton while saving the amount of energy I saved to go further and get the stage win.
“To be able to give that back to them and get the stage win is the best feeling I could ever have. It's proof that never giving up is how things should go. If you have a bad moment in the race, it doesn't mean it's over.”
