'She's better than ever' - AG Insurance-Soudal plan Tour de France Femmes yellow jersey defence for Kim Le Court
'I also want to fight for Sarah,' says team DS Jolien D'Hoore as she highlight dual GC options with Sarah Gigante also reasonably positioned
Kim Le Court crossed the line in Quimper on stage 2 of the Tour de France Femmes expecting to head back to the team bus to cool down after making the podium but missing the top step.
To her surprise, however, a yellow jersey was waiting for her after she earned a time bonus and moved even with stage 1 winner Marianne Vos (Visma-Lease a Bike) on time and took the race lead on the tie-breaker.
“I couldn’t believe it. To be honest I’m still in shock,” said Le Court. Her AG Insurance-Soudal team had a plan to chase yellow, and third on the stage was enough to erase the deficit to Vos, who had beaten her over the line on stage 1. Then, on a countback, the jersey went to Le Court, making her the first non-European, African and Mauritian to wear yellow in the rebooted version of the Tour de France Femmes.
"It's never been on my mind that I want to be the first African," said Le Court. "Its a goal that we have with the team and with myself to achieve to wear yellow … but to achieve that is extremely special and I want to try and keep growing African cycling."
While it's a massive achievement to wear yellow for a day, it would be an even bigger one to keep it.
"Of course, we knew that Kim was in a really good shape. She felt really strong physically, but also mentally," team sports director Jolien D'Hoore told a small group of reporters, including Cyclingnews, at the team bus.
"But we've just got to take it day by day and right now, it's day two, and she has yellow and it's pretty remarkable for us as team, but also for Kim.
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"Yeah, we couldn't imagine having it, but now we have it now, we have to defend it, of course. And like, I say, we're gonna take it day by day and see how it goes."
There are two expected sprint stages to come in the next two days, then on stage 5 it is into the hills once again before the mountains start on stage 6, bringing a big GC test for all the Tour de France Femmes contenders with them, not least of all Le Court, and the biggest test of all comes on stage 8.
"We have to have the focus on the last weekend," said D'Hoore. "The last weekend is really hard with Col de la Madeleine, but also on the last day, a lot can happen still. So, yeah, we're ready for it."
Le Court is having a season of flying form, with a Liège-Bastogne-Liège win and Tour of Britain stage victory on top of her performance of the last two days, but the question is how will the 29-year-old fare when the climbs get long?
The team is hopeful that she will reap the benefits of her training block at altitude camp to prepare for the Tour de France Femmes.
"Now she's better than ever," said D'Hoore. "So I think it was good preparation. Also, mentally, she's in a good space. So, yeah, bring it on."
What's more, Le Court isn't the only GC prospect the team have.
"I also still want to fight for Sarah. I mean, she's an incredible climber."
Sarah Gigante is fresh from third place overall at the Giro d'Italia Women plus two mountain top stage wins, so the terrain where Le Court is untested is exactly where Gigante thrives. The battle, though, is getting there in a decent position for Gigante, who is still working on developing her bunch skills after having faced a number of career interruption, the latest been iliac artery endofibrosis surgery.
"I asked the team to work for Kim today, but I always put one rider next to Sarah to help her," said D'Hoore. "For example, today she was in the second peloton and I sacrificed two riders to get her back in the first peloton so we have to adapt a little bit sometimes."
It's a process, however, that has kept the options open for AG Insurance Soudal with Gigante – who finished seventh overall on debut in 2024 – now sitting within the top 20 and just 39 seconds down on her yellow-clad teammate.
"The Giro was a bit of a cherry on the cake, she showed that she was the best climber actually," said D'Hoore. "So we can't wait to see what she can do in the Tour."
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Simone is a degree-qualified journalist that has accumulated decades of wide-ranging experience while working across a variety of leading media organisations. She joined Cyclingnews as a Production Editor at the start of the 2021 season and has now moved into the role of Australia Editor. Previously she worked as a freelance writer, Australian Editor at Ella CyclingTips and as a correspondent for Reuters and Bloomberg. Cycling was initially purely a leisure pursuit for Simone, who started out as a business journalist, but in 2015 her career focus also shifted to the sport.
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