Kim Le Court-Pienaar is among a host of riders revving up for the Road World Championships this week, with glory at a challenging Tour of Britain Women a potential byproduct of her preparation for the last big goal of 2026.
The Mauritian champion returned to action in the north of England in good form following her most recent outing at the Tour de France Femmes. Earlier this month, she scored a stage win and a top-10 overall finish in Nice, and she's already up to third in the GC here.
As one of the premier puncheurs in the peloton, she, of course, has the upcoming Road Worlds in Montreal, Canada, in her sights, even if it lies a month away.
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She finished eighth last time out in Kigali and figures to be among the very top favourites next month, too.
"I think every race after the Tour until Worlds is mostly training for Worlds," Le Court-Pienaar told Cyclingnews after warming down by the seafront.
"Of course, we take every race as serious as any other race. We always want to come to a race with the best result possible in the end. Of course, I'm looking forward to Worlds, but not thinking about it for now."
Le Court-Pienaar was third as the race hit Blackpool on Thursday afternoon – the race's delayed, sodden second stage following a mid-stage neutralisation.
She tried something new on Thursday's second stage of the Tour of Britain Women, mixing it among the pure sprinters on the flat finish in Blackpool. The finishing effort, behind double stage winner and race leader Lorena Wiebes and Maggie Coles-Lyster, saw her push "out of my comfort zone", she said later, with the final GC high on her mind.
"I think we tried to go out of my comfort zone today with the sprint. We initially wanted to get a few seconds on the intermediate sprint, but unfortunately, that was taken out.
"I think we just take it day by day. We, of course, want to do the best result we can in GC at the end of the Tour, but we don't want to look too far ahead. We'll just see every day how it goes and work the best we can as a team, trying to get the best result."
The big GC day at the race comes on Friday as the peloton hits Llandudno on the North Wales coast for a hilltop finish on The Great Orme. The uneven gradients on the way up are well suited to Le Court-Pienaar's punchy, explosive style.
She has 14 seconds to make up on Wiebes, and the final climb likely represents the best chance to make up that kind of time. We saw at the Tour de France Femmes, though, that Wiebes can excel on similar tough uphill finishes, having triumphed from a group of 10 on the opening day in Lausanne.
"Today I tried to fit in with the sprinters, which was fun. I didn't feel like I had my space there, but it's still nice to know that I managed to get a podium spot in the sprint," Le Court-Pienaar concluded.
"Tomorrow is a stage I was really looking forward to from the start, so we'll see how it goes."
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