Mauritanian cyclist falls in bid to win Tour de France

Mauritanian cyclist, Kimberley Le Court, suffered a fall during stage 8 at the Tour de France Femmes after reaching high speeds at a technical corner on the descent of the Col du Frêne, as reported by Cycling News on August 2nd.

The AG Insurance-Soudal rider, and the first African cyclist to sport the yellow jersey, was leading the peloton on the descent with 66km to go, but TV footage showed her accidentally going off the road through a sharp left-hand bend at high speeds.

The yellow jersey, awarded to the rider leading the general classification based on overall race time, is the most prestigious symbol of race leadership in the Tour de France.

“Yellow Jersey, Kim Le Court, crashes on the descent by locking up into the hairpin. However, she is back on the bike and under a minute behind the group she was in,” the official Tour de France Femmes account posted to X during the stage.

Having taken a few seconds to catch her breath after the incident, she did not appear to be injured when she remounted her bike with the help of neutral support.

As she tried to reconnect with the main field, which was about four minutes behind a breakaway, she was visibly shaken by the accident and so descended with caution.

Le Court rejoined the back end of the main peloton 18km later, with 48km to go, as the peloton raced towards the centrepiece of this Tour de France Femmes – the Col de la Madeleine.

At the start of the day, Le Court was leading the overall classification by a narrow margin of 26 seconds over Pauline Ferrand-Prévot, who would go on to win the stage and take the yellow jersey, whilst the Mauritian rider lost more than nine minutes on the slopes of the Madeleine and now sits eleventh overall.

Le Court and her team’s high hopes of becoming the first African woman cyclist to win the Tour de France and keep the yellow jersey may now be slipping out of reach.

Cycling News, Maghrebi.org