For Le Court-Pienaar, this was more than another impressive result. It was a complete rewriting of her relationship with a race that had previously brought little but disappointment.
When she first competed in what was then known as the Women’s Tour, she was just 19 and finished last overall. Her return in 2025 ended in a crash and an early departure. This time, she arrived determined to change the story.
“I had a bad experience last year, and I just wanted to redeem myself after that,” she told the reporters.
She did rather more than that. By defending the green leader’s jersey through the final stage, Le Court-Pienaar also became the first African rider to win the Tour of Britain Women overall.
The Great Orme made the difference
The decisive moment came on stage three, when the race headed into Wales and finished on the spectacular climb of the Great Orme.
With 2.5 kilometres remaining, Le Court-Pienaar attacked, opened a gap and rode alone to the finish. It was the kind of effort that leaves little room for argument: perfectly timed, committed from the outset and strong enough to put her into the overall lead.
“I gave everything I had to the top,” she said afterwards.
The victory carried additional emotional weight. Her teammate Gladys Verhulst-Wild had crashed on the opening stage and suffered a broken collarbone, leaving AG Insurance–Soudal without an important rider.
Le Court-Pienaar and Verhulst-Wild had both abandoned the race after crashes the previous year. Returning together had been part of the plan; finishing without her teammate made the eventual victory bittersweet.
“We raced with full hearts for Gladys,” Le Court-Pienaar said. “Losing her so early was hard, and today’s win is for her.”
Third-place finishes on stages two and four reinforced her position, while her team handled repeated attacks as rival squads searched for a weakness. By the time the race reached its final day, Le Court-Pienaar held a 24-second advantage over Liane Lippert.
A breakaway almost changed the ending
The final stage covered 123.8 kilometres around Warwickshire, starting and finishing in Royal Leamington Spa.
Eva van Agt, Alice Towers and Sara Martín formed the day’s main breakaway, building an advantage of up to two minutes and 40 seconds. With just over 30 kilometres remaining, they still had more than two minutes in hand.
For a while, their chances looked promising.
But SD Worx–Protime had another stage victory in mind, and other teams with sprint ambitions joined the chase. The gap fell rapidly in the closing kilometres before the three escapees were finally caught just 1.3 kilometres from the finish.
A technical final kilometre split the peloton, and Zoe Bäckstedt guided Chiara Consonni into position for the sprint. Wiebes, however, was exactly where she needed to be: sitting on Consonni’s wheel.
When the Dutch rider launched, the outcome was immediate. She powered clear to win by several bike lengths, with Lara Gillespie taking second and Consonni finishing third.
The 10-second winner’s bonus also lifted Wiebes above Lippert into second overall. Le Court-Pienaar finished 19 seconds ahead of Wiebes, with Lippert another five seconds behind.
Wiebes leaves with a record
Four victories from five stages would be impressive under almost any circumstances. What made Wiebes’s week particularly striking was that she did not simply wait for flat finishes and rely on her lead-out.
On stage four, she survived the climbs, bridged across to the leading riders and then responded to repeated attacks before winning the sprint.
“I knew there would be attacks coming one after another,” Wiebes explained. SD Worx–Protime
Her final-stage victory brought her career tally at the race to 11, surpassing Mark Cavendish’s 10 wins across the men’s event and giving her the outright record across both editions. She also won the points classification and finished second overall.
That left the 2026 Tour of Britain Women with two outstanding performers and two very different stories: Wiebes, the sprinter who seemed almost impossible to beat, and Le Court-Pienaar, the former last-place finisher who finally reached the top.
For the Mauritian champion, the transformation was still difficult to process.
“It still hasn’t fully sunk in.”