FEATURE
5 MINS 6 SECONDS
The Road to Number One
Candice Lill has been riding for as long as she can remember, her passion and love for the sport evident in the journey she has chosen to follow. But what does it take to get to the top, and is it as glamorous as everyone thinks it is, or is there more to it? Roxanne Martin chats to Candice, getting insight into her world and the journey to being crowned as number one in the world in women’ s mountain biking.
Chatting to Candice over Zoom, me in freezing South Africa, her in sweltering Italy, the contrast couldn’ t be more. This has been a central theme in her career; her early days showed her as a promising cyclist, but inconsistent both in racing and performances. Racing as a junior in the under-23 circuit, Candice was still finding her feet.“ I was racing cross country as a junior while still in school. I was quite inconsistent, racing some World Cups, but then skipping others. It was hard, and I felt like I wasn’ t getting anywhere. I gave it up for a while and just raced in South Africa. But there was always a calling to go back and do it properly, and I knew if I didn’ t give it a proper go, I would regret it one day.”
Going back to give racing a full go was a hard path to follow, considering she would be starting from nothing. World Cup Cross Country racing follows a ranking system; you get points for racing and position. If you haven’ t raced, you start from the back. Trying to overtake over 100 riders on single track seems like an impossible task, but Candice persevered.“ You ' re caught on the wrong side of everything, so you ' ll make a big effort and then maybe pass some riders, then just get stuck again, it ' s chaos. I didn ' t enjoy that side of it at all, as I ' m not super aggressive, and I don’ t like doing crazy things. I found being in the back was so tough to try to push to the front. I would often feel like I wasn’ t making progress; it was really slow. Some days, I would question if I ' ll ever make it to the top,” says Candice.
Fighting that day in and day out was a hard process, and Candice questioned why she was there and if all of it was actually worth it. She likens it to taking two steps forward and one step back; some races would be great and some bad, and it was never a linear process.“ I would get demoralised with results, but then would remember that this was the process, and I would trust where I was going. I still look at racing like that today, just trusting in the path I am following.”
Nowhere was her faith more tested than at the recent Paris Olympics, where she went in as one of the favourites, but all that was
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