Le Court wins stage one of Tour of Britain Women
Kim le Court got the better of Kristen Faulkner in a two-up sprint finish to win the first stage of the Tour of Britain Women.The pair attacked and went clear of the peloton with 30km to go and then held off the chasing pack.Mauritian Le Court, 29, launched her sprint from the front with just over 200m to go and outlasted the American Olympic road race champion to the line.Lorena Wiebes led home a much-reduced bunch in third, five seconds behind, while British riders Cat Ferguson and Millie Couzens finished fifth and sixth.Two-time champion Lizzie Deignan finished 20th as she races in Britain for the final time before retiring. Last year Le Court became the first Mauritian rider to compete in the World Tour, and she won the prestigious Liege-Bastogne-Liege one-day race in April.
The four-day Tour of Britain Women began with an 81.5km stage in North Yorkshire between Dalby Forest and Redcar.The riders faced two classified climbs, at Blakey Ridge and Langburn's Bank, with Le Court starting her attack at the bottom of the latter, with Faulkner in pursuit.Behind the lead pair the peloton split, with FDJ-Suez and Movistar leading the chase from a reduced group which was 34 seconds behind with 28km to go.Faulkner almost crashed out of the race with 15km to go, misjudging a corner and narrowly avoiding a traffic island. Le Court waited for her to regain momentum and the two continued with their break until the finish, before winning the sprint to take the leader's jersey.Friday's second stage is over a 114.3km route between Hartlepool and Saltburn-by-the-sea.
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The Guardian
3 hours ago
- The Guardian
Intrepid Geoff Thomas geared up for another crack at Tour de France route
When Geoff Thomas was forced to abandon his seventh attempt to complete Tour 21 at the age of 58 after an unforgiving day on the cobblestones, the former Crystal Palace captain thought his days in the saddle were over. 'My bike sort of disintegrated underneath me,' remembers Thomas. 'That's when the issues with my knees started so I'd not really been on the bike since then.' But, two years on and having celebrated his 60th birthday earlier this year, he will join the group of amateur riders in tackling the entire Tour de France route a week before the pros, a ride of nearly 3,500km to raise money for Cure Leukaemia. 'Before Christmas, it seemed a long shot because after so many years of playing football, I've got grade four arthritis in both my knees,' Thomas says. 'They said I was probably not far away from needing to have knee replacements. But I didn't really want to do that.' That was when Mark Gillett stepped in. The Premier League's chief medical officer took part in Tour 21 in 2022 when Thomas had to give up because of the chronic pain he was in. Gillett recommended a hydrogel injection called Arthrosamid, which was first developed for treating horses and is now being used for those suffering with osteoarthritis in the knee. 'You put the injection into the joint, and over three to six months, it gets incorporated into the joint lining and forms a physical barrier,' he says. 'So it's like a gel barrier, so that, whereas in arthritis the natural lining of the joint gets eroded and you get really sensitive nerve endings and bone on bone, you get that barrier between the two, so you're not feeling so much pain.' The results have been spectacular for Thomas, who jokes that 'it feels like polyfilla at times', adding: 'I could feel the knee not going through the same pain as it was when I was trying to get back on the bike. A couple of months later, I'm getting out there and doing 135-mile rides again. It's allowing me to have that dream of doing the Tour again.' Thomas, who won nine caps for England, knows all about overcoming the odds. He was given three months to live when he was diagnosed with chronic myeloid leukaemia in 2003, a year after retiring from playing. But, after receiving a stem cell transplant from his sister Kay and undergoing treatment from Prof Charlie Craddock, he entered remission in January 2005. The life-saving treatment motivated him to embark on his first Tour 21 a few months later to raise money for continuing research into the disease, with Thomas estimating that each edition has helped to raise more than £1m for Cure Leukaemia, which has also been adopted as the Tour de France's official charity partner. 'What the charity's done from when I was diagnosed in 2003 … the chances of any clinical trials going on in the world of blood cancer was minimal,' he says. 'It was Charlie who really had this vision of building an infrastructure that would accelerate trials through the system. That's up and running now and people are surviving in bigger numbers.' Thomas interrupted his training to see Palace finally lift their first major trophy by beating Manchester City – the club he supported as a child – at Wembley in the FA Cup final. It was 35 years after he had led them to their first final, before Palace finished third in the old First Division the following season. They were denied a place in Europe as English clubs were being phased back into European competition after being banned in the mid-1980s, and Thomas is hoping that the lure of a Europa League campaign under Oliver Glasner can persuade some of their best players such as Marc Guéhi and Eberechi Eze to stay in south London. 'Hopefully times are changing and Palace will be able to build on their success,' he says. But it is the prospect of completing this year's gruelling route – which will feature five mountain finishes including the famous Hautacam, Ventoux and the Col de la Loze summits – that will occupy his mind over the next few weeks. Gillett has full confidence that Thomas can overcome his knee issues and make it to the finish line on the Champs Élysées in mid-July. 'I'm a very optimistic guy, that's part of my job,' he says. 'But probably two or three months ago, I was thinking, 'I'm not sure he can do this'. But he's got a really good chance. He's done incredibly well.' For Thomas, finally completing the Tour for a seventh time would be a fitting way to round off his cycling career. 'In some ways, I wish I had finished in 2021 because it was fantastic riding into Paris knowing that we had raised so much money. But I knew I had to do it again and now I want to finish on a high to help celebrate Cure Leukaemia and what they are going to be doing over the next five to 10 years.' Support Geoff and the Tour 21 team in changing the future of treatment for blood cancer patients across the globe by donating to their Just Giving page.
Telegraph
7 hours ago
- Telegraph
British No 1 Katie Boulter: ‘The epitome of tennis for me is Wimbledon'
There are, Katie Boulter reckons, two main paths to success in tennis – especially in women's tennis. You can, in the first instance, be a teenage prodigy, the kind of freak who blazes on to the scene like a comet, taking on players double your age and beating them, all while studying for your A-levels. But this road is fraught with danger. 'In some ways you want to be that child who's going to be the next big thing, a superstar from a young age, but there are caveats to it. Things that people don't see that can be pretty brutal,' Boulter says. 'I've seen it throughout a lot of people's careers. Some people are made to handle it and some people aren't. It's interesting to watch. I don't personally wish for it.' And then there's the other path. The slow, winding route to glory, away from the brightest glare of public and media attention. This way may take longer, but the destination's the same, and when you arrive, you tend to be better able to deal with being there. This is the road Boulter's taking. At 28, having toiled as a professional for more than a decade, she is now Britain's number one-ranked women's tennis player and intends to stay there. 'I'm not expecting to be an overnight success. I'm expecting to work for it,' she says. 'I like working hard. I like getting credit for the achievements I've made, but I also enjoy being… not exactly an underdog, but the quiet one.' She smiles. 'I like being that person.' It's 8am on a Monday in south-west London, a decent forehand's distance from the All England Club. We're in tennis country, at a vast, beautiful house tucked down a long drive, where Boulter will be photographed today. 'I must have driven this road a thousand times and never knew it was here,' she says, gazing at the place as she alights from an Uber. Boulter, who's in Nike athleisure with her trademark high ponytail, woke up at her home nearby only 20 minutes ago. She apologises immediately if she doesn't make any sense before she's had several coffees, but proceeds to be more lucid and honest about her sport than many manage in a career. She's only just overcome jetlag after flying home from the Miami Open. After all these years, it never gets any easier, even now she's in business class. The Boyfriend Exaggerated Cuff Green Stripe shirt, £130, Devon Jumper Green and White Stripe, £140 (on shoulders) both With Nothing Underneath, Suede Skirt, £749, Cotton cable Knit Cricket Vest, £229, Both Polo Ralph Lauren, Leather mary janes, £200, 'I never used to [be in business] when I was younger, but then I got injured and had to say to myself, 'You need to take care of yourself if you're going to do these miles.' In tennis you pay your own expenses – your coach, everything. So it's quite challenging for a lot of players. You don't really break even unless you're top 100. There's people trying to change that, but it's pretty tough. You're always trying to save in places, but not to the detriment of your health.' Boulter's rise certainly wasn't without incident. Born and brought up in Leicestershire but with stints in Florida and London, she showed great childhood promise that was interrupted by debilitating chronic fatigue in her late teens, while other injuries – including a spinal stress fracture in 2019 – mean she's hit her physical prime only in recent years. Now fit, she's soared up the rankings, rising to a career-high world number 23 at the end of last year, after winning her first WTA titles, and in the process overtaking Emma Raducanu to be Britain's top woman for the past two years. 'Tennis is a fascinating sport,' she says. 'You've got 17-year-olds playing against 35-year-olds, you've got people having their best years as teenagers and others having their best years in their 30s. Anything can happen, and for me it was going to be a matter of time before I got my ducks in a row. It's been nice seeing that come to fruition.' This year is proving an 'enlightening' one. She ignored a foot injury for too long, which ended up halting 2024's momentum when it sidelined her earlier in the year, but she returned to help Great Britain into the finals of the Billie Jean King Cup when she and her doubles partner Jodie Burrage beat the Netherlands this April, before breaking new ground by earning the first WTA Tour clay-court win of her career, at the Madrid Open. That's all before the grass-court season starts, including playing at The Queen's Club as it hosts professional women's tennis for the first time in more than 50 years, and of course Wimbledon. Grass is Boulter's strongest surface, and she says, 'The epitome of tennis for me is Wimbledon and the grass season and playing at home in front of my friends and family.' And, occasionally, even more esteemed guests: in 2023 the Princess of Wales surprised her by turning up to watch her on day two of Wimbledon. Boulter comes from a tennis family. Her mother, Sue, whom she 'idolises', was her first tennis coach, while her maternal grandparents, Brian and Jill Gartshore, were county champions who met on court. Her older brother, James, was also a promising junior, but gave it up as a teenager and now slogs it out as an agent to Hollywood stars. Their father, David, a businessman who used to work for BP, and Sue were 'the total opposite' of typical tennis tiger parents, encouraging Boulter to keep an all-round education and to focus on tennis only when she decided to. When Boulter was starting secondary school, her father's work took the family to Florida, where she was briefly homeschooled and met various other young tennis starlets, including her now best friend, Laura Robson. Her parents' marriage ended, after which the 13-year-old Boulter and her mother moved to London while her father stayed in Florida. Boulter hasn't seen him since, she says; her grandfather is 'probably the biggest male influence I had growing up'. On court, Maria Sharapova, Serena Williams, Roger Federer and 'some people outside of tennis, like Jessica Ennis' were her idols. She played Williams and Federer in the same few days at a tournament once. 'It was quite the week…' she says, shaking her head. Chronic fatigue, which struck in her late teens, now 'feels like a long time ago, but I didn't feel like I could train or get the work done to be a tennis player'. She changed her lifestyle and diet, and the cure came ultimately from 'the support from my family, plus the medical team at the National Tennis Centre, which I know I'm very lucky to have [compared] to a lot of kids in the same situation,' she says. 'I think [the fatigue] showed me what I wanted, it led me to this path. I wouldn't change it, because I don't know if I'd be here right now without that.' The coffee has arrived. 'Praise the Lord,' Boulter says. As, in fact, has her agent, Dino Marcan, a tall, friendly Croatian. Boulter's support team has steadied in recent years, but it has also swollen by one, with the addition of her fiancé, Alex de Minaur, the Australian currently ranked number seven in the men's game. The pair have been an off-court couple since 2020 and engaged since December, and they frequently play doubles together – teasing each other in post-match interviews and on social media. They've been variously compared to 'the new Andre Agassi and Steffi Graf', and 'the real life Tashi and Art from Challengers '. (People who say the latter possibly haven't seen that film in full.) 'We're the most lax people out there, we're always just having fun,' Boulter says. 'We played in the mixed doubles at Wimbledon a few years ago, and I think it was the most fun I've had in my life. I just love every second on the tennis court with him. He just knows how to support me.' I'd wondered if she might be less than keen to be asked about de Minaur, but she beams whenever he comes up. 'My career's been very up and down, but I've been through a lot and I feel like I can help him. He can be quite narrow-minded and he focuses on tennis, tennis, tennis and can lose perspective sometimes with just being human and remembering to enjoy it. I try to have a positive impact on that, and he brings me so much great advice. He's been the stable part of my life, and it's so important to have that.' I cannot help but notice she's wearing a diamond ring the size of Uluru. She laughs: 'Alex and my mum did very well.' Boulter is a 'Rare Jewels ambassador' for Pragnell, and always wears beautiful pieces on court, but the ring doesn't go with her. 'I'm just a tad paranoid about losing it. My team are always keeping an eye on it for me.' No date or location is set for the big day – Boulter's family are in Leicestershire, de Minaur's is split between Australia and Spain. 'I've not been a massive dreamer about my wedding – as long as my family are there, I'll be happy. [But] I did sort of dream about a destination wedding, having a place you can go back to that's your place. So it's possible it'll be in the middle of nowhere.' Katie wears: Denim dress, £1,300, denim mules, £600, and cotton sun bed, £2,500, all Celine Having de Minaur around gives Boulter an insight into men's tennis, which may be just as fiercely competitive as the women's game, but the off-court experience is different. It has always struck me, I say, that women in tennis are held to a far higher standard, especially when it comes to receiving criticism for doing anything other than training and winning. 'Yeah, possibly,' Boulter says, weighing this up. 'You do see a lot of [criticism] on social media, even I get a lot of that. You kind of get ridiculed for spending one second off the tennis court, which wouldn't be healthy for anyone in any other job. People expect you to be practising and playing at all times. But half of tennis is recovery, rehab, switching off – all these things people do not see. 'People judge but they don't see the full story. That's where [players] take it pretty hard, when you've got people telling you how to live your life. They don't see that we're human, and don't see the less glamorous side of things, they don't see me late at night in the treatment room having done 10 hours of work that day, they see one snippet of my time on court that day.' Boulter spoke last year about how common threats and stalking are in the women's game; how she and de Minaur have been followed around west London in a car, and a man once messaged her at the Nottingham Open to say, 'I'm outside. I'm going to hurt you if you come outside.' He was caught: he really was there, waiting. Katie wears: Cotton dress, £1,710, and leather racquet pouch, £1,460, both Louis Vuitton. Gold and diamond ring, £3,740, Pragnell 'It's apparent in tennis, there's a lot that goes on,' Boulter says today. Marcan nods. 'Some of it you don't even see, it comes to my email and I don't even tell you.' What sort of thing? 'Threats. I've had people tell me they're going to kill me even after one of my clients has won a tournament. Some of them are gamblers, some of them are stalkers, it's a mix of people,' Marcan says. 'And some of them are just bored, hiding behind a keyboard. There's a few of those out there too,' Boulter adds. Has she ever been asked to throw a game? 'They ask you everything. Obviously you report it straight away to the authorities. Ultimately you get abused. And I get double now, because every time Alex loses, they blame me…' She and de Minaur do, at least, make sure to stop talking about tennis as much as they can. 'That side of things is important, you have to know when to draw the line and take a moment for yourself. But when we're home we could be doing anything, him dragging me to the golf course, going on a date night in town, hanging out with my girlfriends, seeing my family.' Where would they go on a date night? 'We've changed, it could be going to a restaurant we've seen on Instagram or TikTok, or we just go into the arcades, or to Putt Putt [a crazy golf and karaoke place], the dodgems. Something fun but competitive.' She knows she's switched off, she says, when she's not in tennis clothes. 'A lot of the time I'm in my Nikes, I love that and I've been with them pretty much my whole career, but getting out of my training kit is such a nice switch-off for me, knowing I'm in my casuals that day.' Fashion is Boulter's other great passion, and may well end up being the primary one in the long term. 'I love it. It's something I want to get into when I finish tennis. I want to run my own business, designing my own stuff. That'd be pretty cool,' she says. Katie wears: Piqué jacket, £2,300, poplin shirt, £1,150, matching skirt, £1,290, metal belt, £1,100, calfskin belt, £510, suede shoes, £710, and silk socks, £290, all Miu Miu 'I love finding vintage pieces. I've got one of the oldest Loro Piana dresses, very traditional, very pleated. I resonate a lot with tradition, in tennis as well, with Wimbledon being my favourite. I find little boutiques around the world thanks to tennis, and love the feeling of finding something unique.' For now, though, the athleisure years continue as tennis reigns. A lot of the players Boulter met and played with or against when she was a teenager have long since dropped out. They burnt too bright, played too hard, or simply fell through the cracks. But Boulter, whose motto is 'perseverance is everything', is still on her steady, winding ascent. She has won titles, earned buckets of prize money, secured sponsorship deals and become a fan favourite, but a deep run in a Grand Slam tournament still eludes her. Now, with Queen's and Wimbledon in the offing, she plans to kick on again. 'The stars align for some people, they don't for others. But look at someone like [US player] Madison Keys, who won her first Grand Slam this year. She's 30, and could easily have quit a couple of years ago. But she persevered.' Boulter smiles. 'It's something I think about a lot. That's why it's my motto.'
The Guardian
7 hours ago
- The Guardian
‘It's a seminal moment': Queen's gears up for return of women's tennis after 52 years
Not since 1973, when Edward Heath was the UK prime minister, Suzi Quatro topped the charts, and the first series of Are You Being Served? had just ended, has women's professional tennis graced the prestigious Queen's Club in London. But after 52 years it will return with a bang on Monday, with 11 of the world's top 20 among those battling it out in a WTA 500 event for a prize fund of £1m, a week before the annual men's event takes place. Those playing include the Wimbledon champions for 2024 and 2022 respectively, Barbora Krejcikova and Elena Rybakina, the Australian Open champion, Madison Keys, and Britain's own US Open champion from 2021, Emma Raducanu. The tournament also comes as British women's tennis is rising and spreading its wings. When the latest world rankings come out on Monday, there will be three players – Raducanu, Katie Boulter and Sonay Kartal – in the WTA top 50 for the first time since 1986. No wonder, then, that the Lawn Tennis Association believes a revived Queen's women's event can be a catalyst for even brighter days ahead. 'It is a seminal moment, given it's the first time we've had a women's tournament in London for more than 50 years.' says Chris Pollard, the LTA's managing director of commercial and operations. 'In many respects it is long overdue that we're allowing the women to compete at this brilliant venue in the heart of London. But there is overwhelming excitement from the players for next week. 'And this new event at Queen's is really important to us in other ways,' he adds. 'It creates the platform and visibility – the shop window, if you like – that reminds people of what an amazing sport tennis is. And we see that uptick when we look at the data, with more people than ever picking up rackets in those weeks through the Queen's fortnight and with Wimbledon to follow.' • It will be the first women's tennis tournament in London for over 50 years. • Eleven of the world's top 20 are playing. Stars include last year's Wimbledon champion Barbora Krejcikova, the Australian Open champion Madison Keys and the Olympic gold medallist Qinwen Zheng. • British stars Emma Raducanu, Katie Boulter and Sonay Kartal are also in the draw. • Tickets are still available, starting at £15 for ground passes and £20 for the Andy Murray Arena, from the LTA website. • New seats, with 25% more leg-room, have been introduced this year According to the LTA, 5.8 million adults in Britain now play tennis at least once a year, a figure that has risen by 51% in the past six years. Meanwhile the number of children playing at least once a month now stands at 1.57 million, a rise of 7% this year. And while tennis has long been viewed as a middle-class sport, the LTA and the government have spent £31m in recent years to refurbish more than 3,000 public courts in parks across the country. Last month, most of Britain's top players also wrote to the government urging them to back a proposal to develop 40 community tennis, padel and multi-sport hubs across Britain by 2030, which would be covered to allow people to play in all weather. The hope is that British tennis will soon unearth more talents such as the state-school educated 23-year-old Kartal, who has made a spectacular rise up the rankings over the past 12 months. 'I feel like we have had a lot of players consistently knocking on the door for top 100 for a little while now, so to have the depth to go even further and into the top 50 is a great achievement for British tennis,' Kartal says. 'And I think there is the potential to add more than just three players to that list.' The move to Queen's has meant the women's tournament at Eastbourne, which takes place the following week, has been downgraded to a WTA 250 event. However the LTA points out that ticket sales for Eastbourne have remained robust, and it has already sold 50,000 tickets for the women's tournament at Queen's – with 55% of them bought by women. In other words, an extra 50,000 people will watch women's tennis in the UK this year. 'That 50,000 figure puts it in the top three or four stand-alone events in terms of crowd capacities across the WTA tour,' adds Pollard. 'And there are still a few tickets available.' The LTA has also increased prize money for the Queen's tournament so that the players will be playing for a prize fund of around £1m, rather than the roughly £730,000 they usually do at WTA 500 events. That is still about half what is on offer for the men's event. However the LTA has pledged to have equal prize money at both tournaments by 2029. 'It is a statement of intent and it underpins our commitment and ambition to really invest in women's and girls' tennis, more broadly, and particularly to correct the equal-prize-money challenges that exist across the tour,' says Pollard. That will be welcome across the game. For now, though, the 32 players are largely focused on becoming the first woman since the Soviet player Olga Morozova to win at Queen's 52 years ago. And that includes Kartal. 'It's a tournament that holds a lot of history and a tournament that I've watched the men play in,' she says. 'So I'm excited that we now get the opportunity to play on that stage too.'
