Candice Lill smiles her way to mountain biking success

While this is true for many, few athletes have overcome the obstacles in their way with the poise, grace and enduring smile that defines the career of elite mountain biker and #TeamRed athlete Candice Lill.

Candice has spent nearly 15 years competing at the highest level on the global mountain biking scene, doing what she loves most in life, and it shows.

After going for a ride with her dad at the age of three, Candice fell in love with cycling. She took every opportunity to ride on the family farm in the afternoons and on weekends, honing her skills and feeding her passion.

While Candice was always competitive at sports, the opportunity to combine her love for mountain biking with her desire to compete offered the perfect combination, which is clearly evident in her facial expression whenever she is on the bike.

Her enduring smile in every condition or situation says it all – there is no place she would rather be and nothing she would rather do than race a mountain bike.

Her career showed great promise early on after she earned a bronze medal at the 2009 Junior World Championships held in Australia, However, she faced challenges in her professional career due to a lack of sufficient financial support.

Candice has had to largely pay her own way to forge a career in the sport and achieve her goals, footing the bill to travel abroad to compete in Europe against the best mountain bikers in the world.

However, these challenges have not held her back from tasting success at the highest level, or enjoying every pedal stroke on your way to becoming one of South Africa’s most successful cyclists on the international stage.

During this time, Candice was selected to represent South Africa at her first Olympic Games in London 2012. She competed again at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games and earned another bronze medal at the 2022 Commonwealth Games.

Her persistence, dedication and success finally culminated in 2023, which was the first year when she finally had the necessary sponsorship backing to focus on all the races she needed to compete in, and the results reflect that.

Candice narrowly missed out on a World Championship jersey after finishing second in the 2023 UCI XCM World Championships, crossing the line a mere 54 seconds behind winner Mona Mitterwalner from Austria.

Her World Championship Silver medal topped off a stellar year of achievements, which included the SA National Mountain Bike XCO and inaugural XCC titles, and a second place at the 2023 Absa Cape Epic.

She delivered consistent results on the international UCI XCO World Cup series after finishing 25th in the opening XCO World Cup event at Nové Město na Moravě in the Czech Republic.

Candice returned to South Africa to add more national titles to her resume in early June by winning the XCO and XCC African titles in KZN. She has also finished regularly in the top 35 at other XCO races this season, including 34th at Lenzerheide in Switzerland and 22nd at Val Di Sole Trentino in Italy.

Importantly, her success on home soil secured her sufficient UCI points to move into the Top 40 in the UCI World Rankings, which gained her access to the XCC sprint race series. She took the opportunity to notch up consistent performances to bag additional points with numerous top 30 finishes, including 20th at Val Di Sole Trentino, 24th at Leogang-Salzburgerland in Austria, and 25th at Lenzerheide.

In 2024, Candice partnered with Mona for the 2024 Absa Cape Epic, with the duo convincingly winning the 2024 Momentum Medical Scheme Tankwa Trek presented by Biogen in February as part of their preparations, which served as an ideal base from which to build for the Olympics and 2024 World Championships.

She carried her impressive form into the UCI MTB World Cup XCO season, earning a breakthrough podium result at the Women’s Elite XCO race in Val Di Sole in June after finishing third – she was the only rider on the podium to not race for a factory team, serving as another reminder of the challenges she faces compared to her competitors.

It was arguably the biggest result of her career and a dream come true for Candice. With the widest smile on the podium, everyone could clearly see that her success was the culmination of years of sacrifice, training, and perseverance, but that overcoming every challenge, setback and hurdle was worth it in the end.

The result was also the ideal confidence booster going into her final Olympic build, adding Candice’s name to the list of potential medallists in the Women’s Cross-Country event, which would be the realisation of her ultimate goal.

Candice says she loves the feeling of freedom she gets from riding out in nature, and it is this love for the sport that fuels her success.

“You need to love it to succeed. You can’t do the training and compete if you don’t have the desire and passion for it,” says Candice.

“You need self-belief to compete against the best and self-discipline to do the hard workouts needed to ride at the highest level. You really need to love what you do to get through them.”

Candice hopes her success will show other South African female riders that they too can make it on the world stage.

You can catch Candice in action at 14h10 (CEST time) on 28 July as she competes for Olympic glory on the Cross Country Mountain Bike course at Elancourt Hill, Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines.

Follow Candice on Instagram @candice_mtb