South Africa's Candice Lill: From taking her first pedal strokes as a toddler to becoming a world silver medallist
For as long as Candice Lill can remember, perseverance was part of her fibre, ingrained in her being from an early age.
The early pedal strokes in the saddle of a yellow BMX growing up on a farm on South Africa’s south coast provided the picturesque backdrop to a journey that would ultimately lead her to lofty heights on the global mountain bike scene.
When Lill (nee Neethling) was three years old she cycled the 22-kilometre gravel road from the farmhouse to the Oribi Gorge and back with some assistance from her father. With each pedal stroke from her short legs to the clickety-clack rhythm of the beads on the spokes, Lill demonstrated her perseverance.
“If I look at three-year-olds now, I think, ‘How did I do this when I was three?” Lill recalled to Olympics.com.
“It all came from me, and it always came from me, which is important. For me, the motivation was always internal. And it showed from a very young age that I had the discipline and the intent to be what I'm still doing now.”
The built-in drive made her a prodigy of sorts with Lill going on to win the bronze medal at the 2009 Junior XCO World Championships.
Lill went on to represent her country at the London 2012 and Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, win bronze at the 2022 Commonwealth Games, and clinch silver at the 2023 UCI Marathon World Championships.
A lull in the middle for Lill
Taken at face value, Lill had delivered on her promise as a rising star, she had tapped into her reserves of natural talent. However, stages of her career would suggest otherwise.
In clichéd sports terms, the perception is that there are two types of athletes: The young prodigy who seems to succeed without much effort versus the one who must make it to the top by the sweat of one’s brow.
Lill, who tasted victory early in her career before experiencing a lull in the middle, can be described as a combination of the two.
“In a way, I've been both. But in the middle, I was lost for a moment, let's put it like that,” Lill said.
“Sometimes that happens because when you do well when you're young, in a way things come too easily. When I came third at the World Champs, I was 17 and all I had done was race in South Africa. When I came third, I was like, ‘Wow, this is easy’. I didn't appreciate it.”
Three years after she won her junior bronze medal, Lill was selected to represent South Africa at her maiden Olympic Games in London 2012. The Olympics served as a reality check with Lill completing the women’s cross-country at Hadleigh Farm as the last finisher in 28th place.
'You don't want to sit in your 40s and have regrets'
South Africa did not send a female mountain biker to Rio 2016 while Lill also drifted away from cross-country, instead turning her focus on stage racing in South Africa. Success came relatively easy whenever Lill got into the saddle in competitive racing, but the triumphs seemed hollow without a true test of her resilience.
A conversation with her husband Darren Lill, a former professional road cyclist, proved to be a pivotal moment that would send her career on a different trajectory.
“I think that was a problem. You can't get comfortable so quickly. My husband said to me, 'Candice, are you sure that this is what you want? Are you sure you're ready to give up on the Olympics and what you could achieve and what he believed I could also achieve in cross country? You don't want to sit in your 40s and have regrets.”
By 2018, Lill made a return to cross-country mountain biking which ultimately led her back to the Olympic stage. Nine years after her Olympic debut, Lill returned to the Games at Tokyo 2020 in 2021, where she finished 24th.
The second bite of the Olympic cherry seemed to have ignited something in Lill, who found another gear since the pandemic-hit Games in Japan.
The last two years in particular have seen her reach unprecedented heights including winning the cross-country bronze medal at the 2022 Commonwealth Games.
Reaching the podium on the global stage gave Lill the affirmation that her dreams were valid and that she could go head-to-head against the best in the world.
“I want to say that I'm a late bloomer. It's taken me a long time, for many reasons, to get to where I am now,” she said.
“And none of those reasons I would ever change, because I believe that it's made me the person I am now, and I can look onto the sport in a mature way and with experience. How I feel now going into these Olympics, is a completely different feeling, even to Tokyo a few years ago, and especially to London.”
Mountain bike revival: 'You can win this thing!'
Lill has continued to break new ground for South African female mountain biking on the international stage since her cross-country revival.
Last year, the 32-year-old became South Africa’s most successful rider at the UCI Marathon World Championships in Scotland clinching the silver medal behind Austria’s Mona Mitterwallner.
With her second-place finish, Lill topped bronze medals by legends Robyn de Groot (2019) and the late Burry Stander (2010). Lill finished 54 seconds behind Mitterwallner, who crossed the finish in a time of five hours, seven minutes, and 50 seconds (5:07.50).
“It was a big moment for me. The World Championships, besides the Olympics, are the highest level,” Lill said.
“I'm going to do cross country this year as my focus is obviously on the Olympics. But the World Championships is in September and I'm going to make the trip to the US to go and chase that jersey.
“Silver was fantastic at the time, and I was very, very happy with that result. But it's funny how quickly it changes to like, ‘You know what. You can win this thing!”
“It would be the most wonderful thing in the world to go home to South Africa, to my South African sponsors and my South African kit sponsor and say, let's design a World Championships jersey after all of this. And it would be so beautiful. So yeah, that's a big goal of mine.”
Not surviving but thriving
Lill’s recent trajectory suggests that she will be a threat come Paris 2024 after producing her best UCI XCO World Cup result yet finishing sixth in Nové Město in May.
Her rise over the last two years has not only instilled a belief in Lill that she can challenge for top places at big international races and strike a blow for South African female riders. Lill hopes in future to establish a European base for talented compatriots to use as a springboard to the professional level. Lill has already taken one of South Africa’s top-rising talents under her wing and shown her the ropes on the global circuit.
In the meantime, Lill is focused on living up to her potential and breaking new ground for South African mountain biking.
“I'm incredibly grateful to be where I am, and I absolutely take none of it for granted. I really believe that this year – I've shown what I believe I could do all along,” Lill said.
It's just something in the deepest part of my heart and soul that I've wanted to do since I was very young.”