Kate Courtney (FDJ United-Suez) joined the French WorldTour team on Monday, July 13, with immediate effect, signing through 2028 after winning the USA national road race title.
The two-plus-year contract takes Courtney from her first season of serious road racing to the top level of the women’s sport. The 30-year-old American, best known for winning the 2018 elite cross-country mountain-bike world title, had been competing independently through She Sends Racing.
Courtney will make her team debut at La Périgord Ladies on July 18, followed by Picto-Charentaise on July 19. Both are French UCI one-day races. Her first WorldTour appearance is scheduled for the Lloyds Tour of Britain, beginning August 19.
“It’s hard to put into words what I’m going through right now,” Courtney said in the team press release tied to Monday’s announcement. “I didn’t expect to reach World Tour level so quickly. I’m incredibly motivated by the prospect of taking on this huge challenge, so that I can truly discover what I’m capable of – both as an athlete and as a woman – in this final chapter of my career”
From mountain-bike champion to WorldTour newcomer
Courtney began 2026 mixing road and gravel competition with mountain biking. Her results quickly supported a move into a formal road-team structure.
During her first European road campaign, Courtney raced the four-day Tour de Féminin with the Women’s U.S. National Team. She won the fourth and final stage, securing her first European road victory and first UCI road win, before finishing 13th overall.
She then won the elite women’s race at the 2026 USA Cycling Pro Road Championships on her first appearance at the event. Her road results sit alongside a long off-road background. According to USA Cycling, Courtney was the first American woman in 17 years to claim an elite mountain-bike world championship when she took the cross-country title in 2018. She followed that by winning the overall elite XCO World Cup the next season, backed by three cross-country World Cup victories.
Courtney left Scott-SRAM MTB Racing in December 2024 after six years with the team. Her subsequent independent programme included victory at the 2025 Leadville Trail 100, where she recorded the fastest women’s time reported on the course, and a return to the Cape Epic in 2026.
FDJ United-Suez places her alongside an established leadership group containing Demi Vollering, Juliette Labous, Évita Muzic and Elise Chabbey. The team has not defined Courtney’s precise tactical role, leaving her opening French races as the first indication of how her mountain-bike strengths will be used on the road. Her signing represents a serious addition in firepower to an already stacked superteam.
The contract runs through the Los Angeles Olympic year, giving Courtney a confirmed WorldTour programme across the 2028 cycle without determining her Olympic discipline or selection prospects. Her first test in FDJ United-Suez colours comes at La Périgord Ladies on Saturday.
Cover image credit: Rapha/ CAROLINE TOMPKINS
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