PARIS — When the lights went out at the Palais Omnisport in Bercy, Paris’ equivalent of Madison Square Garden, all eyes were on the white-and-blue Yamaha motocross bike that came roaring into the stadium.
It zoomed up a dirt ramp into midair, landing gracefully on the other side.
“Did you see that?” shouted one spectator as the bike came to a screeching halt.
“Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the kingpin of Bercy’s motocross competition,” the announcer declared as the biker pulled off a jet-black helmet, revealing long locks of golden hair.
“I love the element of surprise. No one can believe that girls can do this sort of thing,” the gravity-defying rider, Livia Lancelot, confesses later. At 17, Lancelot is France’s sole professional female motocross champion.
“I want to be the first girl in France to prove that I can make motocross my profession,” she says, noting she was given her first Yamaha as a Christmas gift when she was three years old.
Lancelot juggles studies for a mathematics diploma, one of France’s most demanding high school courses, and training on her bike five hours a day. She stole third place in a division of the Women’s Motocross Association Steel City Race held in Pennsylvania last year, and she also outranks many of the boys in her age group in France.
With girls like Lancelot helping to increase the popularity of the sport, activewear companies have been falling over themselves to cash in on the sport’s fashion appeal. Oxbow, one of France’s leading activewear labels, was lured by Lancelot’s feminine physique, and dresses her on and off her bike.
“You can stay feminine despite the masculine aspects of the sport,” she says. And Lancelot is already a role model for many young French girls interested in male-dominated sports. “I just tell them you have to be courageous,” she says. “It’s just like going for the jump. If you fear falling, you probably will.”