Depending on which side you look at the story of 18-year-old Khotalang Leuta, it is either a miracle or a logical sequence of events.

Khotalang had learned to ride at seven on the bicycles she was able to borrow. "Nobody showed me how to ride. I just knew how," she tells the film crew shooting the movie "The fastest girl in the village" for Red Bull TV. She enjoyed BMX bikes the most. The fact that a pump track was built in her home country of all places and that it includes a dozen rental bikes really does seem like a miracle. It is the first track of Claudio Caluori's #pumpforpeace project.

At the beginning, only boys rode the wave track, the girls stood on the side of the track and watched. At Khotalang, the banked turns, rollers and tables seemed intimidating and far too difficult. The fear was compounded by a cultural reluctance to do something that the community saw as a typical activity for boys. But the local project staff encouraged the girls to give it a try. Khotalang, around twelve years old at the time, was the first to dare.

After just a few laps, she realized that she was getting to grips with the track and spent more and more time on it. "Every year she was faster when we came back here," Maryke Zietsman, Communications Manager for the Pumptrack World Championships, is quoted as saying. This is the logical part of her story: now that she had the opportunity to use her potential, she first became the fastest girl in the village, then in the country, and that's not all.

Much more than a sports facility

The pump track in Roma is, of course, much more than just a sports facility where individuals can show off their talent. The village community has a joint project with it, organizes the distribution of the bikes and keeps the track clean. Local races are held regularly, bringing people together. The same applies to two other pump tracks that have since been built in Lesotho. The pump track also helps to break down role models. Khotalang Leuta already has a few imitators in Roma.

In 2019, Khotalang Leuta tried to qualify for the World Championships for the first time and narrowly failed. She took this as an opportunity to train even harder and become even faster. It worked out in 2020, but the finals in Leogang were canceled due to Covid-19. The organizers later decided that the 2020 qualifiers would ride for the title together with those from 2021 in Lisbon. Khotalang's competition will therefore be particularly tough. She is not letting this get to her head and says: "I want to be the fastest woman in the world."

Film: The fastest girl in the village (Red Bull TV)

Project #pumpforpeace