The London marathon is a great event. Mass participation as well as elite performance, young and old, the fast and the slow; our great capital city and its citizens once again proving what a superlative show they can put on. But imagine a marathon where the men run 26 miles and 385 yards but the “girlies” event is, say, 15 miles.
The men get all the glory and TV coverage as they are doing a “proper job” while the girls are “allowed” to be there on the day. That would be sexual discrimination by design. The rewards would follow the coverage, so the men would get the prizes and the girls some token gifts. Welcome to the reality in the world of elite cycling where sexism is by design. And cycling is not alone.
When challenged, those at the top of these sports are well versed in the platitudes they need to put out to deflect the temporary criticism. A well-crafted statement of intent, a desire to rectify; but the reality is decades of inaction. Sexism spins all the way down from the top to the bottom. Somewhere in the middle of this are Shane Sutton and Jess Varnish.
In March, Varnish criticised the management of British Cycling for the way it managed the women’s Olympic qualification for the team sprint. Jess has since been dropped from the GB team preparing for Rio 2016. In parting, she alleged that British Cycling’s team manager, Sutton, had told her that her arse was too big and at 25 she was too old and she should go and have a baby. I have my own personal experiences of Shane and sympathise with Jess. She was in the position so many have found themselves: speak out and your dreams will be destroyed and years of hard work wasted. Or put up with it and hope. I spoke out from the age of 19 and I know what happens.
British Cycling and Sutton have countered. British Cycling’s official statement read: “We are fully committed to the principles and active promotion of equality of opportunity”, and of course Sutton denies that he did anything other “than act with complete professionalism in my dealings with Jess”.
They just do not see it. Rather than attempt to dissect what might or might not have been said, let’s look at a few facts that cannot be disputed and then see how the statement stands up. The team management told Varnish your performances are not good enough to make you a favourite for a medal anyway, with the implication public money should not be spent on giving her a holiday. Strangely, the men in charge never seem to see it this way when it comes to the men’s team. In 2008 when I won Olympic gold in Beijing, the day before, in the men’s road race, every single one of the four men riding for Team GB failed to finish. In 2006, Welsh Cycling sent me to defend my Commonwealth Games road race title as a team of one while fielding a full team of six male road riders. None of the six finished.
On the track, Jess competed with Victoria Pendleton at London 2012 in the team sprint. For the men, the team sprint is 750m and a team comprises three riders. For the women it is 500m and a team comprises two riders. Jess also competes in the 500m time trial, the event Jason Queally famously won at Sydney in 2000. Only, of course, for the men it is 1,000m. The world governing body has set the tone – women are second-class citizens. It runs all the way up to events like the Tour de France.
While those are broader issues for cycling, closer to home it is a similar situation. I was defending Olympic road race champion for London 2012. In 2011 British Cycling was heavily involved when Locog and the UCI organised the test event for the London Games, a trial of the route and logistics. I was delighted – until I found out that it was organising the race only for the men. When I asked “What about the women?” I was told I could hitch a ride in a team car and watch. I declined the generous and thoughtful offer.
What I did not know at the time was that British Cycling had been running a programme for several years geared around winning the men’s world road race and the men’s London 2012 road race and this event was seen as a part of that. One aspect of the programme was described by the British Cycling manager responsible, Rod Ellingworth, as the attempt to replicate the win of Tom Simpson in 1965, “the only one won by any British Professional in the road worlds”. Which is fine provided that you ignore the wins of Beryl Burton, Mandy Jones and myself. The message that sends is that women are not only second-class citizens, their achievements don’t count either.
In readiness for the 2012 Olympics, the McLaren Formula One team were commissioned to produce special bikes for the British riders to take advantage of every possible “marginal and aerodynamic gain”. Which was good if you were a man but, of course, women were excluded. Custom-fit bikes were produced not only for every British male road rider but also for every member of the reserves. None were made available for the women’s road team. So Lizzie Armitstead was in the invidious position of her boyfriend [Adam Blythe], a reserve on the men’s team having the latest bike, while she was left, like myself, without access to this advantage. What would have happened if she had spoken out? I was certainly persona non-grata at British Cycling. She just had to look at my circumstance to see the consequences.
Hypocrisy and double standards in respect to gender are ingrained in cycling and many other sports but this is hidden in reports of events. I am often asked, how can it be stopped? Athletes with their Olympic dreams on the line are never going to be the source of information on ill treatment by those whose responsibility it is to select or administrate.
Instead, the solution has to come from the top, in cycling’s case the UCI. Brian Cookson was president of British Cycling throughout my career and nearly £77,000 of public money was spent on a PR campaign by UK Sport supporting his successful 2013 bid for presidency of the UCI. He had a manifesto pledge that within one year of his coming to office, there would be a minimum wage for women cyclists as there is for men. His advising “action” committee, packed with individuals whose business model only works when the majority of women team riders do not receive the minimum wage, were never going to “advise” him that it was practical; turkeys do not vote for Christmas. Three years later that minimum wage for women to match men riders remains as illusory as it was in 2012.
Cookson and UK Sport have to be held to account and the best people to do this are the sponsors. Professional sport only exists because of sponsors whose customers do not want to see discrimination. Sponsors can demand that organisations actually comply with their own policies on gender equality. When I won the world road race championships, Sky sponsored a men-only team. I never received a penny, but I still had to wear the logo. Was Sky aware of the inequality of the distribution of its funds to the sport? I am confident that it was not.
Opening up right now are big opportunities for women’s sport and its sponsors. This is the time to address some of those issues that have remained hidden or ignored for decades. I didn’t win at London 2012 but time and again during those Olympics, as I travelled around the capital on Tube or bus, I was so moved with the kind words of so many to me recalling my win of four years earlier. The people of this country could not have been clearer; the old, the young, the slow, the quick, they valued the exploits of their daughters every bit as much as those of their sons. They, every one of them, did not discriminate. Now is the time to drive discrimination from the establishment of sport.
• In response to this article, a spokesman for British Cycling released the following statement: “Riders in the Great Britain Cycling Team heading to Rio 2016 will receive all the support they need to be as good as they can be. A gold medal is valued by us, no matter who wins it and we are equally proud of all our Olympic and world champions.
“It is true to say that the four-man team selected for the 2008 Olympics road race did not complete the course in common with 49 more of the world’s best riders on what will be remembered as a very hot and humid day. Roger Hammond, Ben Swift, Jonny Bellis and Steve Cummings worked hard for each other and to represent Great Britain.
“The organisation of the test event for London 2012 was a matter for the UCI and LOCOG. Nicole was offered a place in the team car, just as Lizzie Armitstead was for the Rio test event last year as that too was a men’s race.”
