It has not been a vintage week for women’s cycling, with one of the world’s top female riders accusing her coach of sacking her, criticising her bum and telling her to “go and have a baby” instead of training for the Rio Olympics.
The 25-year-old Jess Varnish’s allegations against Shane Sutton, the technical director of British Cycling, led to his resignation and triggered a series of further accusations of misconduct against the men at the top of the national governing body for cycling in the UK.
The timing of the row is unfortunate, coming on the eve of one of the most important – and lucrative – new women’s races on the international cycling calendar. On Saturday, the British world champion, Lizzie Armitstead, will compete against some of the fastest women on two wheels in the Tour de Yorkshire.
Highly unusually, the women’s race takes place not just on the same day as its male equivalent and in front of the same, live TV cameras, but on the same 136km (85 mile) course, from Otley (Armitstead’s home town) to Doncaster. The winner will pocket €20,000 (£15,628), more than her male equivalent.
The prize fund still pales in comparison to the top flights of other elite women’s sports, but it is a massive leap forward in cycling. In 2014, Marianne Vos, the overall winner of the women’s Giro d’Italia, the most important stage race on the women’s calendar, won just over €500 (£389). Her male counterpart received €200,000 (£156,000), not including stage wins and bonuses.
And in the 1990s, Hein Verbruggen, then head of cycling’s global governing body, the UCI, tried to introduce a rule to ban women from racing when they were on their periods, according to Inga Thompson, 10-time national US champion.
At the launch of the Tour de Yorkshire in March, organiser Sir Gary Verity said: “The aim was always to create the most lucrative women’s race on the planet.” However their bounty for the victor was soon outdone by another British race, the Prudential RideLondon Classique, which announced days later that their champion would win €25,000 (£19,456).
The Commonwealth gold medallist Rochelle Gilmore, manager of Wiggle High5, one of the top women’s teams, said the Tour de Yorkshire’s commitment was phenomenal. She added: “Finally, the women are being treated like true professionals. The prize money is blowing us away. Even a couple of years ago we would never have predicted this.”
Just last year the women’s peloton were set a short circuit race during the Tour de Yorkshire. It was not televised live. The evening TV highlights devoted just seconds to the winner Louise Mahé crossing the line on her final lap.
“Media coverage is so important for teams to secure long-term sponsors,” said Gilmore, whose team has a three-year sponsorship deal with Wiggle, with an additional two-year option. “There is definitely more interest in women’s cycling now, which you can see clearly in the fact that the Tour de France organisers, Amaury Sport Organisation (ASO), are involved in the Tour de Yorkshire. They are a commercial organisation who realise that things are changing.”
Yet there is still much to do to put female cyclists on an equal footing with the men. In the UK, British Cycling does not invest nearly as much in women’s cycling on the road, said Gilmore. “Do they invest much time and money into it? No. In the UK, cycling is an Olympic-funded sport and there are more medals that can be won in the velodrome than on the road,” she said.
The Tour de Yorkshire hopeful Emma Pooley, who won silver in the time trial at the Beijing Olympics and is hopeful of competing at Rio, said: “Cycling is still so unequal.”
She has long championed more recognition for women competing in the sport, and a recent intervention drew the ire of her fellow professional and British road champion Peter Kennaugh. The Team Sky rider told Pooley to “get over it” after she suggested Sir Dave Brailsford, director of the hugely successful Sky team, should offer more support to women’s racing.
“Stop being so self centred and get over it,” Kennaugh tweeted in response. He swiftly deleted the posts and later apologised for being an idiot.
Pooley told the Guardian: “It goes beyond British Cycling and right up to the UCI, where there has been a culture of not even regarding as a problem the fact that women weren’t being allowed to race the same courses for the same remuneration of men, let alone a problem in need of fixing.
“I’ve been saying that for years and have been regarded as a fruitcake. We have to acknowledge that progress has been made.”
But she said that Brian Cookson, who left British Cycling to head up the UCI, had to do more. He was elected in 2013 on a manifesto that pledged to introduce a minimum wage for female professionals, many of whom need a “proper” job in order to pay the rent.
Two and a half years on, there is no minimum wage, with Cookson claiming it could be counterproductive, and the Wiggle High5 rider Mara Abbott, recent two-time winner of the women’s Giro, continues to have to supplement her cycling salary with work as a yoga teacher and at a farmer’s market in her native Colorado.
The road to equality is long.
