Freewheeling: Is women's professional cycle racing in a good place?

Demi Vollering wins Liege-Bastogne-Liege @GettySport

Phew, it's been breathtaking watching how the races have unfolded during this year's Spring Classics races - those tough one-day races in northern France, Belgium and the Netherlands over windswept, sometimes cobbled, sometimes undulating terrain, often in the rain. No one must be more out of breath than SD Worx rider Demi Vollering, who completed the Ardennes Classics triple in scintillating style by winning the Amstel Gold, Flèche-Wallone, and Liège-Bastogne-Liege - a feat last achieved by her mentor and team Sports Director, Anna van der Breggen in 2017.

As women's professional cycling continues to grow and more is being done to achieve parity with men's cycle racing, it is worth doing a stop and check, and asking if women's professional cycle racing really is in a good place?

Vive Le Tour de France Femmes

It has been great to see that sports event organiser Amaury Sports Organisation (ASO) continue to add to its sports portfolio by staging the Paris-Roubaix Femmes and a Tour de France Femmes. Last year's renaissance competition caught the eye of millions as the women raced around the streets of Paris on that hot Sunday afternoon during Stage 1 in the last week of July, right before the men raced the traditional finale. For many, it was an emotional day to see a women's peloton starting the stage race using the infrastructure of the iconic cycle race - something for which the likes of former professional cyclist Kathryn Bertine, and others including multiple World Champion Marianne Vos have campaigned for decades.

ASO were very happy with the viewing figures in France, with 20 million viewers on France 2 and France 3 free-to-air television channels across the whole race. There were on average 2.25 million viewers per day, making an audience share of 26.4%, and notably 5.1 million during the showdown between Vollering and Annemiek Van Vleuten on the final stage, on La Super Planche des Belles Filles. Across Europe 14 million viewers in seven countries tuned into fee-paying Eurosport. Naturally ratings were solid in the Netherlands with audience share of its national TV station, NOS being 45% as fans tuned in to watch their compatriot heroes race their way onto the podium and don the winning jerseys - Van Vleuten in yellow, Vollering in polka dots, Vos in green, and Shirin Van Anrooij in white. 

British hopes would normally have been placed on the top road racer, Lizzie Deignan, who won the inaugural Paris-Roubaix Femmes, but she was away on maternity leave. That will have impacted on viewing figures on this side of the English Channel.

Stage 1 of 2022 revived Tour de France Femmes

Meanwhile in France, crowds came out in force along the road sides for key stages in Paris, on the gravel roads into Bar-sur-Aube during Stage Four, and at the finale on the slopes of the Vosgian mountain passes. But even Tour Director, Marion Rousse said that there were questions to be asked around the lack of roadside spectators on other stages.

In some cycle races, local schools get the children to come out of their classrooms to watch the race, and make some noise. That generally makes for good viewing to see crowds of young, excited faces and their high pitched cheers ring out loudly as the television cameras pan through the town centres. But with the Tour de France Femmes being in late July, many schools are already closed for the holidays. 

Growth is in the eyeballs of the beholder

Very importantly, the number of eyeballs on a race is a key factor in the growth of any sport. It's important to have the viewing figures, and it also looks good for viewers when they watch images of competitors battling it out in front of enthusiastic crowds. 

While sports fans avidly watch their athletic heroes performing well, they also like the stories and the characters behind the sport - the professional who was just a weekend warrior barely a year previously; the outspoken activist; the rivalries - between teams or even within a team; the bad boy/girl; the athlete making a come-back following a serious injury or illness.

The highly successful Netflix Formula 1 docusoap Drive to Survive has consistently attracted the same comment - "I don't follow F1; I don't know anything about motorsport; but I am fascinated by the characters and the stories."

Personally, I think we need a bit of that in cycling, and particularly in women's professional cycling. Cycling fans marvel on social media over who they believe to be the GOAT (greatest of all time) - be it Marianne Vos or Annemiek Van Vleuten in the modern era, Beryl Burton from the vintage times, or Jeannie Longo if they want to go for a controversial choice. Whoever your don't want athletes who when they are interviewed are just a bit too.....I dare say, "ordinary"! Many of these athletes just talk about their racing, their calendar, their strategy, and they will have been media-prepped to not stray off that line. That's all well and good for the purist fan. But a sport cannot live on purists alone. There needs to be an extra dimension that can attract a wider audience and give a wow factor - or at least a story that chimes with observers.

Marianne Vos, for many the GOAT

Recently, a camera crew on the famous Koppenberg climb on the route of the Tour of Flanders, asked a group of women riders to move out of the way so that they could film one of the top men's teams doing their training ride over the cobbles. 

The camera crew failed to recognise that among the women they budged out was a certain Lotte Kopecky - defending champion of the race, a native of Flanders (voted Flandrian of the Year) as well as being winner of other classics like Het Nieuwsblad and Strade Bianche, plus a multiple World and European Track cycling champion. 

I previously wrote an article in Rouleur magazine about a big sporting rivalry in the 1980s - not Borg and McEnroe, but Longo and Canins. Two of the best women riders of that era, who dominated the erstwhile Tour de France Feminin. Jeannie Longo was a former Alpine skier from the French Alps, while Maria Canins was a former cross country skier from the Italian Dolomites. A young firebrand demoiselle against la mamma volante (on account of her juggling her racing with being a mother). This rivalry filled column inches of the sports pages and garnered curious as well as dedicated fans to support team Longo or team Canins. Both women have reminisced whimsically about those days when they had their faces plastered on the front of popular sports newspapers like Gazzetto dello Sport or L'Equipe. Longo also appeared on sports shows on French television. 

Everybody loves a story - where is it? We need it! 

Among the sea of women's teams today, a couple of frontrunners have emerged in the race for World Tour supremacy, with both teams having a clutch of World and National Champions in their fold. I'm talking about Trek-Segafredo and SD Worx. Wouldn't things be spiced up if we had a Manchester City v Arsenal type rivalry going on?

While there are quite a few riders who have shown true grit on the road, there don't seem to be any real characters that do acts that go beyond sport. Cecilie Uttrup Ludwig's trademark effusive post-race interviews attract interest and have brought her a significant following, and a comparatively less well-known Canadian, Alison Jackson - the surprise winner of Paris-Roubaix Femmes - got people talking as much about her sporting achievement as for her post-race dances on social media. But it seems to be limited to that. Let's hope Alison wins a few more races.

In short, we see some great racing in the women's game and there are some outstanding riders. But we could do with more characters and back-stories to make the sport. That's what garners a wider interest than just pure sport, and what brings more eyeballs, and hence increasing TV deals, and sponsorship. We all want to see our favourite sport on television, but clearly given the costs of televising a sport event, there needs to be something in it for the organisers who would sell the rights, and the broadcast companies who purchase the rights, and ultimately the sponsors and advertisers who are hoping to get the visibility and the returns. 

There needs to be solid evidence that loads of people will watch the event on TV. The Tour de France Femmes last year was deemed a success in terms of viewing figures which is great, but that scenario needs to be replicated again and again across the collection of big races in the racing calendar. As annoying as it may be that a women's cycle race isn't shown on terrestrial TV, it has to be kept in mind that it's an ambitious expectation to see a race televised if viewing figures are measured in the thousands - which is not uncommon for some World Tour races -  rather than in the millions.  

Sadly, sponsorship was lacking when it came to the Women's Tour of Britain race. The week-long stage competition had been running since 2014, attracting the best riders in the world, and was a paragon of parity in sport, with the race being televised on terrestrial free-to-air TV in the UK, and offering over a 90,000-euro prize fund - equal to the men's Tour of Britain, and more generous than other World Tour races apart from the Ride London Classique, and the later revived Tour de France Femmes.

But the organisers, Sweetspot, could not sustain this model and find a company willing to become the headline sponsor once the OVO Energy sponsorship ended after 2019. The event took place in 2022 but without a headline sponsor, but this could not continue for 2023. With funds desperately needed following the departure of other sponsors of the winners' jerseys and a vehicle sponsor, crowd funding was set up to try to make up the £500,000 shortfall. Sadly, there was no light at the end of the tunnel for this year.

The organisers, hope to hold the race in 2024, but that remains to be seen. The Vårgårda one-day race in Sweden has been stopped altogether due to economic reasons. Meanwhile, the women's Vuelta a España race, which had been held over one or two days in the September (and known as the Challenge Madrid) has been brought forward to May and will be a week-long stage race. The inaugural women's United Arab Emirates Tour took place in February over four days, and two newish stage races - the Tour de Suisse and the Tour de Romandie continue to establish themselves in the women's racing calendar. The women's calendar is busier than ever with 27 races (including 13 stage races) on the calendar, up from 23 in 2022. This is a far cry from the 17 races (including four stage races) when the calendar was established in 2016.

On paper professional women appear to have significantly less racing to do than their male counterparts who have 20 one-day races and 15 stage races (of which three are three weeks long) on their calendar. But in fact a men's team has around 30 riders in its squad, with an average of 12 sports directors/associate sports directors, so they can run dual squads in parallel. Women's teams don't have the resources to do that, especially as many teams will have just one or two sports directors, and 15 riders to fill the calendar. It is not uncommon for teams to run overlapping squads, and some also have a development squad too, but still, athletes can quickly become maxed out in racing if there are any injury or illness issues. This was a problem for Trek-Segafredo, which led to Lizzie Deignan returning to racing slightly earlier than planned. 

Some of the smaller World Tour Teams have said that the changes in structure and conditions in women's professional racing - increased minimum wages, greater prize money, television coverage, maternity pay - are very welcome, even long overdue. However, this can only be sustained with more cash, which can be challenging to find and sustain.

In the words of a UK Prime Minister, "There is no magic money tree".

Hoping for a great future

As well as the unfortunate absence of a few races from the 2023, in the last couple of years teams have spectacularly folded, among them Team Virtu Cycling, Paule Ka, and B&B Hotels - which led to Chloe Hosking unexpectedly facing the prospect of an early retirement from racing. Lifeplus-Wahoo had previously been a World Tour team (when sponsored Trek), but sponsorship issues led to the outfit dropping down to a Continental team status. As for Zaaf Cycling Team, this has been a catastrophe with several riders leaving, including French National Champion Audrey Cordon-Ragot (who had also been a casualty of the B&B Hotels fall-out) after there were reports of riders and staff not being paid.

Development in women's professional sport is always a good thing. But it is also important that any growth be sustainable. This apparent boom in women's professional cycle racing will do wonders for the future of the sport - for athletes, businesses, media, and inspiring more girls and women to get on a bicycle. But the proportionate financial support needs to be there to keep things going, and there needs to be an incentive for corporations to want to pour money into the sport. 

Serena Williams 

In my opinion, the incentive comes down to eyeballs - maybe a Megan Rapinoe moment, which raised the profile of women's football during the 2019 Fifa Football World Cup, or a Serena (Williams) Slam, circa 2003 and with the matching flamboyance and character - or is it sacrilege if I mention a Lance Armstrong moment - but without the industrial scale doping programme and bullying.

Megan Rapinoe at the 2019 football World Cup

Putting women's professional cycling properly on the map like sports such as football or tennis is easier said than done, at a time when professional women's cycle racing is finding its climbing legs. But I think the gains for the sport would be significant, and can move it from it's current reasonably good place, to a great place.

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52 Cycling Voices (in the time of coronavirus) - 32: Emma Wade

Emma is someone who I have seen around at events over the last five years. She's the one who lurks in the background when the likes of Lizzie Deignan, Elinor Barker, Rebecca Charlton, and other athletes attend a race or make their media appearances. 

In fact Emma is a very important person in the grand scheme of things. She keeps the machine going, doing all the tinkering that makes things come together. Emma is to these athletes what George Martin was to the Beatles, or Simon Cowell to One Direction (for younger readers among you!). 

She has the great job of being a sports agent. I have always been fascinated by the folks who do these behind-the-scenes roles that are of pivotal importance.

Yet Emma doesn't come across at all as one of those types you read about in football biographies that managers perceive as self-serving leeches. Her work is not dissimilar to a football agent's but she's a much nicer person to deal with. In fact Emma took time out to tell me about her role, how she got into it and a little bit about her cycling too.

Emma Wade, aged 40-ish

From: Amersham

Lives: Princes Risborough

Occupation: Agent

I’m not sure I knew what an agent was when I was a child, and if I did, I thought they sounded very shady!!

But I did always want to work in sport or in law and I think being an agent has combined both the interest in working with sports people and the behind scenes of sport, as well as my interest in contracts and negotiation. I wanted to either do that or even win the Olympics, myself (with absolutely no ability at all)! 

I’ve always worked in sport, starting from when I was at school and sold scorecards at Lord’s Cricket Ground as a summer job.

After University I worked was as a sports researcher, looking in to the value of sports rights (broadcast and sponsorship), which was a great background for when I got my next job in a talent management agency, and working as an agent’s assistant in 2003. Things basically went on from there, and I’ve worked with athletes ever since. Then at the end of 2016 I starting my own agency, Bespoke M. 

My job is to manage everything for a client, apart from their on-bike / team commitments. I do not get involved with coaching etc, but I support clients with logistics; overseeing their sponsorship and PR activity; managing media and commercial partnerships; maintaining relationships with key brands, agencies, event organisers, television production companies, publishers, governing bodies, and developing clients' corporate speaking opportunities. 

My first clients for Bespoke M were Lizzie Deignan (née Armitstead), Elinor Barker and Rebecca Charlton – all of whom I still work with now. I also am delighted to now represent others such as Katie Archibald, Lizzy Banks, Amanda Spratt, Tiffany Cromwell and more! They are all in cycling or cycling presenting and hosting such as Rebecca and also Orla Chennaoui.

With Elinor Barker

There's no such thing as a typical day for me! When I can and it’s allowed, I travel to a lot of races to see organisers, brands and clients but don’t attend all of them by any means and certainly wasn't able to do much during the pandemic.

The pandemic affected my work as every event, including the Olympics were cancelled and the future looked bleak. But thankfully two things happened which were invaluable. Firstly, there was a boom in cycling as people started dusting off bikes and getting out there to keep active, or for transport at this strange time. 

It’s been fantastic to see. So cycling brands and agencies have kept me and my clients busy. Secondly, the UCI [Union Cyclist Internationale – cycling’s World governing body] miraculously managed to put a racing season on and we had road racing for a few months as well as the European Track cycling and some cyclocross racing. That has kept me busy and has also meant that everyone was able to plan positively.

My days involve talking to clients, then maybe responding to and organising media requests, responding to sponsorship briefs, or approaching brands and agencies about working with particular clients. I also speak to team directors, sports directors and riders about their plans. I negotiate rider contracts or separate personal sponsorship deals and then make sure the corresponding contract is fair and correct, and delivered correctly.

What I enjoy most is working with my clients. Seeing the hard work and sacrifice they put in is incredibly motivating.

It is hugely satisfying to see clients do well and hopefully be a tiny part of that success through the support I can offer. Lizzie winning her silver medal at London 2012 was a definite highlight for example. In fact, London 2012 overall was a highlight as I was working with a number of Team GB athletes, and the whole experience was amazing; the crowds and support and the success we had was incredible.

On a day-to-day basis the best moments are when you see a successful partnership come to fruition whether that be a rider flourishing in the right team, or a campaign come together between a client and a brand; that’s really rewarding.

With Lizzie Deignan at London 2012 Olympics

The frustrating aspect is the unfairness of working in a sport that is still not balanced between men and women. The women’s sport is younger than the men’s, which has a long and glorious history. 

So, women’s professional cycling has a way to go to equal it in terms of coverage, races, and financially. But I’m working to try and help turn this around by working with the women’s peloton and fantastic organisations such as The Cyclists’ Alliance, to make things fairer.

When working with my clients undoubtedly their health, racing and training always comes first, and everything else has to work around that. If they’re not able to do their day job then I’m not doing my job very well!

After that, how I work with each client varies as everyone works differently. Some riders will send a Whatsapp message while at the velodrome, or on the finish line of a race, and others might need their space 24 hours before a competition for example. You get to know what works best for each person and manage everything around it. Handily I work with road, track and cyclocross riders so they all have slightly different competition schedules, which helps in managing the time I schedule with them. 

The quietest time of year (she says hopefully) is usually Christmas as that’s the one time that clients tend to disappear and spend time with their own families, as well as training. The last thing they want to do is speak to me or do a sponsor appearance!

The busiest time is the rest of the year! Media is busy around competition time, then sponsor commitments and appearances are often higher outside of competition time. Contract negotiations and discussions can happen pretty much all year round now.

Despite my busy schedule I aim to keep active when away from work – whether that be cycling, running, yoga, swimming. I do something most days, and set a time for that which I will try and stick to no matter what. Generally, I manage it even if I have to be flexible on timings. Finding the time is key for me, because the job can be seven days a week, 24 hours a day since you are looking after people’s lives which aren’t 9-5.

Emma gets in a bike ride

I allow myself to do a midday yoga class, knowing I can be chatting to a client at 9pm that night. I also have a very active Springer Spaniel who reminds me regularly when it’s time to go for walkies, and my other half loves cycling thankfully so he’s always up for trips to bike races!

I got my first bike at a young age and it’s always been a part of my life for fun and for leisure – I’ve never raced or had the desire to. I remember getting a pink racing bike with dropped handlebars for my 7 or 8^th birthday. I loved it and have never looked back! I like a bit of mountain biking as well as road cycling. I cycle locally, and am lucky to have the Chiltern Hills and the Oxfordshire countryside on my doorstep. There’s also Swinley Forest, which I ride around on my mountain bike. With my Pendleton bike I use that to visit friends or go shopping locally.

I also love Zwift and just graduated from my first Zwift Academy which was a lot of fun, and really challenged me in a good way. Between cycling for leisure, and for transport I ride most days.

If I could choose one person to go on a bike ride with, I would say my Mum. She used to be a ballerina and loved her cycling, but suffered from Multiple Sclerosis for many years and has lost the ability to do anything physically; she died in January this year. So, I would have given anything to have done a bike ride with her. [Emma's mother died in January 2021.]

The changes I have seen in women's cycling since I first started working with Lizzie in 2009 have been huge. I feel like we’ve come a long way, even if we have so far to go. There is so much more professionalism creeping in now.

There is more coverage (we can actually watch races live now!), media pick up, sponsors, better quality of racing (as more riders can be professional now, without needing other jobs at the same time), and basic salaries and maternity clauses now exist in the top tier.

This definitely needs to filter down to all riders though, and it’s still pretty unheard of for most female professional cyclists to have an agent to be honest. I think the recent Cyclists’ Alliance survey showed 77% of riders didn’t get any help with their contracts last year. But we’re trying to change that.

I don’t know of any other female agents in professional cycling, though I think there may be one other listed by the UCI (internationally). In sport overall I know a few others but there are not many of us.

I’ve always been one of those people who sees what I can do or want to do rather than thinking ‘I can’t do that because…[I’m a woman]’. I was one of the first female members of the Marylebone Cricket Club, and I’m proud to be a part of the change at Lord’s. I suppose it’s similar in cycling. I didn’t really think about how male dominated being an agent or cycling was until I got into it and saw it. I just assumed I could do the job as I learnt my trade. 

Emma is currently the only female UCI-approved agent

When I went to take the agent’s exam at the UCI, in a room full of 20 I was the only woman. So I’m proud to be a woman and whatever that may bring to what I do day-to-day, but I’m also an agent.

My background is working with Olympians who don’t get paid professionally, but make their money from sponsorship. I genuinely felt like I was helping these top professionals to do what they do, rather than the historic bad reputation that agents have! So, I guess I’m a woman doing the job of an agent but I also think my gender is irrelevant to how good I am at my job.   

I have definitely come across sexism in my career sadly, but show me a woman who hasn’t and sadly there will always be people who still need to be educated in gender equality.  Having said that, I didn't see my gender as a barrier to me doing this kind of work. Being an agent is an incredibly competitive environment to work in and that goes for both sexes! 

For anyone wanting to become an agent, I would warn them that it’s very competitive and very niche. It’s also frustratingly non regulated. Anyone can decide to become / call themselves an agent (although thankfully you do have to be registered by the UCI to negotiate professional cycling contracts at least). I would advise people to gather as much experience as possible within the industry first. I worked in sports administration, communication, on the agency side, in events and more, before I became an agent and all of those experiences were invaluable.  Don’t give up if you can’t immediately become an agent, and look at opportunities around being an agent.

Instagram: @bespoke_m  

Twitter: @bespoke_M 

Other Cycling Voices

Rebecca Charlton

Claire Floret

Bithja Jones

Maria Canins

Rochelle Gilmore

Paris-Roubaix Femmes: Pre-thoughts and after-thoughts from the riders

It was great to see this big moment in history over the weekend, when women raced the Paris-Roubaix for the first time ever. I remember asking Christian Prudhomme, of Amaury Sport Organisation (ASO) in 2018, when he thought there would be a Paris-Roubaix for women. He said, at the time that they were focused on a junior race for the male riders, and that they would put on a women's race but there were time constraints and it would be something to look for in the future. Naturally, campaigners for women's cycling were not impressed with this reply.

So it was great news to hear, last year, that a woman's race would be taking place. Finally it came to pass, over the weekend, and it didn't disappoint. Although the route was less than half the distance of the men's race, being 116.4km and without the infamous Forest of Arenberg cobbles, the race was anything but easy. With the women hitting the cobbles after just 30km and going into Mons-en-Pévèle as well as Carrefour de L'Arbre, the racers will have their work cut out for them. Many women were quite clear that they would be in for a tough ride - and it certainly was.

Photo: Trek-Segafredo

There was no bunch finish for first place, as Lizzie Deignan (Trek-Segafredo) won from an 85km breakaway, with Marianne Vos (Jumbo-Visma) who made a spirited attempt to chase down the British rider, entering the famous Roubaix Velodrome more than a minute behind to finish in second place. Deignan's team-mate Elisa Longo-Borghini not far behind in third place. There was a bunch sprint of around 10 riders for the minor placings and thereafter women finished in ones and twos.  

Of 129 starters, just 61 finished, with riders either missing the time cut or dropping out following a crash, notably Annemiek Van Vleuten (Team Movistar) who crashed and broke her pelvis.

Interestingly, the race was topped and tailed by British riders, with the first placed rider being Lizzie Deignan, and the last classified finisher, in 61st place being Abby-Mae Parkinson (Lotto Soudal Ladies). 

I interviewed a number of different women before the race. It is interesting to hear a few of their reactions after their first experience of the Hell of the North:

Alice Barnes, Canyon-SRAM Racing [26th]

Before: 

"I would say it’s [Paris-Roubaix is] one of the races on the calendar that suits me the most, with it being flat, but with the cobbled aspect which will make it a tough race. So I am glad that in my lifetime I will be able to race it. Hopefully I will have some good luck and good legs and get a good result. I heard a lot of people say that there’s nothing like Roubaix cobbles. I would say in Holland or Belgium I have ridden cobbles a bit like it but I think it’s the back to back cobbles and the relentlessness that makes it a much different race from any race on the calendar. Hopefully with it being the women’s first edition we can put on a good race, and it’ll be exciting and I’ll be there in the thick of the action with the rest of my team.

"I am really excited. I do like the cobbles – I don’t know if I will be saying that at the end of Saturday, but it’s just an exciting race and I’ve watched it for years and years when there’s been the men’s racing. I’ve been inspired from that, but hopefully having a women’s edition will inspire more women to want to race the event as well."

Photo: Tino Pohlmann

After:

"To be honest, overall I am disappointed. I just didn't have the legs. I tried to block this out and just kept pushing which seemed the common advice anyway. I found myself in a group that was working fairly well together, and when I got to the velodrome, I just had to ride for the best place I could.

"I wish I could have soaked in the atmosphere at the finish, but I couldn't help but feel disappointed with how my day went. As a team, we had bad luck with losing Kasia [Niewiadoma] early and the puncture of Elise [Chabbey]  as she was really well positioned when she got this and felt she had good legs."

Asked if she would like to return to next year's edition, to be held in April, Barnes was quick to reply. "Yes, 100%. I know this can be a good race for me. I can see myself and Paris-Roubaix having a love-hate relationship for the rest of my career."

Chantal van den Broek-Blaak, SD Worx [10th]

Before:

"The cobbles are bad. They are flat, but there are holes everywhere and you need to have speed to ride over it, and that’s the problem because if you are tired you won’t have the speed anymore. And also the rests [on the tarmacked roads] in between cobbled section are so short – sometimes only 2km or 3km before going into the next section, so that makes it hard. 

"I didn’t really dream about this race when I was younger, as you don’t really know what kind of rider you are. But in the last years I have seen that I am a pure classic, one day racer. I am normally good in the Spring. I have won Flanders and Strade Bianche and those kind of races. So then you know you are able to do it; so of course when I saw this race on the calendar I was directly super-happy. That was my first reaction. My second reaction was I probably can do it, but I didn’t really know, so that made me nervous. I think I prepared well, and in the end we will see how it goes. Maybe I’m not made for it, I don’t know!" 

Photo: Tornanti

After:

"It was super tough, but what a cool race this is. I think everyone is completely empty. It was a really chaotic race, but we were sitting pretty comfortably in. I did not expect [Lizzie] Deignan's attack on the first cobblestone section, however. Super clever of her that she could stay ahead until the end with so much wind and such a tough course. Hats off."

Jolien d'Hoore, SD Worx [Finished outside time limit]

Before:

"Paris-Roubaix is just beautiful. I love it. It’s a hard race. We never experienced anything like this before so it’s going to be new for everybody and I’m really looking forward to it.

"I live on the course of Tour of Flanders and so we have cobbles, but you can’t compare them with these ones in Paris-Roubaix. The cobbles in Paris-Roubaix are more like a bunch of rocks thrown together, whereas the cobbles in Flanders are still pretty smooth.

"I am more a fan of a dry race, where it’s safe for everybody. When it’s raining it’s just going to be a matter of surviving and not crashing. And that has nothing to do with cycling anymore; I just want the best rider to win on Saturday and not the ride who has the most luck.

"Paris-Roubaix is the race I remember the most when I was a little girl. I was watching it on the television from the start until the finish. I can still remember riders like Johan Museeuw and especially Tom Boonen. I can remember 2012 when Boonen did a long solo, so it’s crazy that I am now riding on the same cobbled sections as he did. That just gives me goosebumps."

Photo: Cor Vos

After:

"It was literally hell. We explored the course in dry weather, now the cobblestones were super slippery due to the rainfall. One brake and you crashed. That's Roubaix.
Mentally it was difficult to continue the race after my second crash, but there was never a moment to give up. In my last race [of her career before retiring] I didn't want to get in the broom wagon. I had only one goal left: ignore the pain, get to the finish, and enjoy the last kilometres."

Lizzie Deignan, Trek-Segafredo, [Winner]

Before:

"Paris-Roubaix Femmes is something that should have happened long ago, but it is a big step forward in women’s cycling, and it’s great to see the respect women are gaining in cycle racing. 

"I think the course is fine as it is. When designing the course we have to think about the race and the various teams and riders involved. The most important thing is to have a women’s Paris-Roubaix. Which cobbles should or shouldn’t be included can be looked at in the future."

After:

"I feel very emotional. I am just really proud....I cannot believe it happened.... At the start of the day we said, 'you know the rulebook: anything can happen'. It was a case of just fighting to be at the front in those first cobble sections, and I knew that Ellen [van Dijk], one of our [team] leaders, was not in such a good position. And I thought, 'well if at least I am there [at the front] I can cover something'. And when I looked behind, no one was there, and I thought 'well at least they will have to chase me down, so I carried on.' I was riding with the assurance that my team-mates Ellen, Elisa [Longo-Borghini] and Audrey [Cordon-Ragot] were behind me. We had the best team in the race and that's why I won. 

"I didn't know I was going to win until I entered the velodrome! I couldn't hear anything, my legs were cramping, and I knew that even on the last section you could lose two minutes if you cramped and blew up. I really just tried to keep a regular pace. At this point in the season, I am tired and I knew the best thing for me was to keep a steady pace and stay in front for as long as I could. Paris-Roubaix has always been a men's race and I am just so proud that women's cycling is on the world stage now. I am proud that my daughter can look at the cobblestone trophy."

Women's road race at Tokyo Olympics - strength and depth

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) recently published the number of places available for each nation and the size of the field in the road races for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

Olympic Games rings which represent five participating continents

In the men's road race there are 130 places available, while in the women's race there are 67 places.

Once again this has been followed by the customary outcry and accusations of sexism on the part of the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI).

In an article by cycling campaigner and former professional road racer, Kathryn Bertine she went so far as to suggest that the UCI and the IOC had a policy of "corrupt inequity" that is holding back future Olympians.

I must say that I am not really minded to join the chorus with Katryn Bertine and the numerous other women on this matter. When taking into account the entry criteria for the race, what the Olympics represents, the lack of strength and depth of women's racing compared with men's racing, and the intention to stage a rounded competition, I find it understandable that the field would be the size it is. I cannot see how a women's field of 130 would make for a good quality race in this event, one of the highest levels of women's international cycle racing.

One of the aims of the Olympic movement is to blend sport and culture, and promote sport to everyone across all five continents.

A women's cycle race featured in the Olympics for the first time in 1984 in Los Angeles. At that time the field had only 45 women from 16 nations, most which were in Europe. There wasn't much depth given that outside the top 20 finishers the time gaps over the 79.2km race were huge, with the last placed rider finishing almost 40 minutes behind the winner, Connie Carpenter of the USA.

Bear in mind too, that this event took place within a few weeks of the inaugural women's Tour de France. As funds were not available for women to compete in both sets of races on either side of the Atlantic, riders would have had to choose one or the other, particularly as they will have self-funded their competitions.

Thirty-five years on, the depth of women's racing has increased and many nations have access to funds to allow women to contest the Olympics. Also, riders from more continents are also entering the competition. In Tokyo there will be 42 nations represented in the women's road race, with more nations from Africa than ever before. We could therefore extrapolate that to mean a bigger field.

Indeed the size of the field has increased to almost 70. It is still a lot fewer than the men's field, and the figure has not increased significantly since the Athens Olympics in 2004. (Bear in mind that the men's field for Tokyo will be smaller than the field in Rio 2016.)
The size of the field for the women needs to be considered within the context of the depth of abilities from the different nations, and the question then is, what composition of race is needed when increasing the size of the women's field?

The depth of racing has strengthened, but this is the case when you look at specific continents rather than globally. When comparing the development of cycling between continents there is a vast disparity, meaning that the strength and depth in racing has been driven more from some continents than others - notably Europe, which includes countries like the Netherlands, Italy, and Germany which are churning out very strong riders.

So, if the number of riders in the Tokyo Olympic Women's Road Race is to be increased the result will be a field with a lot more riders from across Europe, plus USA and Australia.

That won't be so much of an Olympic competition tending towards the values and representation of the five contents of the Olympics movement, but more like just another Women's World Tour race.

The top riders, including Britain's Emma Pooley force the pace on Box Hill

So, the Olympic Road Cycling events need to find a way to include riders from the rest of North America, South America, Africa, Asia, and the rest of Australasia while maintaining a high level of competition.

Some nations may well be fielding their best riders, but they may still not be quite at UCI Women's World Tour level.

So it is only fair that the allotted quota of riders from the top nations be capped to a low number, so that those smaller nations that only have one or two riders can still take part in a more harmonised competition than if the field were dominated by nations sending teams with five or six high-ranking UCI Women's World Tour riders.

The qualification criteria for the Tokyo Olympics road race are:

• Nations in the top 15 UCI country rankings
• Highly-ranked individual riders in UCI rankings who represent nations outside of the top 15
• One highly-ranked rider from continental championships (Pan-American, Pan-African Pan-Asian)
• Highly-ranked riders in the 2019 World Road Race Championships, representing nations outside of the top 15
• Host nation (Japan) gets automatic qualification

This has given the opportunity for as many countries as possible to field riders so that a maximum spread of continents are involved in the Olympic Road Race.

When quotas for individual countries are examined, smaller nations may only have space for one or two riders, and these smaller nations are unlikely to have more than one rider who can mix it with the top racers.

So, to those who decry the apparent small field for the women's race and who are calling for a field size comparable to the men's race, I would be interested to know how they propose to increase the field, and how this would be composed.

Being a Londoner, I had the opportunity to watch the women's road race during the 2012 Olympics. What was shown on television and transmitted across the world were the attacks at the front of the 35-strong peloton by the likes of Ellen van Dijk, Kristin, Armstrong, Shelly Olds, Emma Pooley, and other highly-ranked riders. The race looked very exciting.

What those of us who spectated at the side of the road saw, and wasn't shown on TV were the 25 or so riders who couldn't handle the pace and were so far behind the front-runners and the main peloton. Each time the race scaled Box Hill, the gap to the gruppetto (the group of backmarkers) steadily increased, to the point that the last placed riders were easily 10 minutes behind Vos, Armitstead, and Zabelinskaya - the medallists.

These slower riders were mainly from Central American, South American, and Asian nations. They probably did the race of their lives and will definitely have a tale or two for their grand children, even though they were pulled out of the race for being outside of the time limit. But is this really the sort of competition they would have felt happy doing - given that they were probably used to being at the head of the pack in their home nations?

So having a larger field would mean either increasing the number of riders from the stronger nations - which would mean an even larger time gap between the front of the race and the back markers, with them being dropped even before reaching the Doushi Road climb, at KM60. Alternatively the number of riders from the smaller nations could be increased, which will mean far more than 25 riders being shelled off the back on the very testing roads near Mount Fuji, and the majority of them may end up not being allowed to complete the 137km-race.

Furthermore, that scenario would prove costly for those national delegations who may not even have the funds to take so many riders to Tokyo, and this could end up being a waste of money for sports governing bodies, commercial organisations and even the athletes themselves.

In my opinion neither of these scenarios would be a good advert for women's cycle racing.

Mt Fuji and Lake Yamanakako - the setting for the Tokyo Olympics road race

So, before people start calling "foul" to the UCI or the IOC for not having a larger women's field, it is worth bearing in mind the wider implications of simply increasing the number of women racers to equal the men's race men.

It is worth considering the global strength and depth of women's cycling compared to men's cycling, rather than just nominally replicating the size of the men's field.

Hopefully, on Sunday 26th July 2020 the 67-strong field will have the optimal mix of racers that will provide not only a high quality women's competition on the Doushi Road and the Kagosaka Pass, but also enough of a peloton left to see an exciting finale around the  Fuji International Speedway circuit.


UCI document on cycle events in the Tokyo 2020 Olympics


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52 Cycling Voices - 24: Cecilie Uttrup Ludwig

52 Cycling Voices - 25: Monica and Paola Santini

Meet the women behind one of the biggest brands in cycle wear - Monica and Paola Santini. They took over from the business their father, Pietro set up in 1965. Originally a wool factory set up by Pietro's sister in Bergamo, Signor Santini wanted to develop a business that combined the family clothing business with his passion for cycling. Since 2009 the day-to-day running of the company is managed by Monica and Paola, but Pietro still keeps his daily ritual of walking around the factory and catching up on cycling news in Gazzetta dello Sport.

I met Monica and Paola last year at the Rouleur Classic and they were quite enthusiastic about the launch of their latest kit for Trek-Segafredo, and celebrating 30 years of producing the rainbow World Champion's jersey - something we lesser mortals can even buy now. One thing that was quite apparent when speaking to the sisters is their passion for what they do, and particularly their wish to continue the family heritage of producing innovative designs for men and women. Look out for them at Rouleur Classic.

Monica (L) and Paola     (photo: Beardy MCBeard)

Monica Santini

From: Bergamo, Italy

Occupation: CEO, SMS Santini


Paola Santini

From: Bergamo, Italy

Occupation: Marketing Manager, SMS Santini

Monica

Growing up in a family like ours meant that we were immersed in cycling from a very early age as our dad used to explain all the race techniques and strategies to us. That really got me involved in cycling and I fell in love with it. 

My dad owned a team called Rossi-Santini when I was a teenager and always used to take me to see them racing.  
The first World Championships I went to were in Colorado Springs in 1986 -  Moreno Argentin won. I remember it well: I was just a teenager and my father took me along because he couldn’t speak English and needed me as his interpreter.

I was never a competitive cyclist, partly because when I was young, very few girls cycled. Nowadays I cycle at amateur level because I like it and it makes me feel good.

As a small girl I worked in the factory when I was in high school, doing little jobs like helping to lay out the fabrics. Then, when I was at university, I worked in the administration offices. I was there a lot from an early age: at everything from team presentations to official UCI dinners and meetings with sponsors. 

After I graduated, I went abroad for a while to get some experience in other fields, and after that I decided to join for good. That was in 2000 and I started out in administration. Then from 2002 to 2004, I essentially digitalised the company which didn’t had a computer system for the production side. After that I focused on developing our foreign markets and have now been CEO for 10 years. 

Monica with Pietro (L) and Alessandro Petacchi (photo: Santini)

We are an Italian company and, as such, we are very focused on design, fashion and beauty. 

In terms of the production process, I have always worked very actively with the production managers, trying to learn as much as I could from them. I love working with those very professional people.  

I remember Santini making wool jerseys very well because I have been involved in the company since I was a little girl. It was an unusual technique as the wool had to be woven and embroidered. 

Santini has been a partner of the UCI since when they approached us about making the World Champion's jersey over 30 years. We started in 1988, with the victory of Maurizio Fondriest. 

The fact that a body as important as the UCI had chosen us to make the World Champion's showed their faith in our skills. We were able to guarantee quality clothing and fast delivery times.  The first jerseys we made were wool and we had to have wool in all the - quite unusual - rainbow colours in stock.

When people talk about the World Championships, they are normally only thinking in terms of road cycling but there are many others championships: from mountain bike to lesser known ones such as cycle-ball or artistic cycling, etc. All those World Championships have their own jersey designs. For example, cycle-cross and mountain-bike champion jerseys are often cut very differently.

In terms of size, we don’t just make one jersey but the same jersey in a choice of sizes that have to reflect the size of the athletes that will win and wear them on the podium. They won’t be worn in competition so we don’t have to worry about fitting.

Although we had transitioned from wool to Lycra and polyester by the time I joined the company in 2000, the other changes in the interim have been significant too; from the fit, which has become more body-hugging, to the addition of different materials to boost stretch, for instance.  In the last few years in particular, we have been doing more and more research into treatments and fabrics: it is an ongoing process because we never want to stop innovating.  

We have been producing women-specific products for at least 20 years, and in that time have focused on driving forward with our projects with women's pro teams and athletes. Our goal since the outset has been to give women the same standard of products that we make for men, so we have never produced less technical clothing or used lower performance fabrics for women. 

Lizze by Santini and Trek-Segafredo kit

We applied the research and development processes  we use for our men’s products to our women’s clothing: we chose more body-hugging cuts designed for women’s body shapes, perhaps adding in a bit more colour and playing around a bit more with the graphics to make them more attractive to female tastes.  

What was definitely different, however, was the quantity of products: while there were a lot of men’s collections, the selection of women’s products was limited, at first. But that too has changed t in recent years. In fact, our women’s collections now mirror our men’s very accurately in both quality and quantity.

We work with the top women’s pro teams like Boels Dolmans, and pro athletes like Lizzie Deignan. Working with sports people of that level has helped us realise what we needed to do differently to suit women’s bodies and needs. In the past, we also worked with the Australian Cycling Federation in providing kit for women cyclists. 

We always organise fitting sessions with our athletes and we get them to test out all the materials they will be wearing to see if they are fine as they are or if we need to adapt them to the competitors’ bodies. 

We have been working with Lizzie Deignan in creating the Lizzie for Santini collection. I spoke to Lizzie early last year about clothes and she said she really likes Santini clothing, even before she was asked to design it. 

She was riding for Boels Dolmans at that time and we were already sponsoring the team. We liked Lizzie a lot and with everything that she does and what she represents for women’s cycling, so we approached to see if she had ever thought about doing something in the industry. She like the idea of the work that we had done previously for another big rider, Anna Meares, on her Anna collection. So we started creating the Lizzie for Santini collection.

It has been hugely important for us to work with an athlete of Lizzie’s calibre. She is very focused on detail and is very determined.  That striving for perfection is something we share and so we’re absolutely on the same wavelength.  Being able to craft our collection around the needs of an athlete of her level has been a very positive experience for us – as was the case with Anna Meares a few years ago. 

In the past, we were met with some confusion and reluctance: “What you are you doing that for?” and “Why are you making women’s products? They are no use to anyone, no one wants them. It’s a waste of time”, etc., etc. But time proved us right: now there are more and more women’s collections and products and that is because more and more women are becoming involved in this sport.   

Based on my own experience, I would say that women are able to embrace that marvellous crossover between sport and fashion in addition to being able to create groups in a less vertical way and more as a team. 

My transition to managing the company and being part of the cycling industry wasn’t so rapid that people ended up saying: “What just happened?” I worked with dad for a very long time and it was a very easy, natural transition between him and his daughters, in-house.  

After several years, he just said to us: “It is time to pass the baton”.  My father still comes to the factory every day.  The outside world didn’t immediately accept the fact that the company was being managed by two women. But despite a few difficulties, we have built up excellent business relationships. 

It is true that this is a male-dominated sector with a very low percentage of women. But I have never looked on myself as a women when I am at work. I see myself as a professional with goals and even when people reacted oddly, I never thought they were doing so because I was a woman but because they thought I was young or a bit green. The important thing is never to give in to the sceptics. 

Inside the Santini factory (photo: Beardy MCBeard)

Being a woman has never been a problem for me or limited me in anyway. In fact, it has been a plus, an advantage. 

The fact that we still have such a solid relationship with the UCI after 30 years is down to the fact that we do what we do well and with passion, and we are fast and flexible. Those are things our dad taught us and which we teach in the company.   

We have our own in-house version of the Ten Commandments written by our collaborators and listing our values and our guidelines. The first Commandment is: quality before everything. That means there is a philosophy shared by the whole company.  

I, together with my sister, Paola, manage the company and the worksforce is 97% female; it’s actually strange to say that in an industry which is male-dominated. We are rooting for women’s cycling to grow more and more and we are all bike riders ourselves. So of course it is natural to think that we want to create something that we like, and if we like it, hopefully other women will like it too. 

Paola

Dad used to take me to local races during summer. He started doing that when I was two. I liked going to watch the track racing with dad; the six-day races were my favourites as I could see the whole race and it was so much fun.

Natatlina, Pietro's sister at the original
Santini wool clothing workshop (photo: Santini)

Cycling has always been part of my life but I never raced when I was little as my dad was afraid I might get hurt. He thought swimming was a much safer sport for a girl. Now I am an amateur triathlete. I discovered triathlon six years ago and fell in love with it.

I quite literally grew up in the factory as at the time, we lived in an apartment on the top floor of the building! Dad always let us walk around the production floor and watch what all the different staff were doing. What happens here is magical for a small child. I see it now with my own kids. They think we create dreams out of colours and fabric!

As I grew up, I used to do small jobs in the office and help out whenever I could after school or during summer holidays.

I learned about the design and production process by watching and asking our designers and technicians thousands of questions. I used to ask thousands of questions when I was a child, and I still do today!

I started working in the family business in April 2009 after six years' working in London in the marketing and PR office of a fashion brand.

When we work with Lizzie Deignan she is involved in the earliest stage of the process, from when we brainstorm ideas for the design and the models in the collection. Then she receives all the photos of the developments of the prototypes and tests some of them too. Her feedback is invaluable and she loves being around fabrics and colours when we create the collection. I think she has a lot of fun.

It is very important to have women involved in the management of a clothing company. Women have a lot to give to this sport, especially in the clothing business. My father has always thought that women are very quick to understand fabrics and design. In my opinion, a woman’s life is like an endurance sport, like cycling. So we are kind of used to dealing with endurance and with the complexity that managing a company like ours involves every day.

Santini President, Pietro with Monica (L) and Paola

Dad is still our president and the symbol of our company. He comes to work every day and loves to walk around the factory to see what’s going on. He doesn’t make all the decisions anymore, but we like to get him involved and ask for his opinion.

The cycling industry has changed a lot through the years. We are no longer the only women in the business. There are still relatively few of us but our numbers are growing. I remember that at the first trade shows I did, people were looking at me and thinking “She is blonde, young and female.  What does she know about cycling?” But I have always proved them wrong and made them change their mind!

Website: www.santinicycling.com
Facebook: Santini Cycling Wear
Instagram santini_cycling

Twitter: Santini_SMS

Other Cycling Voices
Cecile Uttrup Ludwig

Giorgia Bronzini

Alex Davis

Rebecca Charlton

Jenni Gwiazdowski