52 Cycling Voices - 37: Marion Rousse

Amaury Sports Organisation are the organisers of the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift, and like with its other races it appoints a director. The men's Tour de France has Christian Prudhomme, while the women's equivalent is Marion Rousse. For such an event ASO couldn't have chosen a more appropriate person for the job, given Ms Rousse's very strong pedigree. 

Born into a cycle racing family, Marion recalls going to watch her father compete in semi-professional races when she was barely five years old. A couple of years later she was racing herself, and went on to become a professional racer and French National Champion. Marion has since retired and become a sports broadcaster and gained experience as a director of other races. 

I had the pleasure of interviewing Marion on a few occasions and was impressed at how industrious she is, as well as being a new mother  and partner to one of the most successful road racers, two-time world champion Julian Alaphilippe.

Marion Rousse, aged 32

From: Valenciennes

Lives: Andorra

Occupation: Director, Tour de France Femmes and Sports broadcaster for France Televisions 

I am the director of the Tour de France Femmes and Consultant for France Televisions Sports, as well as being a mum - though being a mum is what takes up the most of my time.

There is a lot to manage, but my life has always been about doing different things in various places with full days. And as well as that I am always doing bike-related things - something I love.

I started cycle racing aged six, so I’ve always had a routine to follow throughout my life. It comes naturally to have to manage a routine so that's no different. It comes naturally, though now that I have little Nino, I try not to travel too far away from him and I bring him with me as much as I can. It’s lovely to get home on a Sunday evening and spend time with him. It’s a routine that I have managed to establish, and I feel lucky to be able to do what I love.

Having Nino has been the biggest change in my life, and probably the same for people who become a parent. Having a baby changes your life and your priorities, and my biggest priority is Nino. I would say it has given me a calmer more mature outlook on my job in a way I didn’t have before. I certainly feel like I have grown up a lot since I became a mum.

When I’m at home I leave my telephone aside and dedicate myself 100% to Nino, and to Julian when he is home. It’s true that it’s my form of self-preservation when I am at home. As I may only have one day at home, I cut myself off from work things so that I can give myself the time I need to relax, otherwise I would explode! 

In my free time I look to do sport. That’s the thing I really need to do. I feel good physically and mentally when I have done a bit of jogging or cycling. I also like to go for relaxing walks in the countryside when I can, in the afternoons with Nino and Julian. Julian is into music, and so he plays his electronic drumkit sometimes.  

We live in Andorra for part of the year and then I do day trips to Paris at times. Then with my job I am lucky enough to travel to various events around France. One would say I live a bit all over France!

I am originally from near Valenciennes. I am a proper northerner, and grew up in a village where there were 600 inhabitants. So it was really in the countryside where there wasn’t even a boulangerie. A famous film called Welcome to the Sticks was based in that area. My parents still live in the area and I go up when the Paris-Roubaix race is on as they live really close to one of the cobbled sections. 

When I was growing up I was always watching bike races on TV with the family. There wasn’t a single televised race that I missed – whether it was Paris-Roubaix, the Tour de France or Tour of Flanders. Roubaix was special for me because I was in a cycling academy and I did all my championship races at the velodrome in Roubaix, and the local championships were held there each year. So as Northerners we were really proud watching the Paris-Roubaix and I could say, ahh the Roubaix Velodrome, I’ve already won races there. I would often ride some of the cobbled sectors too. 

I would have liked to race the women's Paris-Roubaix, even if it is a poisoned chalice as it is nevertheless the most difficult race in the world. It’s the most tiring race mentally and physically. It might be flat, but the paves are so difficult and in such a bad state that when you ride them you are aching everywhere – on your arms, your fingers, everywhere, though less on the legs as it is quite an atypical course. 

I think I would have loved doing it, as much as I would have hated doing it. But it’s sure I would have still been on the start line to do it if I'd had the opportunity. 

I was born into cycle racing. My cousins raced professionally, and my dad also raced at a high level as he was a first category rider. So as a baby I was already at the roadside in the buggy, watching bike races. Cycling really has been there all my life. After a while I had enough of being at the side of the road cheering on my dad; I wanted to have a go at cycle racing. So when I announced to him, aged six, that I wanted to get into cycling he wasn’t in favour of it at first. He said it was too hard and I was too young.

So, one day my mum secretly signed me up to race. Then when my dad returned from work I showed him my licence, saying there you go dad, I can now race. He just laughed and said, “Okay you can race but I’m telling you now, we won’t be going to races every weekend.” We went the following weekend, and in the end he became my coach and he did accompany me to all the races after that.

I have an older sister, Flavie, who is six years older than me. We have very different temperaments, which was obvious from birth. My sister has always been very calm and relaxed, whereas I’ve always been the one who would run around everywhere and always on the move. I was always energetic getting into rough and tumble and would come home with my clothes all dirty and with lumps and bumps on my body. That thing of running around energetic doing lots of activities has still continued into adulthood.

I raced at a time when women’s cycling was not as developed as it is now and was not so professional. There were big differences in the level of racing. Some women were very strong, earned higher salaries and won a lot and then there was everyone else. I was at Lotto Soudal, but had to work at the same time in order to earn a living. So it was by chance that I got the opportunity to be a commentator for a few cycle races on TV. Initially I was both a professional racing cyclist and a commentator. But I got the impression that I wasn’t doing any of them very well.

Doing the two was hard to juggle and I began to reconsider my future given that at the time I was 25 and already had a 20-year career in cycle racing. After all, I had been racing since I was six years old! So I already had thousands of kilometres in my legs. 

So I decided to take this golden opportunity to further my work in the media. I was enjoying it so much that I thought maybe this is the moment to turn the page and move in a new direction. And I must say, I don’t regret that decision.

I can't say I prefer one type of job over the other as the two are completely different jobs and I reallly enjoyed doing both. I had a wonderful time being a professional cycle racer but there were more sacrifices to make in terms of lifestyle, being out training all day.

Being a consultant in media doesn’t require hours of training like I used to. Of course I still get on my bike and keep fit, but not for as may hours as before – and it certainly doesn’t tire your legs out like before. But it’s still hard work, commentating on the races. 

I can't really say I miss being a cycle racer. It's just that I'm not really one to look back on things. Once I have done something I tend not to look back much. That’s how I’ve always functioned. I don’t even pose myself the question. I am just happy to commentate on the cycle races on France TV, given that it’s a national channel. My character is to move on without looking back and wishing I was doing what I used to do. I'm not nostalgic.

Even if I’m not part of the exciting racing that is going on now in the women’s peloton, I really love commentating on it for France TV and knowing that the racing is reaching a wider audience. Women’s cycling has developed a lot, and I am just really happy to see the future developments in women’s cycle racing.  

The problem in women's cycle racing is that historically there was a massive difference in level among the women. There were a couple of teams that paid their riders well – though that was quite rare in the women’s peloton. And because of that you had some women who raced but were more like amateurs and then there were others who were paid professionals. Whereas now you can see that because of the evolution in women's cycling there are women who can compete on a more level playing field and it is great to see that. It’s not always the same women who win – there are various scenarios that play out in a race and the courses are very different.

It’s great that now when you watch a women’s race it’s not easy to predict who will win, as the competition is at a much higher level and there are good routes designed for the race.

It’s true that women haven’t had the same treatment as they do now, and the professionalism that exists in women’s racing now is normal, where before it wasn’t. It’s great that we have things like the minimum salary now, but it’s a shame that we had to wait so long for this to happen.

Even if I know we still have some way further to go in the evolution I tend to be optimistic and I look to the future, looking forward to more positive things for women’s cycling and women’s sport in general, rather than saying “damn, I didn’t have the opportunity to do this or that when I was a racer.” I’d rather focus on moving forward.

There are more and more important races for women, like Fleche Wallonne, Tour of Flanders and now we have the Paris-Roubaix, which was brilliant to watch and even gets good viewing figures. But we were missing a stage race of reference for women. Well, the most beautiful cycle race in the world is the Tour de France, which is such a big race that it goes beyond sport and resonates so much for the sport of cycling. 

So having a women’s Tour de France is the best thing that can happen. And Amaury Sport Organisation treats it in exactly the same way as they do with the men’s Tour de France. It's great to have a stage race of reference for the women. It is the best thing that can happen for women’s sport. 

For me, in accepting the role of Director of the Tour de France Femme with Zwift, I had to know that Amaury Sports Organisation were treating the race with the same attention as they do with the men’s Tour de France – not just doing the race for the sake of it. They needed to really want to do it, and I hope that young girls can watch this race and be inspired to become a cycle racer. The plans are in place, the route is in place, the women are ready so we are ready to go and it’s going to be super.

The work I have done in previous jobs have helped set me up as Tour de France Femmes director. I didn't just come from nowhere to do this role. I have the experience of having been a professional cyclist. I have been in the media with France Televisions, so I know the journalistic side of things as well. And the organisers cap is something I learned from being joint director of the Tour de Provence. When I stepped into the world of race organising I was surprised at everything I discovered I had to do, and all the constraints around the work which form part of cycle racing these days.

It is paramount when taking the role of race organiser that I understand these aspects when taking on the role. I understand the importance of having meetings with the town councils, looking for sponsors, engaging with local cycling/interest groups, and how to design a route. So my experience in organising the Tour de la Provence helped me in quickly assimilating into the role as Tour de France Femmes director.

I never imagined that I would be the director of the Tour de France Femmes, though I must also say I never imagined working in television either or doing the other things I've done! It was Christian Prudhomme himself who called me to say he was really thinking of me for the role of Director of the Tour de France Femmes, and he asked if I was interested. Well, I didn’t hesitate in accepting the offer. It’s an amazing opportunity, and something that I am proud of. Cycling has brought me so much over the years, so if I can bring something to cycling in my role, I will do it with my heart. 

I raced with a few of the women who are still in the women’s peloton. I raced with Annemiek Van Vleuten (who retired last year), Marion Vos, Elena Cecchini, and women who were in the French squad who are still on the circuit now. So it’s nice to have this link. Whether they are women I know or not, we are all there with the same objective, to make our sport more well-known and we are travelling in the same direction. 

I think that the women's Tour de France could serve a role as to inspire little girls to want to have a go at racing at this level. They will switch on the TV and will see women on a bike, and they may even say to themselves “Well I could have a go at that too” and they won’t pose themselves the question about whether they can do it or not. In fact what we would like, by holding and televising the Tour de France is to show that yes it is possible to do bike racing – whether you’re a man or a woman. We want to show that if you want to do cycle racing you can, and it is perfectly normal to see women cycle racing on TV.

I feel very comfortable in the work I do, and I just get on with it without thinking whether I am a man or a woman. I’ve always been keen to move up the ladder, but I also think that if I move up it was because I proved myself and not because they wanted to just have a woman in place and it looks good to do that. I like to think that I earned my place because I knew what I was talking about.  

So the best reply I can give to people who are stuck on the fact that a woman shouldn’t be on a bike, or I have nothing to say to a woman about cycling …I don’t need to explain anything to them because I don’t have anything to say to them, and I will just show them – whether that’s with women’s cycling in the Tour de France Femmes – that we deserve that. We have nothing to explain because we are in our well-deserved place and we can do our jobs well. It’s for others to change their opinions, and that can come from them, rather than us needing to explain anything to them or persuade them about anything. 

So my advice would be that women should go out and do exactly the thing that they love and to not get a complex about having a go at it be it cycling or rugby. Do whatever you want to do. 

Marion Rousse on Instagram

Other cycling voices

Sadhbh O'Shea

Emma Wade

Pauline Ballet

Cecilie Uttrup Ludwig

Claire Floret

Monica and Paola Santini

Maria Canins

Rochelle Gilmore

Rebecca Charlton

Hannah Bussey

Sadhbh O'Shea's journalism tales and tips

Sadhbh (pronounced "sive", like hive) O'Shea has over 10 years' experience in journalism, and has been a prolific writer, working across the cycling titles Cycling News, and Velo News, as well as doing a stint at the BBC. 

She previously shared with me how she got into cycling journalism and what she likes about it.

At the Tour de France (photo: Betsy Welch)

Now, Sadhbh is preparing to move to the other side, working in PR for Team Jayco-AlUla professional cycle racing team. 

Before she transforms herself into a suit, she recalls some journalism anecdotes, notably from working at the last few editions of the Tour de France. 

A busy summer 2023

Yes, it’s been a particularly busy summer – more so than recently. I did the last eight or nine days of the Tour de France and then I did the Tour de France Femmes. But with the Cycling World Championships in Glasgow happening so close afterwards, coming home to the Isle of Man, and then going away again was quite arduous. Soon after that I went to cover races in Canada.

Tour de France

This year was the latest I’ve ever come out for the men’s race, which was a challenge, as so much had already happened. So I started working at the Tour from the penultimate Saturday, on the stage into Morzine. It took a little while to adjust to that, and then I left before the race finished because I had to be in Clermont Ferrand for the start of the women’s race, and be able to do the pre-race stuff.

I didn’t get to do any pre-race work for the 2022 Tour de France Femmes. That year I worked the first 10 days of the men's race and then I went home. Because of staffing levels, I had to work on the men's race from home until the final Friday, and then I flew out to Paris on the Saturday. 

This year I wanted to leave early from the men’s race as we already had someone covering it, so I was able to do all the Tour de France Femmes pre-race coverage.

By that time the Tour de France had moved into the Jura, so it was about a three-hour drive to Clermont Ferrand, where the Tour de France Femmes was starting – so not too bad, all things considered. I was glad I left when I did because if I had waited until they were further up, it would have been a nightmare to try and pick up a car somewhere and then drive more and more diagonally across France. Whereas leaving from Bourg en Bresse was logistically a significantly easier drive than it would have been if I had left later.

I was at the Tour de France for the time trial from Passy to Combloux, which was pretty dramatic. We were stood at these gazebos beyond the finish line and there was a TV in there so we were watching the coverage. I don’t think anyone could really believe what was happening. I think people had thought Vingegaard would be stronger than Pogacar, but not so much stronger. 

I don’t think we’ve ever really seen Pogacar look that second hand before. It was still a good race, but in relation to Vingegaard he wasn’t anywhere near enough. We were just shocked at seeing Pogacar looking properly second best. It was an unusual situation to be in. So yeah, it was quite interesting being where we were. There were fans stood on the side of the road near where we were and it was quite the buzz – you could feel the ripples of surprise and shock among everybody.

Race-day logistics

A Tour de France day is almost always super long, unless it's a short stage. Things condense a little around rest days as you don’t have to do as much travelling.

But when they’ve got the big transitions where you have to jump from one region of France to another region really far away, you end up doing some really long drives during the day. I remember last year when the race dipped into Switzerland for a bit and came back out again, there must have been a two and a half drive from the start to the finish on motorways. 

I tend to work better in the morning – it’s not to say I can’t work better later in the day, but I am not a night owl. I tend to stop working once I’ve had dinner, so in the morning if I’ve got a bit of time I finish off work from the night before. It usually means I do it before breakfast so I can get it out of the way. 

There's usually a point at which we have to leave the hotel, and that is generally to allow ourselves to arrive up to two hours in advance of the stage start. You also want to try to avoid getting caught up in the caravan. 

If it’s an easy way into the media area and you don’t have to cross the course, and you don’t have to mix with other areas to get to the car park that’s fine, but most days you do. So if you arrive just as the caravan is leaving you are stuck for 20 minutes while you wait for them to pass. And then that is 20 minutes of dead time just stuck in the car waiting for the caravan to go through. So it's best to try and avoid that. You’ve also got to account for traffic, so you could be leaving your hotel. So depending where your hotel is, you could be leaving between three and four hours before the stage starts. 

We might stop at a service station and get some food, depending on whether or not there'll be food in the press room. In the last couple of years there’s been a WhatsApp group set up by the Tour de France organisers where they make and announcements and give information to the accredited journalists. One of the pieces of information they send is whether there will be food in the press room. It’s up to the host town or city to put on food. Some cities really want to show off whatever food they’ve got, and keep the journalists happy, so they’ll put on a good press room buffet. Other cities couldn’t care less, so you won’t get anything.

At La Planche des Filles in recent years the food has been quite good, but at the top of Alpe d’Huez, there's cheese and bread and that’s about it. I remember the stage that finished in Saint Gervais de Mont Blanc this year had a decent buffet. Last year at the Tour de France Femmes I remember at one of the stages we were given champagne. It wasn't at Epernay, though when we went there we did get a lot of nice finger food. 

The hazards of reaching the finish line

Sometimes things can go wrong on the day. For example on the stage into Epernay, during the Tour de France Femmes me and my colleague's car had mechanical trouble. We managed to make it to the yellow jersey press conference but we had to skip the winner's press conference so that we could get out in time to exchange our car at the nearest Hertz office. The car was having trouble with hill starts. I live in a hilly area, so am normally all right with hill starts, but I couldn't get the car going. So one of the security guards had to come in the car and floored the accelerator to get it going. He gave it so much welly I thought he was about to steal it! The thing is he had to do that because we were on the course.

On that day journalists had to cut across the course, which was part of a final loop before the riders crossed finish line, in order to reach the press room situated in the middle of the loop. You could only cross the course at a very specific point. So my colleague and I were trying to find where that point was. At the Giro d'Italia you normally get a QR code in the road book so it can give you the exact GPS coordinates. But the Tour de France road book doesn't have that, and we just couldn't figure out where we needed to go. We kept going down these different turnings and then going "nope, that's not it". The car was making weird noises, and then there was a big clunk. My colleague got out to check that the exhaust hadn't fallen off. It hadn't, but we were still on the course and the security guard had to get us off pretty quickly. 

Finish-line flurry 

It is quite stressful dealing with the end of the race. I can feel the adrenaline rising as the race is getting nearer and you have to spring into action as soon as the riders cross the line and especially as I am only 5ft 3 (1m 60). So trying to see over the tops of journalists' heads and find people to interview is quite a challenge. That can be quite interesting!

Depending whether you’re on your own or whether there are a couple of people working for the same publication you might have a chat about who we’re going to aim for and then see what happens afterwards. If you're own your own you have to go on your instincts and try and identify what stories have been important within the race that will be interesting to tell. Normally you are guaranteed some sort of press conference or media moment with the winner after the race. At the Tour of Oman this year, it was just a huddle behind the podium. At that one you didn’t really have to worry because you could also find other people than the winner too. Often it’s a case of running around a little bit like a blue-arsed fly, but with a mission at the same time. It can be difficult.

Interviewing Matej Mohoric in the mixed zone (photo: Ben Delaney)

Getting the best out of mixed zone interviews

How you approach mixed zone interviews is a bit different nowadays, especially with the bigger names where you are guaranteed several journalists will be there. It has changed a little bit, as just reporting that “This rider said this at the end of a stage” is becoming less important because so many people have that quote, and a growing number of websites have paywalls. So if you just write that story that “Geraint Thomas said, ‘I’m very happy’ after a stage” then people will look and say, "Well there’s a paywall there. I’ll go to a different website where there’s no paywall." So it has become about finding themes and topics and packaging things differently. 

So the writing has become less about "I need to get things out as soon as possible" and more about "I need to try and make this as strong as possible" and finding the overall story within it, and it has become less of a rush to get things done. It was definitely like that when I first started – getting all your stuff and then racing to the press room and trying to write as quickly as possible, which can be stressful and quite challenging. Back when I was working at Cycling News, and I was at the Tour de France it was quite testing, as someone who struggles with dyslexia, and it could be quite difficult trying to get things planned out and in the right order. So it is definitely better to have a more relaxed approach to post stage/race writing.

Getting to the press room

Often the the race course does a nice U-shape or N-shape so you can cut from the start to the finish and you’re there a long time in advance of the stage finish. That way you’ve got time to write some stuff up and publish it before the crucial part of the race. So that’s a nice day if you can do that. But if not, sometimes you might arrive quite late so you really only have enough time to get yourself set up, maybe get a bit of food in you and then you’re watching the finish. 

Sometimes the press room, especially in the Tour de France, which is really big, may end up being quite a distance away from the finish line. There was one stage where we drove from the press room to near the finish line. It was the stage that Kaspar Asgreen won (to Bourg en Bresse), and it was a long walk and very hot. So we drove there to save time. 

But sometimes that's not possible, and you just have to walk it. For the Tourmalet stage of this year's Tour de France Femmes it was quite the adventure. It was quite a drive to get there from the previous day’s finish town, Blagnac near Toulouse. It was about a two and a half hour drive to get there, so I missed the start of the Tourmalet stage. 

On some of the really big mountain stages you might as well miss the start because anything you get at the start is going to be completely irrelevant by the end of the day unless you pick up quotes for a completely different thing. If you speak to the big favourites or whatever the whole race could be upended, so there’s no point in doing it. 

If I had gone to the start at Lannemezan I would have missed a lot of other things and it would have taken ages to get up to the finish line anyway. So I set off early for Tourmalet , and checked into my hotel along the way. That took longer than planned because the lady at the reception had disappeared, leaving a note saying “back in an hour”. Well, I don’t know when the hour started, so I just waited - thankfully for not too long, as I still got to the press room early enough. However, the press room was at La Mongie, 4.3km down from the Tourmalet finish line, and there was no organised transport to get there. You could do it by car if you went up the day before, and obtained a special pass beforehand. Alternatively you could get what they said was a cable car. It was not a cable car. It was a chair lift, and for someone who is not a fan of heights it was not a nice discovery! 

I had to walk 20 minutes to get to the chair lift, and get on the right one. The thing is the chair lift stopped working at 6pm, and because the organisers wanted the stage to be on at Saturday prime time television, the stage didn't finish until just after 7pm. So I had to walk down the mountain. I had thought I could just walk off-road a bit between the hairpins of the climb. But it was so misty by the time the stage finished and I probably could only see about three or four feet (around one metre) in front of me. There was no way I could ramble across that and risk ending up in a ditch with a broken leg. So it was a case of walking down the climb, using the torch on my phone to see the way, and then shining it at traffic so that I could be seen. By the time I reached the press room the winner's press conference had long finished and everything was closed.

I was still able to get material for my story though, as generally the journalists are quite friendly and help each other out. If you ask someone in advance they can usually give you an audio of what was said in the press conference. 

 

Cycling World Championships, Glasgow

Going there was relatively smooth for me. I was able to get the boat from the Isle of Man, where I live, to Heysham, just north of Lancaster. For the first time ever I could use my own car in a race, and that made things very chilled, so I didn't have the worry of going to a car rental company and sorting all that out. 

Initially I was going to cover just the road races, but while on the boat I made a snap decision to see some of the mountain biking. It meant that I would have to miss the Under-23 men's road race. It was surprisingly okay for me to have a last-minute change of plan, even if it was a two-hour drive to get to the mountain biking.

As a once every four years event it's a nice thing to have. A lot of riders said they quite enjoyed the atmosphere of a "Superworlds", event though it was quite spread out. It was nice for the fans to have so much going on. But for me to see the mountain bike racing I had to miss the Under-23 men's race, so that race got less press coverage than it might have had in a regular World Championships. Some of the smaller category races may have lost out on some publicity and air time compared to a regular World Championships. 

It was particularly difficult for media organisations that only had one journalist at the World Championships, and was a logistical challenge to figure out what you were going to do, where you were going to go, while making it as easy as possible. I am sure a few people covered the downhill mountain biking in Fort William, but that was really far away compared to anything else. Even Glen Tress, where they had cross country mountain biking was a good trek away. 

For the more niche side of the sport like artistic cycling it did give the public the opportunity to see it where they might not otherwise have done so. The cycle ball and artistic cycling actually sold out. I don't know if it will have a long-term impact but it was certainly a nice moment for those disciplines.

Being a recognised face in cycling media

To a certain extent more riders recognise me now that I am doing a lot more women’s cycling, and Covid video interviews have become more of a thing. In the past it was just telephone calls if you were doing an interview, so the rider wouldn’t know what you looked like until the next time you saw them. It didn’t build that sort of repertoire with them, like it does now. 

Generally as a woman in cycling you stand out anyway as there are so few of us, so riders tend to remember maybe not necessarily your name, but they will identify you as a journalist, and they will probably remember your demeanor or manner more than a male journalist because there are an awful lot more of them. I was quite surprised at a Classics race that a rider had seen me at the end of a cobbled section one day and when I spoke to them two days later they remembered me and said, "Was that you on the cobbles?" And I was like, "Yes it was, me". I was quite surprised that they’d actually recognised me. It definitely happens on the women’s side as I do all the women’s cycle races whereas a lot of journalists dip in and out of them. The women’s peloton appreciate it when they have journalists that are working on their races throughout the year, and they identify with you a little bit more. I wouldn’t say they are more friendly than the men’s peloton, as most riders - male or female - are friendly anyway. But the women seem more at ease with you.

My tips for anyone wanting to become a journalist

There’s no one way of doing it. I don’t think people should think this is exactly what I have to do and if I don’t do it this way I’m never going to get in.

I went through the university route. I did an undergraduate course, then a masters and then after a year and half or two years of applying for jobs I eventually got a job in the cycling industry. 

My main piece of advice would be perseverance, as it's a tough area to get into. Don’t be put off by not getting accepted early on because it has become a lot more popular as a sport to become involved in reporting on. 

For me, perseverance would be the big thing, as I was applying for stuff for two years, and worked in finance before I got a job in cycling. Sometimes it just takes one person to take a chance on you and then you’ve got your foot in the door.

There probably will be a few rejections as that’s the way it goes unfortunately. 

My other big piece of advice would be to keep practicing your writing. If you don’t have the funds to be able to go to university to do a specific course on journalism there are books available and guides on line on how to make a story, how to plan one out. Those sorts of guides will help you. Create a blog, put stuff on line. The more you practice writing, the more you read, the better you become at it. 

Lastly, pitch things to editors. Come up with an idea and send it to an editor. A lot of use have been naïve at the start of our careers and just sent an email to an editor, saying “I’m happy to work if you want me. Please have me.” Editors like to have ideas and a story plan that’s been put together where they can say “I like that, okay – I would like you to do that.” Then they can start seeing how you work. But first of all you have to have the idea to go in. 

Photo: Team Astana/Vitali Abramov

As someone with dyslexia I did not see it as a barrier to making a career out of writing. You'd be surprised about how many people with it write for a living. Don't get disheartened by knockbacks either. Everyone has them - keep trying, and be kind to yourself.

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52 Cycling Voices - 36: Sadhbh O'Shea

52 Cycling Voices - 33: Pauline Ballet

52 Cycling Voices - 32: Emma Wade

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Book review: Le Fric: Family, Power, and Money: The Business of the Tour de France - Alex Duff 

Freewheeling: Alpe d'Huez finale for the 2024 Tour de France Femmes could be spectacular

A spontaneous applause rippled through the audience at the Palais des Congres, Paris as Marion Rousse revealed Alpe d'Huez as the concluding stage of the 2024 Tour de France Femmes.

The auditorium, packed, with a couple of thousand people - a mixture of professional cycle racers, cycling industry executives, sponsors, sports associations, local government representatives, governing body chiefs, and sports media - had come to watch the grand presentation of the 2024 Tour de France and Tour de France Femmes routes. 

Discovering that Alpe d'Huez would feature proved popular. This iconic climb which has been a crowd puller since it was included in the men's Tour de France in 1952 has now been included in what will be the third edition of the women's Grande Boucle event, sponsored by Zwift and organised by ASO.

An iconic stage was also included in the previous Tour de France Femmes when the 2023 event included a stage through the Pyrenees with a finish on the Tourmalet, and the 2022 inaugural renaissance event concluded in the Vosges atop La Superplanche des Belles Filles. 

Having these iconic mountain stages in the women's races is great for the sport as it is bound to increase audience engagement in terms of television viewing and social media interactions. It is also a great endorsement from the organisers and sponsors that they would include such stages in the women's race. When it comes to the Tour de France, racing up Alpe d'Huez doesn't get better. Given the abundance of strong riders from the Netherlands in the women's peloton, Dutch corner will be a massive party for the women too! 

Other interesting points about the Tour de France Femmes are the Grand Départ taking place in Rotterdam - the first time the race is happening outside of French territory. With the initial stages being in the Netherlands and Belgium, the riders won't reach France until Stage 5. Considering that the race only has eight stages it's not so much a Tour de France but a Tour de BeneFrance!

On a positive note the areas covered the Hexagon will be well known roads to the cycling fan. Stages 2 and 3 are done on the same day, in Rotterdam, with Stage 3 being a 6.3km time trial. This is practically the same route as the prologue of the 2010 Tour de France, though slightly shorter. As in 2010 the riders will have mini climbs to do up Erasmus Bridge and Willems Bridge.

Stage 4, from Valkenberg to Liège will feature parts of the Amstel Gold race (the Cauberg), as well parts of Liège-Bastogne-Liege (La Redoute, Côte des Forges, and others).

The 167km Stage 7, from Champagnole to Le Grand Bornand, the longest stage will be an extended version of La Course by the Le Tour de France 2018 and will pass by Lac d'Annecy,  though with a preamble over climbs through the Jura. This stage will be a tasty appetiser before the grand finale, from Le Grand Bornand to Alpe d'Huez, passing via col de la Tamié, Col de Glandon, Barrage de Grand' Maison and then from Le Bourg d'Oisans up the 21 hairpins to the most famous ski resorts in cycling history. 

So the stage is set for some royal battles. We just need the actors to play their part. Without wanting to put a fine point on it I think that there is an onus on the athletes to give the fans a spectacle. It is these stories of rivalry and show-downs on the streets of the Tour de France (and the Netherlands and Belgium) that garner more public interest and capture the imagination of the fans. 

While it's great to see Annemiek Van Vleuten type athlete showing up and demonstrating pure dominance at a few races, doing it at every race or all the way through a stage race is not necessarily what engages spectators. Having one other rival is better, but still not that interesting if the rest of the field is so far behind. We remember how Van Vleuten audaciously snatched victory from Anna van der Breggen in the final metres of the race. But who remembers what the other riders did? Third placed Ashleigh Moolman-Pasio crossed the finish line well over a minute behind the two Dutch women.

What is needed is more depth. It is great to see races where it's not a given that such and such a rider will win, or that the winner will come from this really dominant team. (I'm looking at SD Worx here!)

Of course you can't reproach a rider or a team for being so much stronger than the others. We just need to see more challengers coming through. We got a flavour of that in 2023 Tour de France Femmes when Kasia Nieuwiadoma of Canyon SRAM went for it on the Tourmalet climb, and subsequently won the Queen of the Mountains jersey. We also saw that when some younger riders like Yara Kastelijn (Fenix-Deceuninck) won a stage, and also when a couple of riders (other than Annemiek Van Vleuten) from Team Movistar won stages.

Also, with this year's event starting and passing through countries that harbour an avid cycling fan base there is likely to be greater interest than in previous years especially as there will be many Dutch riders contesting the top spots.

Furthermore, the variety in the profile of races means that there is something for everyone - for the Classics rider, the mountain goat, or the sprinter. Considering that this is only a seven-day race, the organisers have cleverly packed in stages that should leave no shortage of drama for we fans over that week in mid-August. I look forward to seeing who will be wearing the yellow jersey at the summit of Alpe d'Huez after seven days and 946km of racing. 

52 Cycling Voices - 36: Sadhbh O'Shea

You will have seen her name a lot in bylines on cycling articles online. These days Sadhbh is based in Douglas, Isle of Man, but in the course of the year she can be found covering professional cycle races in various parts of Europe and beyond, and of course, at the Tour de France. Life on the road can be a real whirlwind as she dashes between the press room, the mixed zone or the podium ready to convert peloton pearls of wisdom into creative words. Aside from journalism, Sadhbh has also been known to drive the team bus of the Cycling Club of Isle of Man racing team in her land of origin at the Rás Tailteann, an international stage race in Ireland.

Sadhbh travels quite a lot, and had a rather busy summer this year, which saw her spend July at the Tour de France, the Tour de France Femmes, as well as doing a tour of Scotland covering the various disciplines at the inaugural World Cycling Championships, and a stopover at the Edinburgh Festival. Oh, and she did a flying visit to Canada to cover the Grand Prix de Montreal.

I caught up with Sadhbh in between her busy schedule and she talked me through her career, and what she likes about her work.

Sadhbh O'Shea (pronounced Sive, like hive), aged 35

From: Dublin, Ireland

Lives: Douglas, Isle of Man

Cycling journalist for Velo-online/Outside

I was born in Ireland, then when I was seven my dad got a job in Douglas, the Isle of Man and lived there for nine months before we moved over to join him at the dead of night on New Year's Eve that year. Nowadays I live in a house about 30 seconds from the place where we first moved.

I’ve always enjoyed writing. As a child, I wrote fiction stories for myself - I was a proper nerd. I remember quite clearly when I decided to become a journalist.  I was about 14, and it was the early part of my GCSEs when we did an assignment for our English class, about writing a news story. I really enjoyed it and felt like this was something I could do for a job.  

When I was applying for university courses – in fact when I was doing my A levels I picked my subjects on the basis of me wanting to do journalism. I was also toying with the idea of doing law because there are a few lawyers in my family and so I thought that would be interesting. So I applied for a mixture of law and journalism courses at university. 

I had chosen five courses and needed to put down one more on the form. Then I saw the University of Central Lancashire (UCLAN), Preston, was offering a course in Sports Journalism and I thought, “Oh that’s interesting. I hadn’t considered that that would be an option." So I picked that, and got offered a place to do that degree. 

UCLAN Preston was one of the first few universities offering sports journalism courses at that time. The year I joined was the third year of the course at UCLAN, and was run by Charlie Lambert who had done the radio commentary for the Isle of Man TT motorbike festival. He was my head lecturer, and I learned a lot about journalism. When we started learning commentary he would put on this "radio voice", which was vastly different from his normal voice. I was really impressed. Just the whole essence of his voice - the pitch, the pacing, it was all different and quite a fascinating thing to see.

I then did a year-long Masters course in Madrid, which was run by Eurosport - Rob Hatch had done it two years before me. It was multi-media sports journalism in depth, with television and website stuff, and included a three-month internship at Eurosport in Paris. It was just around early May 2010, the start of the Giro d'Italia that I went to Paris, and stayed there through the Tour de France, finishing my placement around September. 

When I returned home to the Isle of Man I applied for every job under the sun and ended up with an administrative role working for Zurich Life insurance company for a year and a half. 

The finance industry is big in the Isle of Man, and pretty much everyone in my family has worked in finance at some point in their career. I was still applying for journalism jobs regularly, knowing that insurance admin was not what I wanted to do. 

My other passion had become teaching, and I thought that would be a nice career to get into if I couldn’t get a journalism job. So I applied to do Teaching English as a Foreign Language, and got accepted onto a course in Spain. It was also at that time, in early 2012, that I got an interview with, and was offered a job as a staff writer with ProCycling magazine, based in Bath. I did a half day on my final day at the insurance company, then got the boat to Liverpool that afternoon with my dad. 

We'd packed everything that we could into the back of my dad’s minivan and drove all the way down to Bath. It was 10 o’clock at night by the time we got there. We unpacked everything and then I started my new job on Monday. I am still amazed now that they took a chance on me. 

The editor was Cam Winstanley, who had taken the role following an internal reorganisation. He wasn’t into cycling at all and knew almost nothing about it. Apart from a handful of high profile riders, every time we pitched something we had to explain to him who the riders were. He then left the post when we became part of Immediate Media, and Ed Pickering became the editor. 

By that time, three months into my job, I was offered the role of deputy editor of Cycling News HD, their digital magazine - which was a baptism of fire. With the then editor, we did what we could with the very small budget, which was quite challenging. We survived about 18 months before the management decided to close it and I got moved over to Cycling News towards the end of 2013. 

After six or seven years of the fast-paced environment reporting and writing for Cycling News I’d become a bit fatigued. At the beginning of your career you want to do anything and everything and prove yourself. You want to just work. I was working well outside of working hours and I had exhausted myself; I needed a break.  

Because of the way the job was, I wasn’t getting to see my family very much. There was always a rigmarole when travelling home to Douglas. It was so expensive that I was spending most of my spare cash on getting up to my parents a couple of times a year. I hadn’t seen my niece growing up, so I decided I needed to get a job at home, that didn't involve me travelling quite so much. 

Then one day while covering the Tour of Flanders, running down the road to the finish line st Oudenaarde for the post-race interviews, I got a text message from my dad saying there’s a job advert for a role with the BBC Isle of Man. There wasn't much time as the deadline for application was in seven days, so I had to apply some time between the Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix race, while I was still out travelling.

The job interview ended up being on the Tuesday afternoon after Liege-Bastogne-Liege. So I had to get from the Ardennes straight after the race on Sunday evening, to a pub in Douglas for the interview, with the help of my sister. Fortunately I got the job and started in June 2019, working on the news desk. 

Life at the BBC was good but it was very different to writing sport stuff. News is drastically different from working in sport. 

The BBC is such a massive organisation, and they wanted to show that the whole of the website had the same voice – which is not the same as when you work on a small cycling website where there is still an opportunity to put in your own style. That was not possible with BBC journalism which is quite strict. 

Although I learnt a lot while I was there, it really jarred with my dyslexia and I struggled to write. It even became a bit of a mental block when I would write. Everyone I worked with was lovely, but that super strict way of writing really didn’t work for my brain.

Then by coincidence, Fred the editor of VeloNews at the time reached out to me. He’d seen my work and thought that I would be a good fit for Velonews, so asked if I would like to work there. As with Cycling News, I wasn’t actively looking for jobs at the time, but I was open to it. So when the opportunity came along I took it. 

I think me and Fred were talking for around six months figuring out what he’d like me to do, before I signed a contract. I eventually started at Velonews at the beginning of April 2021.

It was quite nerve-racking coming back into cycling and I wondered if I’d be able to do it. Velonews had a different style to Cycling News so it felt like a tough couple of months to find my feet and start writing in their style, including writing in American English. But now I feel very comfortable with what I do.

At Velonews we try and take a wider view of things and not write stuff immediately post-race, as it tends to get lost in the ether and it has less intrinsic value to it. We know that other people have got the same quotes, so we try to hold some stuff for later, or the following day. Then we try and take a different approach to the news, with more analysis and what the story means, going forward. 

As well as the journalism I turn my hand to other things. I am on the board of a cycle racing team, Cycling Club Isle of Man, and I went with them to the Rás earlier this year. This was the second year that we got the team into the race, which was really cool. We've got a team manager, Conor Davies, and I was there mainly as a general dogsbody - soigneur, bus driver, press officer, and various other roles. 

The Rás is relatively low key, but there are a lot of teams. It’s really friendly, with all the teams chatting to each other. Last year we stayed at an Air B'n'B in the middle of nowhere so we didn’t really get an opportunity to meet up with the other teams post-stage. This year we were following the race, so we saw the other teams in the hotel. 

This race is notorious for what they call the night stages, where the support crew on a lot of the teams get drunk and have a bit of a raucous night while the riders are getting their sleep! I didn't get involved in that though - I wouldn't have been in any fit state by the end of the week otherwise!

At the Tour de Yorkshire in 2018 I somehow got involved in working from the lead car, announcing over the megaphone to the spectators what's going on in the race. It was very much outside of my comfort zone as I don’t normally like having to do public speaking. When the race finished I didn’t have to do anything else though, so I could actually enjoy the end of the bike race without running around like a blue-arsed fly interviewing people and writing stories. It’s nice to work from a different side of cycling.

Sadhbh interviews Danish National Champion, Cecilie Uttrup Ludwig

But when it comes to story-writing, I’m like a kid in a sweetshop. I love being able to see different stories and listen to different people - I want to write about so many things. That's what I like about journalism. 

X (formerly Twitter): @SadbhOS 

Other Cycling Voices

Kimberly Coats

Pauline Ballet

Emma Wade

Monica and Paola Santini

Rebecca Charlton

Rochelle Gilmore

Cecilie Uttrup Ludwig

Giorgia Bronzini

Emily Chappell

Women's Tour de France delivers drama and new stars

Tour de France Femmes peloton on the stage to Albi (photo: Thomas Maheux)

Following the successful staging of the reborn Tour de France Femmes in 2022, this year's edition of the event, sponsored by Zwift didn't fail to disappoint.

Last year's women's Tour de France Femmes began to the fanfare of the women racing Stage 1 on the Champs Elysees a few hours before the men's concluding stage of their Tour de France. The women then contested their remaining stages of their Tour in the East of France, in the Alsace/Vosges area with an exciting finale on the Superplanche des Belles Filles.

I must admit that when I saw that this year's stage would be starting from Clermont Ferrand, it seemed a slight downer compared with the iconic landmarks of central Paris. Granted, the event was in the shadow of the Puy de Dome, but the famous road up the extinct volcano was not included in the women's race itinerary.

However, the race more than made up for it with the final stages snaking through the Pyrenees, over the col d'Aspin and the col du Tourmalet, culminating in a time trial on undulating roads around Pau. 

Lotte Kopecky (photo: Getty Sport)

What also makes the race are the riders. It was no surprise to see women from the mighty SD Worx team occupying the upper echelons of the General Classification rankings, but it wasn't totally one-way traffic for the Netherlands-registered team flush with National, European and former World Champions. This made the overall racing exciting and introduced an element of suspense - an important ingredient for an engaging sports competition.

Where the men's Tour de France solicited a guessing game about whether Tadej Pogacar or Jonas Vingegaard would come out on top, the women's race led to debates around whether it would be Movistar's Annemiek Van Vleuten who would replicate her triple Grand Tour victories from last year (she had already won the women's Vuelta a Espana, and Giro Donne) or whether Demi Vollering would stop her compatriot in her ascendancy.  

After Vollering drew first blood by thanks to the stage one victory by Belgian National Champion Lotte Kopecky, allowing her SD Worx team to seize the maillot jaune (yellow jersey) and keep it thanks to further stage victories from Lorena Wiebes (stage 3) and Marlen Reusser (stage 8). However the team was punished with setbacks which could have toppled its aspirations. In reality, these problems were self-inflicted and would have been associated more with a small newbie team, than with a dominant World Tour Team led by some of the most experienced riders and sports directors in the women's peloton.

On Stage 4 from Cahors to Rodez, won by a breakaway rider Yara Kastelijn (Fenix-Deceuninck), Vollering crossed the finish line in a celebratory mood, in second place after bursting forward from her group. She had not realised there was another rider further up the road who had won the stage - despite her having radio communication with her team mates and sports director, and knowing that there had been a breakaway which had as much as 10 minutes time advantage over the GC chasing group at one point.  

The following day, during Stage 5, SD Worx effected a bike change for Vollering when she got a puncture. Looking at the TV pictures, the bike change must have been the slowest change in the history of bike racing! Unsurprisingly the rider lost a significant amount of time on the peloton including her GC contender rivals, so she slipstreamed off her team car in order to be paced back to the bunch. 

It wasn't plain sailing for SD Worx (photo: Thomas Maheux)

The only problem was her sports director drove down the wrong side of the road, dangerously overtaking, and potentially putting other participants in danger. 

After an initial reprimand from the race commissaire during the race for excessive slipstreaming and dangerous overtaking, sports director Danny Stam received a 200CHF fine and Vollering received a 100CHF fine. Stam was later expelled from the race after dismissing the UCI commissaires' ruling as ridiculous. 

While SD Worx had the means to pay the fine and co-sports director Anna van der Breggen could still manage matters during the race, the real bite came when Vollering received a 20-second time penalty which relegated her from second to seventh place in the GC, and 12 seconds behind Van Vleuten. This was in addition to the double whammy of seeing Movistar's Emma Norsgaard (Jorgensen) sprint to win Stage 6 into Blagnac ahead of yellow jersey wearer, Kopecky on the eve of the decisive weekend for the race.

During the decisive penultimate stage from Lannemezan to Tourmalet, Van Vleuten and Vollering had a face-off on the lower slopes of the giant of the Pyrenees. There was no love lost between these two Dutch girls - even less so since last year's Tour de France Femmes, as well as this year's Vuelta a Espana when Vollering believed Van Vleuten had been unsporting en route to her historic win. [Van Vleuten allegedly attacked while Vollering, who was in the lead, took a loo break.]

Such stand-offs can actually be advantageous to others, as Canyon SRAM's Kasia Niewiadoma found when she launched her own attack off the front, staying away until shortly before the finish line when eventual winner Vollering caught her, though the Pole still stayed ahead of Van Vleuten by more than half-a-minute. Deservedly Niewiadoma was awarded the polka dot jersey for the Queen of the Mountains.

An emotional Demi Vollering on realising she's won the Tour de France Femmes (Thomas Maheux)

What we learned during this Tour de France Femmes was that contrary to fellow competitor Elisa Longo Borghini who once described Van Vleuten as an alien, the all-powerful Movistar rider is human. She began to show signs of weakness and fatigue as the route passed through the mountain villages of St Marie de Campan, and La Mongie, and the World Champion was unable to match Vollering's attack through the mist in the Hautes Pyrenees as she crossed the finish line over two and a half minutes ahead of Van Vleuten as the new wearer of the yellow jersey. 

Similarly, at the closing time trial, where Van Vleuten has traditionally prevailed, she was also caught wanting, when she finished in 14th place, over 1 minute 40 seconds behind Reusser.

So it wasn't to be for Vleuty, who finished in fourth place in the GC almost four minutes behind the victorious Vollering. Meanwhile the SD Worx camp enjoyed huge celebrations following Reusser's victory in the time trial, Lotte Kopecky's green jersey, and Vollering's maiden yellow jersey for her overall win at the Tour de France Femmes.

As well as the battle between these two arch-rivals, this Tour de France Femmes was also spiced up by young guns going for it - new riders, young riders, smaller teams, throwing themselves out there and trying their chances for a stage win.

A crash-filled Stage 2 saw Lianne Lippert take flight with a maiden victory. The young team-mate of Van Vleuten finished ahead of Kopecky who punctured before the finish line after being led out by Vollering. Stage 3 saw the dreams of Julie Van de Velde of the young team Fenix-Deceuninck crushed as she was caught agonisingly close to the finish line after launching a long breakaway. Her cyclocrosser team-mate Kastelijn (who eventually won the overall combativity prize) finished the business by winning Stage 4 into Rodez. 

Ricarda Bauernfeind, new kid on the block (Thomas Maheux)

In spectacular style Ricarda Bauernfeind, a recent arrival at Canyon-SRAM having been in the development structure Canyon-Generation took the biggest win of her short career in stage 5 (from Onet-le-Chateau to Albi) and at age 23 years and three months she became the youngest winner of a TDFF stage.

Additionally, the likes of Ashleigh Moolman-Pasio, racing for the newly formed AG Insurance-Soudal-Quick-Step team, whose sport director is former racer Jolien d'Hoore, also put time into Van Vleuten on the slopes of the Tourmalet. Kopecky who is known as a sprinter and also a handy track cyclist emerged as the Wout Van Aert of women's racing as she also put in a sterling ride in the mountains.

So all in all, the Tour de France Femmes this year turned out to be an engaging race, with interesting stories and talking points, excitement, intrigue, and new stars. 

As much as I like Van Vleuten and it would have been a good note on which the 40-year old could close out career, doing the triple, I must say that I am happy that there were a few twists and turns in the competition. Although SD Worx dominated in the rankings, we certainly saw fearless challenges from riders across the spectrum of age, experience, and team strength.

                              Jersey winners: L-R: Cedrine Kerbaol, Kasia Niewiadoma, Demi Vollering,
Lotte Kopecky (photo: Thomas Maheux) 

Next year's Tour de France Femmes with Zwift will start in the Netherlands, and we will find out the full itinerary in October. I look forward to seeing what 2024 will bring.

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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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