Looking out over some of the world’s most popular sports, we can see that women have been welcomed in at just about every level, from the grassroots up to the professional tier.
At Wimbledon now female players receive the same prize money as their male counterparts.
In football, though professional leagues have yet to thrive at the level of the men’s game, the Women’s World Cup format has taken off and proves ever more successful with each edition.
At youth level in some regions, such as North America, women’s soccer is massively popular.
Even in sports seen as traditionally unwelcoming to women, such as golf, the barriers have been steadily falling for years.
Women are now even allowed in the clubhouse at Augusta (well, a handful of them, last I heard), for heaven’s sake.
If she was still around, Emily Pankhurst would be thrilled – though she’d probably already have burnt the place to the ground long ago.
Women’s golf tournaments continue to attract great crowds around the world, with a number of Asian golfers being in the top ten, reflecting the healthy growth of the sport globally.
There are some sports that remain stuck in the past, such as motor racing, though there too some slim advancements are being made, such as at the Indy 500, where to date nine women have now driven there.
Their participation there has ceased to be a talking point.
A huge improvement from the past – up until 1971 women weren’t even allowed in the pit area of the famous race.
So, to cycling. It’s not quite tennis, is it? Female cyclists have no Centre Court, no Roland Garros and certainly aren’t on a par financially with the men. But then it’s not exactly motor racing. Or rugby.
The women’s side of the sport threatens to spark the cycling world’s imagination fleetingly at times and yet it’s generally rather fizzless.
There are highlights, such as the women’s classics that run alongside the men’s, but they don’t have the full season afforded the men, and even the Giro Rosa, the women’s version of the Giro, barely creaks by every year.
Women’s cycling is definitely there but it’s treated a bit like a disagreeable child: no one really seems to know quite what to do with it.
It either gets a patronising tap and a mumbled word in passing or completely ignored, despite drawing the crowds at the Olympics last year.
Why? Hard to say. In many senses cycling has been traditionally a male domain, certainly in the racing sense, but then so have so many other sports too, sports that now are attracting more and more women – and sponsors – each year.
Many feel that the UCI does not do enough to promote the women’s side of the sport and I’d have to agree with that.
If the world governing body has any serious initiatives designed to bring in young girls to the sport they have passed me by completely.
It could be argued, actually, that the UCI’s second biggest failing, after failing to adequately the doping problem in the sport, has been its ongoing myopia when it comes to women’s cycling.
At the top level, female pros often cite a lack of support from across the cycling spectrum, from the UCI, race organisers, journalists and tv companies.
There appears to be little of any ‘trickle-down’ effect from the men’s side and little incentive offered to television companies to increase coverage of the existing events, most of which, it has to be said, is scant.
And yet, with half the world’s population being female and with others sports successfully incorporating female athletes and running events parallel to the men’s, one has to wonder just why the women’s side of cycling is listing in the doldrums.
One of the great losses was the demise of the women’s version of the Tour de France, also known as the Grande Boucle.
The race ran from 1984 through to 2009 (though wasn’t held due to lack of sponsorship, mainly, in 1990, 1991 and 2004).
It was at one point known as the Women’s Tour de France but the organisers of the men’s Tour cited a breach of trademark and the title was dropped, further harming its legitimacy.
By 2009 it was a shadow of it former (and already pretty lame) self, being only four days long and having only 66 participants.
At the time, Britain’s Emma Pooley joked that the race was “more of a Petite Boucle than Grande.”
However, thanks to Kathryn Bertine, Marianne Vos, Emma Pooley and a good 70,000 like minded folk, we might be seeing a proper women’s edition of the Tour de France, one run by the very same organisation that hosts the Tour each year.
The letter that accompanies the petition, which you can sign here, states;
“For 100 years, the Tour de France has been the pinnacle endurance sports event of the world, watched by and inspiring millions of people.
“And for 100 years, it has been an exclusively male race (there was a separate Tour Feminin in the 1980s, but it lacked parity, media coverage, and sponsorship).
“After a century, it is about time women are allowed to race the Tour de France, too.
“While many women’s sports face battles of inequity, road cycling remains one of the worst offenders: fewer race opportunities, no televised coverage, shorter distances, and therefore salary and prize money inequity.
“We seek not to race against the men, but to have our own professional field running in conjunction with the men’s event, at the same time, over the same distances, on the same days, with modifications in start/finish times so neither gender’s race interferes with the other.
“Having a women’s pro field at the Tour de France will also create an equal opportunity to debunk the myths of physical “limitations” placed upon female athletes.
“In the late 1960s people assumed that women couldn’t run the marathon. 30 years on we can look back and see how erroneous this was. Hopefully 30 years from now, we will see 2014 as the year that opened people’s eyes to true equality in the sport of cycling.
“If you’d like to see more women’s road racing on television and from the roadside, please sign this petition to call for road cycling to take a major step in the right direction.
“Help us break down the barriers that unjustly keep female athletes from the same opportunities as men.”
Quite right too. It really is about time that the imbalance between the genders in this sport that we love so much was put right.
To their credit, the Amaury Sports Organisation that runs the men’s Tour responded quickly, with an interview with Bloomberg.com that says that:
“We need to work out the right economic model, get the media on board and discuss with public authorities about closing the roads. All these parameters need to be planned. It’s not likely to happen next year,” reads the statement (which the petitions calls for).
But at least there has been a fairly positive response from the organisation that could make it happen.
The professionals backing the petition include Emma Pooley, GBR Olympian and World Champion Cyclist, Marianne Vos, the World and Olympic Champion, and Chrissie Wellington, GBR World Ironman Triathlon Champion.
Add your name too and help this worthy petition keep moving.
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