Women’s pro cycling whopper year

[AUbicycles]

Great to see women’s pro cycling really making a mark.It’s still a tough gig but a few things are happening.

Charismatic stars like Vollering and van Vlueten and Borghini.

Increasing TV broadcast. Don’t know if SBS is giving women’s cycling decent coverage but Eurosport / GCN have ramped it up. Of course the mens races still are ahead of women’s races when there is an overlap, but race timing (eg saturday roubaix femmes and sunday mens roubaix) helps.

Increased visibility of women in road cycling eg. Cycling Wear typically shows men and women and there is more marketing photography of mixed bunches so it is also less ‘purely make dominated’. Even in TV. broadcast of men’s racing, some broadcasters are moving to mixed panels with men and women in the team.

And with this, slowly increasing brand interest in women’s cycling. To be fair… men’s cycling still has hard time… though tdf, giro and vuelta visibility are big drawcards for sponsors. The overheads, wages and trying to get to the level of some of the mens teams (buses and training and content production) is not a small undertaking.

Mens + connected women’s team. Many of the mens teams have an associated women’s team like movistar, trek segafredo, FDJ, bike exchange, jumbo visma, arkea, lotto soudal, cofidis.

High profile / sponsored races like paris roubaix femmes and tour de france femmes tie the mens and womens events together and just msake a lot of sense for organisation and broadcast. Noise is also made around the raising of prize money as well.

And another positive … a sign of the times … women’s cyclisng is also able to prosper on its own merits. Sexualisation is not used to promote and capture spectator interest.

For some, the success and promotion of women’s cycling is not going fast enough and it is far from perfect. Impacted by a range of factors it is nice to see the progress… it feels like it is moving in the right direction.

[trailgumby]

Good to see more exposure for women's cycling, and being treated as athletes in their own right.