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Unfortunate Week For Womens Cycling |
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May 13th 2013 |
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There are many known inequalities
between the men's and women's peloton, however within the past
week women's cycling has suffered two major problems that
further highlight this.
First lets begin with the Tour of Chongming Island. A
relatively new race but one that attracts more teams each
year. A three day stage race is held before the fifth round of
the Women's World Cup. All was going to plan in the World Cup
heading in to the final kilometres. The peloton was chasing
down Tetyana Riabchenko who was leading solo until disaster
struck. With 1.2 kilometres to go when the peloton turned in
the wrong direction. The corner was not marshalled and by the
time the mistake was realised the race had been lost. The
peloton crossed the line just 12 seconds behind the race
winner, a considerable time less than had been lost with the
confusion.
While this is not the first time a cycling race has been
directed the wrong way it had considerably larger consequences
than most. There are only eight rounds of the Women's World
Cup (7 if you take out the TTT) and the only real race for the
sprinters is the Chongming Island World Cup. The hopes of the
sprinters for a World Cup win in 2013 were taken away due to a
poor organisational decision. While some responsibly has to be
placed on the riders to know the course there are escorts
ahead of the peloton and corners like that should be
marshalled.
To make matters worse with the race being held in China the
costs for the European teams are considerably higher than a
European race. For teams to travel that distance and the
higher costs, teams and riders are justified in feeling robbed
of a chance to race for the win.
A number of teams complained to race organisers. ORICA-AIS DS
Dave McPartland reported that he received an apology but that
results would stand. That was really the only possible outcome
as it would be unfair to take the win off a rider who had done
nothing wrong. With a world cup round teams will not want to
miss the race but next year, but will some teams think twice
about attending as they prefer to allocate their limited
budgets elsewhere?
Secondly is the fiasco surrounding the Tour Languedoc
Roussillon in France. I am sure many people will remember the
race was cancelled last year as well. The decision was made
earlier but not until after many teams had booked airfares
and accommodation. This year the situation was much worse. In
the months leading up to the race it was on, then off, then
definitely on and then the day before the race it was
cancelled.
With the race due to start on Friday many teams had already
arrived with the remaining teams on their way. Word came
through on Thursday that the race had been cancelled.
Initially the reason why was unclear but thought to be due to
financial constraints. Eventually it was learnt it was due to
the police not willing do preparatory work as they had not
been paid their deposit.
Again it is not uncommon for races to be cancelled. Many men's
races have been cancelled in 2013 due to budget issues,
however the decisions are generally made well in advance.
Cancelling races at the last minute puts further unnecessary
pressure on women's teams. A number of the top teams had
already made the decision not to participate after the issues
of last year.
It was also revealed that the race jury had not been paid.
Late Thursday race organisers told teams they should stay as a
sponsor had been found and the race would start on Saturday.
However a number of teams had already had enough and started
to leave on Thursday evening or Friday morning. At the time of
writing no further information was available on if the race
would definitely start on Saturday or not.
There was calls on twitter for race organisers to cover team
costs but with the race organisation lacking the money to hold
they race it is unlikely any funds were available to pay teams
even if they were inclined to do so.
Throughout both these issues, with the second obviously much
more important the UCI has remained silent. To the best of my
knowledge the UCI did not comment on the issue at Chongming
Island World Cup and have remained equally silent on the
cancellation of Tour Languedoc Roussillon. For the
international cycling body to remain silent on this is an
insult to Women's cycling. The riders, teams and fans deserve
better than this.
The situation in China is a problem that can easily be fixed
and next year the race organisers will hopefully make sure
marshals are in all the necessary locations. The Tour
Languedoc Roussillon has been cancelled the past two years
with great expense to teams on both occasions. The race should
not under any circumstances be placed on the calendar for 2014
with the current organisers unless a guarantee can be provided
several months in advance that sufficient funds exist to hold
the race.
This may not sound like a big issue to the casual observer but
women's team budgets are already limited and avoidable issues like
this deprive the teams of funds to allocate to participating
in other races, equipment, training camps and salaries etc.
All stakeholders - teams, organisers and the UCI are punished
by these issues but two of those have been largely silent. |
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