UCI Women's Elite Calendar 2011

[Skip Madness]

The UCI's race schedules for 2011 were released yesterday, including the Women's Elite calendar. This year has been a disaster for women's cycling, with the folding of several teams and the losses of several races of significance.

The new calendar sees a continuation of some of this - most glaringly, the cancellation of the Tour de l'Aude, which has been struggling for money. There are glimmers of light in new stage races, so I'll run through the major changes.

On the stage racing front, the only major loss is the abovementioned Tour de l'Aude, which leaves a gaping hole for the stage racers and sets up the Giro d'Italia as the only grand tour of the season. But we do gain several races, or at least it is planned that we do:

Setmana Ciclista Valenciana - five days of racing through Valencia over a parcours which is as-yet unknown but which the organiser says will have some good climbing and a 20km time trial. There is some confusion over the dates (the organiser says it will be from March 22-26, the UCI says from March 3-5) but some time in March seems about right. The bad news is that they're saying they still need more support from public institutions and sponsors to get the money they need. They're modelling their race on the Emakumeen Bira, so it could work out well.

Van Lauwerszee tot Dollard tou - a new four-day race in the Netherlands in early April.

Puchar Prezesa LZS - two days in late June in Poland.

That's all that's new, although the Tour de Bretagne is again slated for July and hopefully won't be cancelled this time. The Holland Ladies Tour and Giro della Toscana have both moved to one week later - not sure what the reason for that is.

As far as one-day races go, the losses:

The GP Comune di Cornaredo's top-level revival was short-lived - it's off the schedule again, at least as far as UCI classification is concerned. The Omloop Door Middag-Humsterland is also off the menu.

The newbies: French race Cholet Pays de Loire has been upgraded from a domestic to an international race, as has the Netherlands' Dorpenomloop Aalburg. The same is true of two Venezuelan one-dayers in May: the Clásico Aniversário de la FVC, and the Copa Corre por la Vida. The Sparkassen Giro is upgraded to being the final round of the World Cup in early September. Some races which were planned for last year but not held, such as the GP Brissago, the Blauwe Stad TTT and all three Costa Etrusca races are back on the calendar.

So it's a mixed bag as ever. Aude is the obvious loss (although it had been coming for a while), but I have (probably misplaced) hope for the Setmana Valenciana and UCI-ranked races in Venezuela. Of course, this is all still subject to the vagaries of business and organisation of which women's cycling is still often at the whim, and I'd be surprised if all ^^those^^ new races come to pass. But we need something to look forward to.

 

[resal]

Skip thanks very much. The loss of L'Aude is a big blow. Today's race was so superb and yet the women's calendar continues to contract.

 

[Skip Madness]

Today's race was so superb and yet the women's calendar continues to contract.

McQuaid chose to hold a press conference today. During the women's race. How respectful.

When he got the job he actually made some vague (very vague) noises about improving the state of women's cycling, but I think however many years on we are now it's been abundantly clear for a very long time that he's not remotely interested. Simple initiatives such as requiring ProTour teams to spend just a small proportion of their funding to pay for a women's team (which they could all do perfectly easily), or requiring ProTour event organisers to put on women's races, or offering to help cover some of the (fairly measly) costs for television networks to programme women's cycling - basic steps in helping the sport get more credibility and a surer financial foundation, yet have seemingly not occurred at all to him or his friends.

 

[resal]

Skip - summed up the position well.
When Hein V. was the president, didn't Patrick used to look after the women's side ? I think he used to go to all the World Cups. I seem to remember several pictures of Cooke showering him with the winner's Champagne. So it is not as though he knows nothing about the circuit and what it used to be like, or what it needs.

 

[oldroadman]

McQuaid chose to hold a press conference today. During the women's race. How respectful.

When he got the job he actually made some vague (very vague) noises about improving the state of women's cycling, but I think however many years on we are now it's been abundantly clear for a very long time that he's not remotely interested. Simple initiatives such as requiring ProTour teams to spend just a small proportion of their funding to pay for a women's team (which they could all do perfectly easily), or requiring ProTour event organisers to put on women's races, or offering to help cover some of the (fairly measly) costs for television networks to programme women's cycling - basic steps in helping the sport get more credibility and a surer financial foundation, yet have seemingly not occurred at all to him or his friends.

Economics, simple. Less people watch the races, less TV and advertising, less money. Quite what the UCI are supposed to do I can't see. Even if they insisted all Protour teams ran women's squads, are there enough top quality riders (17 teams of six) to be competitive? And how much should they get paid, clearly it will be far less than the men, with a less heavy schedule, yet still need all the backroom support. It may simply be a cost too far for some sponsors, and how would anyone feel if a Protour team went to the wall because of having to support a women's squad?
The sport has to be self supporting, organisers need sponsorship, and support from teams plus quality racing, to form a virtuous circle.
Just imposing regulations NEVER works, without the will to carry the programme through nothing happens.
I offer no solutions, just comment, but in any sport which is essentially male participated, the female side is a lesser item. If you don't believe that, look at top end soccer!

 

[Skip Madness]

I was thinking just now - the Tour de l'Aude is gone. That's not good, but it means that the Giro is by far the biggest race on the calendar now. Over the past few years, Nicole Cooke has always but Aude and the Boucle over the Giro. With both gone, she now surely has to look at riding the Giro, and joining a team where she'll be able to do that. It's absurd to me that a former winner of the Giro - yes, not the toughest edition of the Giro, but still - hasn't (I think, can't be bothered to check yet) ridden it since her victory in 2004. I don't think she'd beat the likes of Mara Abbott in terms of pure stage race calibre, but she'd deifintely be a good wild card. Her Boucle wins were against fields which were seldom as talented or deep as the Giro, but she still produced very good climbing and time-trial displays. Otherwise, what - another season of one-day classics and short stage races? She could do those plus the Giro now, no question.

 

[resal]

Economics, simple. Less people watch the races, less TV and advertising, less money. Quite what the UCI are supposed to do I can't see. Even if they insisted all Protour teams ran women's squads, are there enough top quality riders (17 teams of six) to be competitive? And how much should they get paid, clearly it will be far less than the men, with a less heavy schedule, yet still need all the backroom support. It may simply be a cost too far for some sponsors, and how would anyone feel if a Protour team went to the wall because of having to support a women's squad?
The sport has to be self supporting, organisers need sponsorship, and support from teams plus quality racing, to form a virtuous circle.
Just imposing regulations NEVER works, without the will to carry the programme through nothing happens.
I offer no solutions, just comment, but in any sport which is essentially male participated, the female side is a lesser item. If you don't believe that, look at top end soccer!

Oldroadman, we have had some excellent debates on this topic on this forum in the past. You have written this appearing to be ignorant of the current situation or those debates. Let me try and sum up in 1 paragraph. If others can do better please dump my attempt. I am confident it can be bettered.

Society does not now accept women are 2nd class citizens. Sport hails from an earlier era and therefore is male dominated and reporting is male centric. Cycling is one of the most reactionary of sports. Those in power - all male, commited to preserving the status quo. Men - strong good, women - token gesture, e.g. mens 1000m TT, girlies can do a 500m version. Women's scene has grown organically for 30/40 years, new races being added each year. Last 4/5 years has been all decline. Reasons - e.g. organiser of the biggest race ever on the calender - Tour de France Fem which was 2 weeks, with Paris finish, now totally dead, I paraphrase him - the press not covering the race and thus sponsors do not get a bang for their buck, the governing bodies - putting obstacle after obstacle in the way in an manner they don't do for the men. We did everything they asked and still they did not give us a proper slice of the cake, year after year. I and my team have had enough, forehead left too much blood on the brick wall.

It aint going to get itself better. Establishment and bigoted supporters of the status quo, wheel out unfounded cliches to justify status quo - girls are rubbish, can only do short races, boring to watch, no sponsor interest, no TV interest, podium girls look better, no public interest etc, etc.

I am not going to put up the counters to the above, someone else can do that, if they have to.

What skip is suggesting is the business and the only option. Organic growth failed.

If the legislation came in and a Protour team was to pull out because they could not support the small funding necessary to support a women's team I would be delighted that we had worked out to put the principles of running a fair society as prime. I would put the ideals I attempt to hold about being a fair citizen well beyond my need to see a full men's peloton.

 

[Skip Madness]

Economics, simple. Less people watch the races, less TV and advertising, less money. Quite what the UCI are supposed to do I can't see.

Fewer people watching the races is hardly a surprise when there are fewer races to watch, and thus fewer opportunities to become familiar with the riders and the races. I proposed an example of how to begin addressing that - the UCI could offer to subsiside the cost of programming women's cycling on TV so that networks would feel less like they are taking a risk with something of ostensibly niche interest. Placing the Giro Donne highlights right after every stage of the Tour would be an easy way of opening up women's cycling to people who are already interested in men's cycling.

If they obliged all ProTour one day classics to have a women's race preceding the men's TV coverage would be much easier to attain. One of the few women's races Eurosport do broadcast (not live, but at least highlights are something) is the Ronde van Vlaanderen. We've seen the women's nationals over the past couple of years. Earlier in the year during the Tour series in Stoke, ITV4 broadcast three or four minutes of the women's race. That's not a lot, but because the cameras are there for the men's races anyway, it's easy enough to put the women's events out there too.

Then we have the Worlds - according to BARB, last year's women's time trial got the same viewing figures as the men's the next day, and the women's road race got more than either, although still not much more than half of what the men's road race got.

Even if they insisted all Protour teams ran women's squads, are there enough top quality riders (17 teams of six) to be competitive?

Six riders per team would have to be an absolute minimum, but yes. There are probably about that many decent teams now, but one of the problems is that there is a hegemony of three teams dominating most of the races they enter. Two of those teams? Cervélo and HTC. Having their kind of resources available to women on other teams would begin to close that inequality and increase the depth of the women's peloton because the better riders would be more spread out.

And how much should they get paid, clearly it will be far less than the men, with a less heavy schedule, yet still need all the backroom support.

They should be paid at a level where they don't have to worry about giving up cycling because it's too expensive for them and they need to get a job that actually pays the bills instead. A living wage.

It may simply be a cost too far for some sponsors, and how would anyone feel if a Protour team went to the wall because of having to support a women's squad?

The average budget of ProTour teams this tear is €7.9M. Just 5% of that being spent on a women's team would amount to almost €400,000, the sort of money women's teams could only dream of (Stefan Wyman talks about this here). ProTour teams already have to waste silly money. Euskaltel have (in previous ProTour years) wasted money going to the Giro, the Eneco Tour, tons of one-day classics and other races in which they had zero interest just so that they were guaranteed invites to races they do want. If the UCI made the ProTour licence guarantee a right to come to top races rather than an obligation, Euskaltel would have the benefits of ProTour membership without the drawbacks, saving them money.

Just imposing regulations NEVER works, without the will to carry the programme through nothing happens.

One of my points above was that there isn't the will in the UCI, but regulation is an essential step in improving women's cycling.

in any sport which is essentially male participated, the female side is a lesser item. If you don't believe that, look at top end soccer!

But that doesn't mean we shouldn't look to sports which do get it much better - tennis, say - and see what we can learn from them.

 

[BigSteev]

The Holland Ladies Tour and Giro della Toscana have both moved to one week later - not sure what the reason for that is.

Oh marvelous

So now the Holland Ladies Tour clashes with the Tour De L'Ardeche.

 

[Skip Madness]

Oh marvelous

So now the Holland Ladies Tour clashes with the Tour De L'Ardeche.

Yeah, that was my first thought. Luckily they tend not to have much of a cross-over in terms of rider participation, but it does mean they have to share the spotlight.

It occurred to me the other day that the two Venezuelan races may be UCI-ranked in order to distribute some Olympics qualifying points among the South and Central American nations.

 

[Skip Madness]

Another thing - they weren't showing up a couple of days ago, but it seems now that most if not all rounds of next year's Wielertrofee Vlaanderen (Belgium's domestic one-day race series) have been added to the UCI calendar. This is excellent news as these races tend to publicise themselves well. British riders have had really strong showings in these events in recent years, so they may well get the chance to ride against even better opposition. They're the kind of races which could really bring on the younger Horizon Fitness riders.

 

[BigSteev]

Yeah, that was my first thought. Luckily they tend not to have much of a cross-over in terms of rider participation, but it does mean they have to share the spotlight.

There were quite a few riders (and team personnel) this year that were doing them back to back. My worry would be that the clash would dilute the quality in the field of Ardeche race which then might have an effect on it's future.

 

[Skip Madness]

There were quite a few riders (and team personnel) this year that were doing them back to back. My worry would be that the clash would dilute the quality in the field of Ardeche race which then might have an effect on it's future.

Ardèche should do OK because it's a good one for getting into form for the Worlds due to the climbs so should always get big teams and big riders. I hadn't considered the team personnel as well as the riders, that could limit smaller teams to one or the other. It just seems totally unavoidable to have this situation.

Of course the most important thing for Ardèche is that they invite Rapha back after this year : ) Nice write-up about it here for anyone who hasn't seen it.

 

[BigSteev]

I'm pretty sure we're invited I just hope we can get the budget to do it

 

[Skip Madness]

In my last post, when I said this situation seems totally unavoidable, I did of course mean it seems totally avoidable. Oops.

I'm pretty sure we're invited I just hope we can get the budget to do it

Ooh, I didn't know you were a Rapha person! Good luck!