MEAUX, France – After winning stage 2 of the Tour de France Femmes, Dutch cyclist Marianne Vos donned the Tour leader’s yellow jersey for the first time and explained that no, actually, This special moment is not something that is always a dream. for her.
As a child, Vos attended the Tour de France every summer and camped with his family for three weeks, shouting encouragement as the riders sped up the flat roads, pedaling up winding passes and fly down steep slopes. That’s where Vos, an Olympic gold medalist and multiple world championship winner, fell in love with cycling. But the race is only for men, so the goal of winning has never been her goal.
However, over time, as she became one of the most successful female cyclists in history, she understood: Why should men get all the media attention? media, fan accolades and money that only the Tour de France can bring?
This perception is partly how the Tour de France Femmes revived this week after a 33-year absence. Vos was a major force in lobbying to bring back women’s racing, held once in 1955, then again from 1984 to 1989, before it disappeared again in one generation.
It was not until Sunday, in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower and under the scorching summer sun, that the women – 144 riders from 24 teams – got on their bikes to participate in the race attached to the Tour, the most prestigious race. in bicycle racing.
“Of course, you could say maybe it took too long, but yes, but I’m glad it’s here,” said Vos, who kept the yellow jersey on Tuesday after finishing second in Stage 3. It was her second finisher- completed in three days. “I think the timing is right.”
For some cyclists and women’s rights advocates like Vos, at least a decade has passed.
In 2013, Vos and three other cyclists – American Kathryn Bertine, a women’s cycling advocate from Bronxville, NY; former British time trial champion Emma Pooley; and four-time Iron Man champion Chrissie Wellington – it was so sure this was the right time for the Women’s Tournament that they formed a group called Le Tour Entier (French for Grand Prix) to assemble public support for the organization of a Tournament.
Their efforts to convince the Amaury Sports Organization, or ASO – the company that runs the Tour – have paid off, but only to an extent.
ASO agreed to hold a race in 2014 that was clearly not a Whole Tour, considering that the first edition of the race was about 2% as long as the men’s race. The event, called La Course of Le Tour de France, is a one-day lap race held on the last day of the Men’s Tour, in Paris. Vos won that day, then won again in 2019.
In a phone interview on Monday, Bertine said the ASO is supposed to add three to five race days to that one-day race until the women’s race reaches parity with the men’s race. 21 days, but that never happened. This year, La Course is completely replaced by the eight-day Tour de France Femmes – longer than La Course but not as long as the Men’s Tour.
Bertine, who has made a documentary called “Half the Road” that discusses gender inequality in cycling, said: “I believe the social pressure placed on ASOs is what drives them. finally, after eight years, decided to intensify the women’s race. . “My biggest fear is that this race will be 8 days in 8 years because it’s scary looking at the ASO record on this. They are dinosaurs that have resisted this for a long time.”
Bertine lamented that women’s cycling was regressed not long after the Women’s Tournament was held in 1984.
Six women’s teams race that Tournament at the same time as the men, with the women’s team starting 35 to 45 miles each day. They went 18 of 21 stages, including climbing the dreaded Alpe d’Huez, and all but one of the women finished. Marianne Martin of Boulder, Colo., became the first American – female or male – to win the Tour de France.
On Sunday in Paris, wearing a yellow sleeveless dress similar to that of Tour leader Martin, 64, was at the start of the Tour de France Femmes to cheer on the female riders. She recalls riding past thousands of fans at the 1984 Tournament, just hours before the men’s race entered the city, and feeling the thrill that men experience every year. since the race began in 1903.
Everyone shouted. Flag waving. The cow bell rings. She had never seen anything like it. On Sundays, the atmosphere is the same – and it’s exhilarating, she said.
One night at that 1984 Tour, she joined a team of boys for dinner and noticed that their hotel was much nicer and their food was much better than the female’s. However, she remained unfazed.
“I don’t care because we’re on the Tour de France and I get a massage every day, we get fed and have to race bikes every day in France,” Martin said. “I didn’t expect more than that.”
She recalls winning about $1,000 and a trophy. The men’s winner, Laurent Fignon of France, won more than $100,000. This year, there is also a surprising difference in the bonuses of men and women.
The women will receive about $250,000, with the overall race winner receiving around $50,000. To the south, the purse is more than $2 million, with Denmark’s Jonas Vingegaard winning more than $500,000 as he finished first.
There is still a long way to go for women to achieve equal status in the sport. For example, the international cycling federation limits the distance they can cycle in a day, distances much shorter than the men’s maximum. (As another example, the women’s Olympic track is 60 miles shorter than the men’s.) Men’s minimum wages on the WorldTour are higher than women’s, and the budgets for women’s teams are often lower than men’s.
Linda Jackson, EF Education-TIBCO-SVB women’s cycling team owner, says the road to the sport’s pinnacle – and equal – will take both time and a calculated plan to get there. success, especially when it comes to building something sustainable.
Jackson, a former investment banker, started his team in 2004, with the goal of one day racing in Europe. Her team is competing on the Women’s WorldTour and also this year’s Tour de France Femmes.
There are many signs that the sport is trending up for women, she said, including more racing, more television and a higher minimum wage helping racers focus on their training (meaning a higher level of competition).
It is also important that Zwift, a fitness technology company, signed a four-year contract as a sponsor of the Tour de France Femmes tournament. In 2020, the company teamed up with ASO to organize a virtual Tour de France during the pandemic, and viewership for women’s events was so high that Zwift finally committed to helping ASO bring the Women’s Tour back to life. life again.
“In particular, ASO doesn’t do this because, ‘Equality for women, wow, wouldn’t it be nice if there were? ‘ said Jackson. “They’re doing it because they see increasing momentum in the sport.”
She added: “They won’t have a Women’s Tour for another 20 years if they’re at a loss for three to four years. ASO must at least break even”.
Media exposure is the single most important ingredient for race success, Jackson said, and with two and a half hours of live broadcast each day at this Women’s Tournament, “this one race has the potential to change our sport forever.” Kathrin Hammes, driver for Jackson’s team, said: “People pay attention when they hear about the Tour de France. It’s a race everyone knows. “
Many Tour women said the eight-day event was a good start, but they were hoping for more. Dutch driver Annemiek van Vleuten, a lover of races, said she is ready for a three-week challenge, like the one the men have to endure. She added that she would be “extremely excited” for an epic climb like climbing the Alpe d’Huez as it would be another major milestone for women’s cycling.
Riders now have a few days left before the final stage, which will be held in the Vosges Mountains and will end with an agonizing climb up La Super Planche des Belles Filles, a peak sometimes within Tour for men.
And Vos – who has done almost everything there is to do in cycling – has just a few days left before she can look back and appreciate her role as both a rider and a person. support helped the whole event take place.
Maybe she’ll remember the young girls cheering her name on as they lined up along the way and watched the plane take off at Stage 2. Or a group of men from a Brie profession wearing colored capes. cream gold and wearing a flat top hat asked her to take a selfie.
But early in the race, Vos said she could think of nothing but the long road ahead.
She said: “I am very grateful to all those who put their energies into making this race a reality. “But now I am also focusing on racing. I’ll let it sink in and think about what happened maybe in the end, after the season, or even in a few years. “
As she drove away, she said, “All I know now is that the Tour de France is bigger than sport.”
