After a 2022 season described as historic for the development of women’s cycling due to the revival of the Tour de France, the discipline must now confirm the trend in 2023.
While the women’s cycling season got off to a flying start in Australia (Tour Down Under) and Asia (Tour of the United Arab Emirates), the peloton is now in Europe with the Tour of the Valencian Community. After the euphoria of 2022, the marathon season that opens reminds teams not to rest on their laurels to continue their development.
The year 2022 was indeed marked by the arrival of a women’s Tour de France, professional version. The event, which had already existed in various forms in the 1980s and 1990s before collapsing, was a success that exceeded all expectations, with phenomenal audiences – 20 million viewers on France Télévisions – and people everywhere along the roads.
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In 2023, the organizers want to capitalize on this performance during the eight stages to be covered from July 23. “We remain cautious. It’s a fragile object that we need to anchor. The goal is to have a solid Tour de France and not to go faster than the development of women’s cycling”, explained the director. of the Marion Rousse event when unveiling the route which will take the mythical Col du Tourmalet and will end on July 30 with a 22 km individual time trial in Pau.
“Round feeds us”
Because, in unison, all the players in the discipline know it: cycling is nothing without the Tour de France. “The Tour is 82% of our visibility. It is what feeds us”, summarizes Stephen Delcourt, manager of FDJ-Suez-Futuroscope, the only French team that is part of the World Tour, the professional division. “However, nothing is certain. Inflation affects us all. As a cycling team, we are particularly sensitive to it: the price of transport, hotels, meals… Everything explodes. We are hit hard. The business model of a cycling team can be very fragile.”
During the 2022 season, the influential manager of FDJ-Suez, who saw his team grow from amateurism to become the 4e power of women’s cycling in 2022, had filed two requests with ASO.
“The first was more participation in the costs of the teams. They will do it and we need these regular efforts, hand in hand. The figures for the Tour have been beyond their expectations so they are increasing the prices “, praises Stephen Delcourt. “The other point was that the number of runners on the Grand Tours increased to seven, compared to six last year.”
On this point too, the teams won their case. In 2023, on the Tour, the Giro and the Vuelta – which is extended for the first time to seven stages – the sporting directors will have more weapons at their disposal.
An extended calendar
However, the exponential extension of the female calendar is not without consequence. The World Tour calendar, the highest division, has been reduced from 23 races and 52 days of competition in 2019 to 30 races and 82 days of races. This year alone, four new races are appearing on the calendar – UAE Tour, Tour Down Under, Omloop Het Nieuwsblad and Tour de Suisse.
However, the elite teams have a dozen runners in their workforce, while the men are generally around thirty. Which is not without generating some headaches to succeed in leading everything together with, in addition, the logistics of the buses, follower cars, management and mechanics which are also less extensive than for the men.
“We have to manage to structure our calendar. It must not go too fast and the race organizers who are currently arriving en masse in the women’s circuit must know what they are doing”, claims Stephen Delcourt, whose the protégés are also used to competing in lower division races such as the Coupe de France. “The Vuelta and the Giro have still not revealed their route. It was a commitment to do it before Christmas. It is not normal that it is not done. We, behind, cannot organize the calendar of races of our runners”, he criticizes.
“There is also a problem with the pool of athletes. Currently, some teams could increase the size of their roster and have development teams. However, there would be the risk that this leaves nothing for others. However, the expanding the number of high-level runners will not happen overnight: we must give the little girls who began to dream of cycling with the 2022 Women’s Tour time to grow up”, explains Stephen Delcourt in a eulogy of patience.
“That’s the real risk: getting fired up and wanting to go too fast,” he adds.
“Today, girls make a living from cycling and make a good living from it”
Regarding income, the International Cycling Union (UCI) introduced in 2020 a minimum salary for World Tour teams (first division) which will be increased to 32,102 euros per year in 2023.
“Now the girls make a living from cycling and they make a good living from it”, confirms Stephen Delcourt. “At the FDJ, all the girls even own their own house.”
The comparison of prize money between men and women remains a recurring controversial subject. For the Tour de France, the endowment has not changed: 250,000 euros in prize money, including 50,000 for the winner. It is certainly ten times less than for the winner of the men’s Tour de France. But much more than the winner of a race of equivalent duration (eight days) for men like Paris-Nice (144,300 euros, including 16,000 for the winner).
Bring Queen van Vleuten down from her throne
This progress should mechanically improve the density of the women’s peloton and allow the champions of the little queen to challenge the hegemony of Annemiek van Vleuten. In 2022, the year of her 40th birthday, her reign has still not suffered from opposition: the Dutchwoman has won the three grand tours and the world championships.
>> To read also: Annemiek van Vleuten, a winner “from another planet”
She must hang up her racing bike on the wall at the end of 2023. Despite the champion’s formidable track record, it’s probably not a bad thing for the discipline, as the public tends to quickly get tired of eternal winners. or winners.
“It’s time for her to stop for our sport. The next generation is already there and growing. We love the woman, we love the sportswoman but we have only one desire: to get her off her throne before she stops. We want to beat her on the pedal”, sets Stephen Delcourt as his objective, who likes to point out that only his rider Marta Cavalli has beaten regularly – without falls or illness to hinder the Dutchwoman – the “Cannibal” of women’s cycling.
“Sportingly, it’s a season that can go in all directions. And I hope that we will keep what is the strength of women’s cycling currently compared to men: unbridled races where the riders run on instinct, sometimes attacking from afar and being rewarded”, praises the French manager. “It’s the worst thing that could happen to us: that by taking advantage of the now seven riders on the race, we start padlocking like the men and that the women’s Tour de France turns into a nap.”