For eight days, from the Champs-Elysées to the Vosges mountains, her blue-white-red tunic will survey the peloton of the women’s Tour de France, which begins Sunday in Paris. Recent double national champion on the road and against the clock, the Breton Audrey Cordon-Ragot, 32, sees a “dream come true”. Her first part of the season, rotten by the Covid, had left her bitter. “In training I suffered a lot and the physical suffering became psychological”, she tells Release. The return of the Grande Boucle for women, the last edition of which dates back to 2016, brings her joy, all the more so under the patronage of Amaury Sport Organization (ASO), owner of the men’s race: “ASO is a war machine. If they are committed to this type of event, it is not to do it for three years and stop everything behind.
Professionalism of odds and ends
For her, “women’s cycling is in solid and constant growth”, like women “who are increasingly taking their place, their dignity” in all parts of society. The culmination of several years of struggle for equality. “I was one of those who banged their fists on the table to have international races: we are starting to reap the rewards”, supports Cordon-Ragot. The native of Pontivy (Morbihan), who started cycling at the age of 10, pushed by her uncle and her father, is representative of the older generation of the peloton. Girls who have known the professionalism of odds and ends, the resourcefulness, the trips to tears.
She began her career in 2008 with the Vienna Futuroscope team. For ten years, she juggled her job as a real estate agent and shopping. Then, she became a sports educator, hired by the community of communes of Loudéac, where she lives. A position more easily reconciled with the high level. “Thanks to this contract I was able to continue racing, otherwise it would have been very complicated”, she confides. It was not until 2019 that cycling became his only professional activity. The American team Trek-Segafredo, present in the men’s section for several years, decided to launch its women’s section. Cordon-Ragot, a good roller, was one of the first recruits.
“On the other side of the fence”
She says “win well [sa] vie», perhaps even more so since in 2021 her employer decided to align the minimum wages of women with those of men. A rarity in the industry. Among the 144 runners who will fight it out in the women’s Tour de France, more than a third belong to formations of continental rank, the equivalent of the second international division. “At this level, there is no minimum wage imposed by the International Cycling Union (UCI)”, sighs Audrey Cordon-Ragot. Not impossible that the Frenchwoman finds herself scrapping with competitors “some of whom earn 400 euros per month”, she curses. “The UCI is in the process of reviewing the regulations: it is one of the fights that is closest to my heart.”
For eight days, the tricolor’s mission will be to help its leaders, the Italians Elisa Balsamo (in the sprint) and Elisa Longo Borghini (for a good final general classification). And beyond that, she does not project herself for very long in her status as a pro cyclist: “I’m thinking of going as far as Paris 2024, but after that I can see myself on the other side of the barrier, in the staff of a women’s team to be able to transmit all my experience and why not on TV, to comment on our sport. . It must be considered as a sport in its own right, without making comparisons with men.