SCOTLAND MAKES RACING HISTORY

In the week of International Women’s Day, cycling crossed a major threshold as the route of the inaugural Women’s Tour of Scotland was unveiled. History has o! !icially been made, as the stage race will become the !irst- ever UCI-ranked event to be launched for women without a men’s equivalent already in existence. The threeday, 2.1-level race, from August 9 "11, will start in Dundee and travel southwest to Glasgow before !inishing up in central Edinburgh.

Perhaps most signi!icant, however, is how much the UK continues to be one of the leaders, if not the leader in promoting women’s cycling. Great Britain, of course, is already home to one of the biggest stage races in the sport – the Women’s Tour. Since it was launched in 2014, the !ive-stage race has become a rider favourite and one of the most popular on the calendar due to the fact it o! fers major television coverage, has fans constantly lined along the route and, as of 2018, o! fers an equal prize pot to the men’s Tour of Britain, also organised by SweetSpot. The fact that Zeus, organisers of the Women’s Tour of Scotland and their sponsors, were willing to back a second, and this time standalone, women’s stage race in the nation when one of the sport’s biggest events already exists, shows how highly women’s racing is viewed here.

Another positive sign is the fact the prize pot will be equal to that of an equivalent men’s 2.1-ranked race, showing that anything men can do, women should be o! fered the same opportunities to do, too. Countries like Belgium, France, Italy and the Netherlands may traditionally be the heartlands of cycling, but when their major races such as the women’s Ardennes classics or the Giro Rosa are still not even televised, let alone o! fer equal prize money, the UK is blazing a positive trail and showing a new, higher standard is possible.

Days before the launch, the women’s Omloop Het Nieuwsblad was neutralised midway through after lead rider Nicole Hanselmann almost caught up with the men’s race. Twitter was a!ire with comments about the symbolism of the gap closing between the women’s and men’s sports. In the case of the UK and the Women’s Tour of Scotland, that’s de! initely true.