ANALYSIS: THE PROBLEM WITH LA COURSE
ASO have been heavily criticised for not doing enough to promote women’s cycling. Is it fair?
When Tour de France director Christian Prudhomme announced that La Course by Le Tour de France would move from the Champs-Élysées in 2017, becoming a twoday race with a mountain stage and time trial, further growth seemed only a matter of time. Two days would surely become three, then four, five, six… Until then, the women’s race, held since 2014 on the final day of the Tour, had been little more than a kermesse around the capital. It offered the world’s top female riders the stage, but not the sporting challenge they craved.
But the 2017 edition of La Course fell a little flat after Annemiek van Vleuten won on the Col d’Izoard. In a novel twist, the time trial in Marseille two days later saw the riders start in the order they finished on the Izoard, with the same time gaps. Perhaps this was an innovation we would one day see transferred to the men’s race.
Or perhaps not. Van Vleuten’s advantage of 43 seconds over Lizzie Deignan was too big. The race was over, really, before Van Vleuten, one of the world’s strongest time triallists, left the start house in a sparsely attended Stade Vélodrome in Marseille.
And with that, progress appeared to stall. Last year, La Course reverted to one day, early on a Tuesday morning. It seemed inauspicious. And yet the race, only 112km
from the shores of Lake Annecy to the pretty Alpine town of Le Grand-Bornand, was an absolute thriller: aggressive and with a nail-biting finish, Van Vleuten pursuing and then catching Anna van der Breggen in the final few metres.
In 2019 the format is tweaked again, with the women racing over five laps of the 27km circuit around Pau that the men will tackle as a time trial on stage 13. It will be a sporting course, 121km including the Côte d’Esquillot, for the puncheurs, ASO say. It is hard to know whether this is progress. There are some advantages to holding La Course on the same day as a time trial, which starts later than a conventional road stage. Although precise details hadn’t been made public at the time of going to press, it could mean a more sociable starting time than last year’s crack-of-dawn rendezvous, where the riders outnumbered spectators by about two to one.
It will at least be broadcast live on television. The same cannot be said for
other ASO-organised women’s races, including Flèche Wallonne and LiègeBastogne-Liège, which could see them drop out of next year’s Women’s WorldTour (WWT). The reason is their failure to guarantee the 45 minutes of live TV coverage required in 2020 by UCI reforms intended to develop and professionalise women’s racing over the next three years.
Some of the top riders, including fivetime Flèche winner Van der Breggen, spoke out about the lack of TV coverage of the two ASO-organised Ardennes classics, which followed a thrilling, and televised, Amstel Gold Race, run by the Amstel Gold Race Foundation. Van der Breggen said that if the ASO races aren’t broadcast then they don’t deserve to be part of the WWT. Initially ASO seemed to accept that this would be an consequence as they confirmed that they and RTBF, the Walloon public service broadcaster, would be unable to provide live coverage.
The UCI responded by saying that discussions were in progress, which suggests there might be a solution to the impasse. There is every incentive for the world governing body to find one given that their ambitious plans to develop the WWT presumably don’t include losing two of the most prestigious races from their premier calendar.
There are bigger issues here than the fates of these races, and it isn’t always helpful that La Course is seen as the focal point, or lightning rod, in the debate about ASO, their attitude to women’s racing and their refusal to consider promoting a women’s Tour de France. It isn’t just about ASO. There are concerns that the UCI and their ambitious plans for women’s racing could put an intolerable burden on teams required to pay minimum salaries and other additional costs from 2020, as well as on organisers who, with broadcasters unwilling to pay to show women’s races, might have to foot the bill themselves. But more often than not it is ASO who find themselves in the firing line when the discussion turns to women’s racing and its continued status as a poor relation to the men’s sport.
The reasons are obvious. ASO organise 15 men’s races and five women’s races. The Tour de France is obviously the jewel in the crown. Although they have axed loss-making races like the Critérium International and the Tour de Picardie, they keep on others. It makes sense as a part of a strategy of supporting races that in turn support the Tour and the French teams.
It is doubtful that any of the women’s races turn a profit for ASO. But nor do they appear to fit into any logical strategy – there is no equivalent jewel in the crown in women’s cycling. ASO do not have a director of women’s racing – there is no one in charge of the races they promote; each has its own organiser. Perhaps the question for ASO is not why not organise more races, but why organise any at all?
According to an ASO spokesperson, the attitude towards women’s racing is based on conversations with some of the top riders. “When we speak with female riders, they want more media on their races and not especially new races.” This is a reasonable point – there remains a huge discrepancy between the coverage of men’s and women’s racing.
The question of TV coverage, added the spokesperson, is one that should be addressed to broadcasters rather than race organisers. Fair to say that in putting this question to broadcasters, the answers tend not to be encouraging. Other organisers say that broadcasters simply will not pay for the rights to women’s races, though it should be added that the rights to lots of
ASO find themselves in the firing line when the discussion turns to women’s racing and its status as a poor relation to the men’s sport
men’s races go for little, and in some cases nothing either. “The broadcasters say they will show it but they’re not paying a penny,” said a source involved in the organisation of one Women’s WorldTour race. “And the UCI is putting all the onus on organisers to pay. Commercially, it’s not viable.”
When a women’s race is held on the same day as a men’s race – such as at the Tour de Yorkshire – the cost of live coverage is not quite so steep: infrastructure and resources can be shared. But for a standalone race it can cost as much as £100,000 (€115,000) a day. The choice facing some organisers of women’s races could be stark: go bankrupt or drop out of the Women’s WorldTour altogether.
Iris Slappendel, the retired rider who now helps run the Cyclists’ Alliance, representing female riders, was involved in the discussions around the UCI reforms. “I do agree that there should be extra requirements for races that want to be WorldTour,” says Slappendel. “But
I believe the requirement for live TV coverage is going to be tough for organisers. It’s a very big cost.
“It’s not an easy situation. The UCI have put a few years’ work into these new regulations as part of their plans for developing the Women’s WorldTour, but it’s easier to set them up than to get people to follow them. Maybe the race organisers, and also the teams, have not been involved enough in the reforms. I don’t know who’s to blame. Certainly, there was a representative from ASO on the Women’s WorldTour Commission who didn’t agree with some of the reforms.”
Others who were at a meeting about the UCI reforms in Geneva over the winter have confirmed this: that the ASO representative said the requirement for live TV pictures would see their races drop out of the Women’s WorldTour.
This, and the criticism from Van der Breggen and Ashleigh Moolman Pasio, among others, hints at a new resolve and a serious challenge to the idea that if women’s cycling is to develop, it needs ASO.
Six years ago, some of the top riders, headed by Marianne Vos and Kathryn Bertine, presented a petition, with close to 100,000 signatures, to Prudhomme, requesting a women’s Tour de France. La Course was born the following year – hardly a women’s Tour, but, as noted, regarded as a step in the right direction. And while progress since then has been a bit two steps forward, one step back, it is difficult now to imagine the top riders effectively begging ASO for a better race.
“I think there is a new mentality among the riders,” Slappendel agrees. “A few years ago the women wanted exactly the same races as the men. We felt it was the only way we could get recognition, by proving we could do the same as the men. Now, I would say, there’s a self-confidence that is growing all the time. We don’t need men’s races – we can create our own. I would say that there’s an opportunity to create a whole new business model for women’s cycling.”
Meanwhile, some of the most successful women’s races are standalone events. Slappendel mentions the Holland Ladies’ Tour and Healthy Ageing Tour. And there’s the Women’s Tour, up to six days in 2019 having first been held in 2014 – arguably year zero in the modern iteration of women’s professional racing. Another new race is the Women’s Tour of Scotland, a three-day race this August that has serious backing and support, including from the government agency EventScotland.
And in 2021 will come perhaps the most ambitious of all the new races, the Battle of the North, billed as the “women’s Tour de France”, held in Scandinavia. With 10 stages over 11 days, it will be a joint effort by the organisers of the Ladies Tour of Norway, the Women’s WorldTour race in Vårgårda, Sweden, and the Danish Cycling Union. The organisers have promised live television coverage – something that the Women’s Tour, which sets the benchmark in many ways, says it still cannot offer. This is the fly in the ointment, the note of caution in the optimism that, despite the challenges, generally infuses those who see women’s cycling as a developing sport with untapped potential.
While the focus post-spring was on ASO’s apparent shrugging of the shoulders at the prospect of their races not being part of the Women’s WorldTour, the same threat hangs over the Women’s Tour and other important races. In the meantime, there’s La Course. The last two years have made fools of those who have made predictions about this race as a spectacle and sporting contest. Which is just about the best advert for women’s cycling.
“We don’t need men’s races. We can create our own. There’s a chance to create a new business model for women’s cycling” Iris Slappendel