Influential women in cycling - who are yours?
by Sarah Connolly on Mar 8, 2011 12:20 PM EST
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Today is not just Pancake Day (yum!), it's also International Women's day - and Cycling News celebrated it with their Five Most Influential Women In Cycling, and their Top Five Ride(r?)s of 2011. Which got me thinking....
As the inestimable Jens pointed out, their definition of "Influential" is not necessarily mine - I'd say their list is more "inspirational". And it got me wondering about who ARE the influential women in cycling. On the men's side, I can only think of Fran Millar, and the woman who was high up in the UCI, but resigned last year - all I can remember are that she's Australian, and might be called Ann Anne Gripper! (thanks Civetta!)... And below the jump are the 5 people who popped into my head from the women's side
But this post is as much a question to you much-more-knowledgeable people than me - who do you think are the most influential women in cycling today? Who should I know about? And why? Answers on a postcard in the comments will be VERY gratefully received!
She's not just a multiple World-Olympic Road-Track etc Champion, which ticks the "inspirational" box, she's also doing an amazing job (as far as I can see) of promoting women's cycling at all levels in the Netherlands. At the Pro level, after AA Drink pulled their sponsorship from the team her husband DSs, she stepped into the brink, using her personal profile to save the team. Its transformation into Leontien.nl, with its pink kits, development of young riders and great marketing was a breath of fresh air, when teams were collapsing left, right and centre. And when AA Drink came back on board, because of Van Moorsel, it was announced on national television, which is just crazy publicity for anywhere else.
On top of that, the Leontien brand does all kinds of work promoting women's cycling, with the Leontien Ladies' Rides, which are mass bike rides, friendly tips for getting into cycling - think like the Livestrong.com project, but without the undertones. Of course she also has her own Charitable Foundation.
Yeah, it might be obvious, but I am a huge fan. I love the fact she's promoting cycling across the board, and with the AA Drink-Leontien.nl team stepping up a level in 2011, with aims of supporting Dutch riders to compete and win in the 2012 Olympics, the influence will only grow...
You might have picked Rochelle Gilmore for your wvds team because of her sprinting ability, but did you know she also is a team owner and manager? She not only took on a managerial rôle in Lotto in Europe, but she set up her own team for the Australian season, the Honda Dream Team. This year she's stepping back from the Lotto management, but she's keeps a financial interest in the team - and she's played a great part in bringing new riders into the European pro peloton (she was involved in setting up the guest rider deals with South African team Nashua Toyota, that gave Ashleigh Moolman Pasio the chance to ride over here). I love that! She's riding at the highest levels, and also working on the inside of the sport - and when she's not doing THAT, she was part of the Aussie commentary team for the 2010 Worlds.... and she runs a couple of her own businesses on the side. And STILL she made time to answer some questions for the Café!
3. Marianne Vos
I think the only overlap between my list and CN's list is Vos - and partly it's because of the inspiration factor, but it's also because she is so exceptional that she's one of the few women's riders who can consistently get her voice heard in the media. I especially loved it last year, when she was public about how she didn't think there's enough doping controls in women's cycling - how great is that?
By riding road, track and cyclocross, she promotes all three disciplines (I know I only started being interested in cross because of the Vos connection... maybe I shouldn't thank her for that!) and she's the perfect ambassador for the sport, and by all accounts, a thoroughly nice person.
4. Sarah Storey
As we get closer to the London Olympics, your chances of having heard of Sarah Storey, if you're in touch with UK media, increases exponentially. She definitely ticks the "inspirational" box, what with her multiple Paralympic/Para-swimming/Para-Cycling medals - but with her goal of riding (I'm sure she'd say "winning") on the track in the able-bodied Olympics in 2012, she's got a story that will help to promote cycling and give the mainstream media a way to relate to the sport in ways other than through doping. She's got a great media presence too - she's articulate, with great presence, and she tells her stories in great style. In terms of raising the profile of Paracycling, she's invaluable, and it'll be really interesting to see what happens after 2012, and what she does next.
When Hanka Kupfernagel started riding cyclocross, there was still a dominant point of view that said it was too hard a sport for women, and she played a huge part in changing that. She was part of the fight for a women's Cross World Championships (she won the first ever rainbow jersey in 2000, her first of four) and for women to receive prize money for the World Cups. On the road, she's a former World Time Trial Champion and Olympic Road race silver medallist, and has handfuls of Worlds podium places. We know how in Germany, cycling is seen as a dirty sport in the media - but Kupfernagel changes that perception, bringing huge media coverage, because she's still just so good, on the road and in the Cross field - and that kind of influence is fantastic
So those are my five - who are yours? I need, at this point, to give a big shout-out to Ashleigh Moolman for her work promoting women's sport, especially though her FemmeVelo blog and twitter, and Marijn de Vries for her blog and her media work (her tv editing is also very influential, as it shows off the best of cycling) and all the other bloggers, who influence me, if no one else. And our own Gavia, of course, for her work in promoting the sport on both the men's and women's side! That counts too, right?
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Bonnie Walker
who? you ask?
No less than the queen of officials in Texas and a major force in the growth of cycling in the state. She also works beyond state borders—having done ToC pretty much every year and chief ref’d Nature Valley.
See, perfect!
Oh, and it reminds me, on the American side, Nicole Cramner has been doing a superb job with the team she founded/manages, Peanut Butter & Co TWENTY12 – I love their media tactics, with their films and things – and the link with Olympic Champion Kristin Armstrong is fantastic too…. as is their mission to support more American riders to get to ride in Europe and win BIG!
by Sarah Connolly on Mar 8, 2011 12:30 PM EST up reply actions
Anne Gripper.
How influential you think she was depends on, well… though the bio passport successes are probably at least partly hers, I think. Her replacement is also a woman, an Italian, Francesca Rossi. Incidentally, the first article I clicked on when I googled to check her name seemed to think she was actually a man called Francesco… :-(
"There is nobody doing it for the money. Everybody is doing it because they want to ride bikes." Lizzie Armitstead
Sorry, that was the woman at the UCI I think you were thinking of.
"There is nobody doing it for the money. Everybody is doing it because they want to ride bikes." Lizzie Armitstead
Haha, yes, I worked that out!
I read an interview with her in CN or something, where she was talking about the bio passport, and how the Pelizotti case would be make-or-break – she said she would have been OK to have the case kicked out on technicalities (eg blood storage) cos that they could improve – but said if the basic premise – can’t remember the term, but the fact there’s no positive test – was kicked out, it would be a real problem – so I guess she’s pretty happy today.
by Sarah Connolly on Mar 8, 2011 1:13 PM EST up reply actions
+1
Irrespective of the success of the bio-passport she seemed open and honest in a way that none of the senior UCI-types ever seem to have managed
Linda Jackson
She is the managing director of Team TIBCO/To the Top. Linda is a former Canadian Olympian….started competing in her early thirties…and is absolutely amazing.
She started TIBCO as a local (SF Bay Area) amateur team. It is now a full fledged UCI road team with a very healthy developmental squad. Her goal is to train, motivate young women….and to help North American riders realize their Olympic dreams.
FYI – TWENTY12 is an UCI track team….not an UCI road team. Nikki sends her riders to Europe via USA Cycling.
Marion Clignet.
I’m not sure if she’s doing it anymore because of the fall out from the change of sponsor & all the uncertainty at the end of the season, but when she was coaching Bouygues the last couple of years she was the first – & to the best of my knowledge only – woman to coach a men’s professional team, which I think’s an amazing achievement. There are so few women coaches anyway (in lots of sports, not just cycling) and even fewer who get the opportunity to coach men as well as women.
"There is nobody doing it for the money. Everybody is doing it because they want to ride bikes." Lizzie Armitstead
Oh yes, I remember, hope she's still around...
by Sarah Connolly on Mar 8, 2011 1:14 PM EST up reply actions
No idea if or how she's still involved in the bike biz
but I like this from her fb profile: “Religion – just get off yer arse and do it / Politics – see religion”
She's pretty amazing all round.
She became a cyclist because she had epilepsy & wasn’t allowed to drive so started to ride everywhere. Then the American Federation (she had French parents but grew up in the States where her dad was an academic) wouldn’t have her on their team because of the epilepsy, so she went to France & rode for club teams & then won medals for France on the track. But coaching men’s teams is especially cool.
"There is nobody doing it for the money. Everybody is doing it because they want to ride bikes." Lizzie Armitstead
That's a fab story!
Thankyou! (and thanks ted, that made me laugh!)
by Sarah Connolly on Mar 8, 2011 3:35 PM EST up reply actions
the ladies at the PdC, starting with the incomparable Gav.
Since 90% of the cycling related content i look at is found right here, the PdC ladies have a huge influence on my window into cycling. now if they could just stop with the benavalanches :)
"Ants don’t worry, they operate like a fantastic team, they accept obstacles and deal with them in a positive manner, they don’t complain and remain positive. An ant doesn’t work on emotion, is proactive and always chooses the ant role."
I can't remember whether it was CN or Cycling Weekly
that posted a few Liquigas team photos last year with the caption “Some Liquigas for the ladies”
Bonnie Ford
Bringing smart, excellent cycling journalism to the masses via the largest sports content generator in the States. I’m sure her bosses know nothing about cycling, so she could probably be really lazy and still get a paycheck. But she’s not. Her work is way too good for ESPN in my opinion.
I picked Riccardo Ricco for my 2011 VDS team, and submitted said team well before the submission deadline. I fully understand the error of my ways, and plead with the VDS Gods to allow me to resubmit my team.
Her talents may not get the full appreciation at ESPN
but it can’t hurt cycling to have someone like her bringing cyclingnews to the wider audience (rather than some of the other not so bright US cycling journos that spring to mind).
Hey!
If cobble delusions are wrong, who wants to be right? -JFS PGH
by Chris Fontecchio on Mar 8, 2011 5:14 PM EST up reply actions
Emma Pooley
I wasn’t excited til I saw her win a couple times. Now I’m hooked.
If cobble delusions are wrong, who wants to be right? -JFS PGH
by Chris Fontecchio on Mar 8, 2011 2:46 PM EST reply actions
wow
impressed
"Ants don’t worry, they operate like a fantastic team, they accept obstacles and deal with them in a positive manner, they don’t complain and remain positive. An ant doesn’t work on emotion, is proactive and always chooses the ant role."
Ah OK
She seems pretty comfortable talking in French, though. That and I knew she did her PhD in Switzerland made me assume it was in French.
Think she's fluent in about 3 languages
and speaks a couple of others pretty well
by Sarah Connolly on Mar 9, 2011 7:24 AM EST up reply actions
+1
Love her. She’s everything male cyclists (generally, I hasten to add) aren’t – both on and off the bike.
by EdredonBrowny on Mar 8, 2011 3:02 PM EST up reply actions
I'd probably include Liz Hatch too
she seems to make more effort than many to go out and sell women’s cycling outside its core audience.
With a tip of the hat to Tim Hilton
and his wonderfully eccentric memoir/British club cycling history/pro cylcing history book One More Kilometre and we’re in the Showers, I’d like to nominate Eileen Sheridan.
There’s a bit about her on wikipedia. I should add that, having ridden the length of the UK, she went on to do another 40 miles (after being fed "like a baby and carried down the caravan steps to her bike). She took 3 days and 1 hour for the 1,000 miles on a three-geared bike.
Jeannie Longo
influential, inspirational….pick one!
D I R K H O F F M A N M O T O R H O M E S
She's an awkward choice
because there are all sorts of stories around about how she discouraged lots of French women from staying in top level cycling.
Longo was my first thought too.
Her longevity is inspirational. I did not realize that she was not encouraging to other female riders.
Admittedly, anyone (male or female) must think long and hard about dedicating one’s prime years to a sport. Not everyone can make cycling the enduring centerpiece of her life like Longo has. Maybe one could consider Longo’s undeniable influence (good or ill) as a cautionary tale.
Fabian Cancellara walks into a bar. "I'd like Tom Boonen on the rocks...make it a double."
but seriously, I can't say I am a huge follower of Women's Cycling (but getting better due to this place).
That said, I’d say Vos because she seems to be just about the best in the world at whatever discipline. I think she will challenge for years and raise the bar for other women to strive for (similar, as I hate to admit it, to what LA did for men and the tour).
Cycling News' 3rd article for International Women's Day
Five Ways to improve women’s cycling - can’t argue with any of them!
Plus, it reminds me of other influential women – Kirsty Scrymgeour, HTC’s press supremo (suprema?) and Rachel Heal, Directeur Sportif of the Colavita-Forno D’Asolo
I should also have mentioned Diana Ziliute, for her own winning ability, and for her work with Safi-Pasta Zara, now Diadora-Pasta Zara (so many of the Safi riders cited her help – and Martine Bras, who seems to be the go-to woman for helping young riders get a start on the Belgian scene.
All of the CN suggestions
are cart-before-the-horse, IMHO, except the increased press. Mandating teams, mandating races — you can tell the big event and team owners to split their purse, I guess, between men and women, easier said than done. Just because Gent-Wevelgem has been around 70 years doesn’t mean they can do a women’s race. Maybe they can — in which case they should — but if you told them “do it or else” and they decided to shut their doors so as to not lose money, that would totally blow up.
So… more press coverage! Then more money, and when that happens, we can talk about requiring teams and events.
If cobble delusions are wrong, who wants to be right? -JFS PGH
by Chris Fontecchio on Mar 8, 2011 5:23 PM EST up reply actions
agreed
the money will come if the press coverage goes up. sponsors pay for coverage.
"Ants don’t worry, they operate like a fantastic team, they accept obstacles and deal with them in a positive manner, they don’t complain and remain positive. An ant doesn’t work on emotion, is proactive and always chooses the ant role."
There is also the issue of somewhere like CN saying "increased media coverage"...
…when they have the power!
I dunno, though, I really, truly don’t see the problem with the “if you want to be a pro team, you need to have a women’s team”…. but then, I also think all Premiership football teams should have to run proper youth development programmes…
by Sarah Connolly on Mar 8, 2011 5:33 PM EST up reply actions
I dunno, the amount of £ spent on the Sky bus etc...
…and Wiggins on a mill a year? Offer him £900,000 or £850,000 and set up a Sky women’s team with the rest!
by Sarah Connolly on Mar 8, 2011 5:55 PM EST up reply actions
Not necessarily
They are owned and published by a media corporation that owns other sites and magazines. The editor does not have a free hand to decide how to spend money. He has to justify those expenses, mostly by showing page view numbers for the stories he covers. So, it’s not so straightforward as just saying well, CN has to go out and cover the races. They have to cover the races, yeah, but people have to show up to read the stories too, or htere’s no return. And the parent corporation who is counting the beans and trying to make money says, well, why are you spending money on this? Because it’s right is a good answer, but maybe not always enough for the accountants.
i think women's teams and races are partly to blame
sites like CN spend a lot of time regurgitating press releases, not generating original content – and seemingly they’ll covr anything that gets sent to them (start of the virginia off road season?)
from PdC’s own efforts trying to find things like team rosters isn’t always easy – if all teams had the focus of Garmin, or Horizon suspect the coverage would be greater and I can’t believe it’s that hard to do the basics: announcing your roster, some nice photos of the team out training, regular result updates, the occassional blog / diary…
Sort of true
but I think at some point they might lose interest because not that much of the info ever gets used. Having a basic well updated website seems like a minimum requirement for sure though. Stuart from Horizon might have an insight into how the response-rate is to the stuff they send out,( bear in mind they aren’t a top level team taking part in all the biggest races though)?
yep
I think this does happen. I’d guess it’s hard to keep sending stuff out there and never really see it go anywhere. The other thing is, writing press releases and race reports, it’s really time consuming. Like, the kind of thing BMC does or Cervélo did, you need someone pretty on top of it do keep that going. Which, generally, requires some money to pay them.
It's amazing how hard it is to keep a website up to date.
I know, I do one. Yes, it should be straightforward, but when you’re doing huge amounts of other stuff, most of which needed to be done yesterday, alas, it kind of isn’t :-(
"There is nobody doing it for the money. Everybody is doing it because they want to ride bikes." Lizzie Armitstead
uh-huh
I did it for a team for a while, and even with other people doing the writing, my role was really just tidying and updating, it was hard to keep on top of it. And that didn’t include writing race reports or press releases. Add that in? Gak.
Response Rates
I don’t really get involved in the PRs being sent out other than proof reading it, but in general they get sent out to a distribution list which includes the Cafe, Velonation, CN, Cycling Weekly, British Cycling and other sites. The vast majority of the distribution list will use what’s been sent.
We don’t see much of a response in hits to our website from those sites, however that’s to be expected (depending on the PR).
It’s very time consuming in maintaining it all, but for us it’s worth it. Our strategy with our partners is based around our internet presence and how we utilise social networks.
If I remember rightly, in Stef’s interview with Gavia from a few months back, he believes that women’s cycling teams don’t help themselves enough with their comms and certainly after spending a day of crunching internet numbers I’d say that being proactive with communication is worth the initial time spent, especially when you consider that as the process matures the time required is less.
Does that help? Any other questions? I’m happy to answer.
Thanks, good info there.
And while I understand why some teams don’t do as much as they could, I do think more is better ;)
Completely agree
I’d particularly love to see the non Anglosphere teams doing a bit more pro-active news to a wider internet audience. There’s a lot going on, but we don’t get to hear about it.
But to be fair, that's also the fault of the anglosphere not looking
I mean, HTC/Garmin can have something on their website and places will use it (or use a story from the Sunday Times or the Guardian – eg the Nicole Cooke “interview” reported in Velonation recently) – but won’t look at international stuff as a matter of course. Not sure why eg Dutch teams should have to produce everything twice, in Dutch and English, because places can’t look at it…
(There’s an interesting hierarchy of nations, btw – something from Gazzetta will often find itself into the anglosphere media…. Spanish got quoted if it was re Contador (often missing the linguistic issues…) – I guess more people in English-speaking media are likely to speak French, Spanish or Italian than they are Dutch…)
by Sarah Connolly on Mar 9, 2011 4:35 PM EST up reply actions
Good point
I really admire what the Netherlands are doing for women’s cycling and would love it to be seen by a wider audience. A bit of chat between teams and media during pre-season so they can agree on a way to make it wok for the season would nail this one I think.
I would think the Netherlands
would be the easiest, because so many people and teams actually have English. Italy, that’s much more difficult, as fewer riders and team staff speak English.
But they'd still have to spend the extra time writing things twice...
and sending different ones out to different places – double the effort, when even the big men’s teams seem to find it hard to keep on top
by Sarah Connolly on Mar 9, 2011 5:19 PM EST up reply actions
Oh sure
Though really, they wouldn’t have to send stuff anywhere. Just putting up the occasional English update on the webby would be super helpful, honestly.
Or, sending out the same release
with two languages. Liquigas, for ex., sends every presser in both English and Italian. And not especially native speaker English either. It’s quite charming ;)
I did a little bit of work experience that included turning PRs into stories
and it’s hard – if a publication (inc online) just recycles the PR, it gets criticised for that – but turning it into a story takes time, which costs £. And if 3 other places have posted it as is, the research doesn’t count, as the basic info is already out there. It’s hard all round – one solution would be to feed different stories to different places – but as Civetta says, just doing one is hard enough
by Sarah Connolly on Mar 9, 2011 4:31 PM EST up reply actions
It's not my bag
but we’ve discussed what’s the best approach. As someone who reads but doesn’t write PR, I’d prefer slightly different versions of a PR.
However, is it really worth it? Our process isn’t mature enough to know how successful the PRs we generate are in generating hits for news sites. If they get a lot of views, it’d make sense to customise them to suit the audience. However, if they’re read by 4 people and a parrot then I’d rather we focus our time on improving the content we can control on a daily basis through our site and social networks. PRs are very one directional and we’re trying to encourage interaction.
For teams who are a one direction communication stream, perhaps it’d be more beneficial for them to invest their time in producing a variety of PRs? It depends on strategies and all that.
Eh, yeah.
Not an easy thing by any means. I generally don’t rewrite them. I add an intro that highlights what might be of interest, than cut/paste, while announcing that yes, this is a press release. But that also reflects the reality that we don’t have a ginormous staff here at the Cafe. Me, I prefer that people are honest and say, here’s some info from a press release. Or, write something, pull a few quotes, but be straightforward about where the quotes are coming from. I hate it when writers try to cover that it’s a press release – like the team told me, heh, the team told everyone you slacker!
Sometimes you just have to keep plugging away
I reckon it took us a year at least of regular-ish coverage before many other people started joining in.
And when I’m trying to research something I really appreciate people and teams that keep going when often the only commenter is a friend or relative. You might have spotted that we have a bit of a bias towards riders who blog. And an even bigger bias towards riders that blog lots.
This is my thinking too
Coverage (live more than anything) opens the door to all the other things.
I’m not very impressed with the equal pay argument either. If effort was the decider for paygrade, footballers, baseballplayers etc. surely wouldn’t be making 100 times as much money as bikeriders.
Yup, I'm always wary of solutions that say
“we must force x to do y” ‘cos if they don’t want to then it’s too easy to bring everything down with a bit of half-assedness. And while I would like to see the real top races have a women’s event on the same day, I’d really hate it if the whole sport just became a warm-up for the men. I like the Alfredo Binda, I like Drenthe, I like the Giro Donne and I liked l’Aude. OK ASO maybe does need to have its arm twisted a little because I can’t understand why they promote no women’s races in France (and I’ve heard no more about Pierre Boue’s book giving the inside story of the Grande Boucle – velotekiero seems to have turned oddly not safe for work – beware of Mister Mars), and if France 3 could be persuaded to cover a few more races then it would make life a lot easier for lots of those little organising committees.
Historically this has never worked . . .
. . . and what you have just stated has been used for decades as some bull shit excuse.
I’d go on but I don’t want the thread to go off topic.
What would Deming do? (+8:00 GMT)
Out of interest, then, what would your 5 ways to improve things be?
Not just to Chris, but anyone – because although I agree with the CN ones, I’m interested in alternatives too – the more, the better!
by Sarah Connolly on Mar 9, 2011 6:19 PM EST up reply actions
Three letters for ya
Ina
I’d suggest that few riders in the peloton have a greater influence than she does. An absolute credit to the sport and offers so much support to other riders. A class act.
got to love the women !
they really need more exposure…..
http://women.cyclingfever.com/
&
http://worldcup.cyclingfever.com/
.
Marketers are missing the boat
Sponsoring a woman’s team is one thing, but the sponsors don’t seem to take advantage of the situation. They need to use these fit, attractive, articulate super women to sell their products and in so doing increase exposure of the sport.
Connie Carpenter-Phinney
She’s competed in speed skating, rowing,and cycling, both road and track, wherever her abilities and interest took her. She supports her family in their chosen paths, Taylor on the bike, Kelsey as a biathelete, and with Davis running their cycling camps and doing so much with the Phinney Foundation for those with Parkinsons. She has been influential not just in developing and coaching worldclass athletes as competitors but also everyday athletes in enjoying being their best ant any level of sport.
And when given the chance to blood dope she just said no. That said, Rebecca Twigg had the cooler hair.
pounding along in three ratios like a sonata
like a Ritter with pommelled scrotum atra cura on the step
Botticelli from the fork down pestling the transmission
tires bleeding voiding zeep the highway
by fmk on Mar 9, 2011 5:23 AM EST up reply actions
Well I believe Daddy is a diff story.
pounding along in three ratios like a sonata
like a Ritter with pommelled scrotum atra cura on the step
Botticelli from the fork down pestling the transmission
tires bleeding voiding zeep the highway
by fmk on Mar 9, 2011 1:38 PM EST up reply actions
Beryl Burton
Not Today, but surely one of the greatest British athletes of all time. My favorite and worthy of historical “influence” on the sport. A ground breaker in the war for gender respect.
"Does that mean over or resolved?" Arkady Renko
+ many
My mothers first sporting heroine as a child was Fanny Blankers-Koen, second sporting heroine as a young woman Beryl Burton. If prompted she will still tell you stories about watching her at various events – back in the days there was a cycling track in town. A BB appearance could fill this place.
Nice link Andrew.
Thanks.
"Does that mean over or resolved?" Arkady Renko
by frans verbiage on Mar 10, 2011 9:33 PM EST up reply actions
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