{"id":170862,"date":"2018-09-28T08:30:54","date_gmt":"2018-09-28T08:30:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/?p=170862"},"modified":"2018-10-01T13:13:58","modified_gmt":"2018-10-01T13:13:58","slug":"womens-cycling-and-the-uci-world-road-championship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/2018\/09\/28\/womens-cycling-and-the-uci-world-road-championship\/","title":{"rendered":"Women\u2019s Cycling and the UCI World Road Championship"},"content":{"rendered":"

So far, the 2018 UCI World Road Championship has given us a lot of epic women\u2019s cycling. The event, taking place in Innsbruck, Austria, will culminate in this weekend\u2019s final road race. With the riders starting stronger and going faster than ever before, these women continue to make a solid case for the need for more coverage of their sport. This is a topic the UCI is known to dance around and, as is the case with other races, gender equality at the World Championships is a story of both progress and lingering frustration.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Slow to bring any women\u2019s events to their line-up, the UCI finally introduced a women\u2019s road race in 1958, 31 years after the men\u2019s event which began in 1927. Nevertheless, 60 years ago exactly, Elsy Jacobs of Luxembourg became the first women’s world champion when she beat Tamara Novikova and Mariya Lukshina of the Soviet Union on the roads of\u00a0Reims, France.<\/p>\n

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First-placed Annemiek van Vleuten, second-placed Anna van der Breggen, and third-placed Ellen van Dijk celebrate on the podium of the Women’s Elite Individual Time Trial at the UCI Road Cycling World Championships, Innsbruck, Austria, 25 September 2018.\u00a0\u00a9 Profimedia, TEMP EPA<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Women\u2019s cycling has certainly come a long way since then and the UCI has slowly been making adjustments that have helped move the women\u2019s programme towards something closer to equality. Until about 1990, the women\u2019s race varied in length from a low of 46.6\u00a0km in 1966 to around 72\u00a0km. From 1991, the race length began to gradually increase, first to 79\u00a0km in Stuttgart, Germany, to over 100 km in 1996\u2019s race in Lugano, Switzerland. It has since been on the up, with this year\u2019s final road race event clocking in at 156.2 km, still over 100 km less than the men\u2019s 258.5 km.<\/p>\n

Luckily for us, as we\u2019ve seen so far at this year\u2019s Championship, these women make every kilometre count and are able to put on a wildly impressive show on any course. Kicking off the Championship last Sunday, the Barnes sisters sailed Canyon-SRAM to a significant win at the team time trial, beating out favourites Sunweb and Boels-Dolmans. Canyon-SRAM had their eye on the prize, arriving in Austria almost a week earlier to train on the course. Their hard work paid off, as Hannah Barnes told VeloNews, \u201cwe\u2019ve trained really hard, and every day we were getting smoother.\u201d<\/p>\n

Next up on Monday, Rozemarijn Ammerlaan of the Netherlands claimed the first rainbow jersey of the 2018 Championships, winning the junior women\u2019s individual time trial over Camilla Alessio of Italy. The 18-year-old told Cycling News that she was surprised and delighted by the win. \u201cI didn\u2019t expect this, I don\u2019t have any words for it.\u201d Followed onto the podium by three more of her countrywomen the next day, Ammerlaan\u2019s completion of the 20km race in 27.02, suggests that the dominance of Dutch riders is something we can expect to see more of in the future.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Laura Stigger of Austria crosses the finish line to win the women’s Junior Road Race of the UCI Road Cycling World Championships in Innsbruck, Austria, 27 September 2018. Stigger won ahead of second-placed Marie Le Net of France. \u00a9 Profimedia, TEMP EPA<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Tuesday brought more speed and few surprises. Annemiek Van Vleuten was heavily favoured to win the women\u2019s time trial and did so decisively. Accompanied on an all-Dutch podium by Anna van der Breggen and Ellen van Dijk, Van Vleuten who turns 36 in two weeks, shows no sign of slowing down. Largely considered to be the best female rider in the world, her last couple seasons have been exceptional. Taking La Course, the Giro, and the Boels Ladies Tour – the latter two with three stages wins along the way, she\u2019s been unstoppable in 2018.<\/p>\n

Thursday brought us the junior women\u2019s finals, with an impressive win by Austria\u2019s own Laura Stigger. In only her second road race, mountain biker Stigger took home the rainbow jersey after winning the junior cross-country title earlier this month.<\/p>\n

So, with such a vast array of talent on display from the women, as we wonder who will claim the final two rainbow jerseys this weekend, it\u2019s hard not to think about the discrepancies in the course. Taking place on Saturday and Sunday respectively, both the elite women\u2019s and men\u2019s road race start in Kufstein, taking in an opening leg of 84.7 km before crossing the line in Innsbruck and entering the final circuit. The women will ride that 23.8km circuit three times and the men six. However, while the women finish after that third loop, the men then embark on a final long loop, including the \u201cHell Climb\u201d to Gnadenwald.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Laura Stigger celebrates on the podium after winning the women’s Junior Road Race of the UCI Road Cycling World Championships. \u00a9 Profimedia, TEMP EPA<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

With sections of this climb approaching 28 per cent gradient, overall the 2.6km ascent averages 10.5 per cent. It\u2019s safe to say this element will add to the race\u2019s drama, a spectacle that the women, unfortunately, won\u2019t be part of.<\/p>\n

Cecilie Uttrup Ludwig told Cycling News in June, when the course was announced, that it’s “sad and incomprehensible” to see a major difference between the men’s and women’s Innsbruck-Tirol courses. Her big question was the reasoning behind it, \u201cIs it because [they think] we are too weak or are we not capable of doing such hard climbs?\u201d she asked.<\/p>\n

Although we\u2019re wondering the same thing, it\u2019s not to say that the course which awaits the women on Saturday is anything to scoff at. The drama of the \u201cHell Climb\u201d will be left to men this time around, but we\u2019ve no doubt that intensity and excitement won\u2019t be on short supply when the women take to the road to cap off the 2018 racing season. Let\u2019s just hope that\u2019s one more reason for UCI to rethink the way they structure the women\u2019s course in the future.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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