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British Cycling looking to create women's pro teamLizzie Deignan (then Armitstead) in the 2014 World Championship road race (copyright Britishcycling.org_.uk).JPG

British Cycling looking to create women's pro team

Organisation keen to exert greater control over riders’ race programmes
by Alex Bowden
Tue, Sep 26, 2017 15:20
6

Stephen Park, British Cycling’s performance director, says the organisation has a “real aspiration” to set up a professional women’s road team with a view to tailoring British riders’ race programmes so that they can also compete on the track.

“We haven’t got anything firm in place but we have spoken about it,” he told The Daily Telegraph after the UCI Road World Championships in Bergen. “We are particularly keen to see where we can support women’s racing.”

Park said he would like to see something similar to Team Sky so that the organisation could exert greater control over what top British riders are doing.

“The problem is all those riders are going off and doing different things for different people and I suppose it’s just trying to balance up those programmes with the track programme.

“Ultimately that’s how Team Sky was born all those years ago. That was why they initiated it in the first place, and it just went on to snowball from there.”

At present, there is no sponsor for such a project, but Park expressed hope that one could be found.

“It’s not an inconsiderable outlay when you’re talking about millions of pounds. But it’s a great aspiration to have.”

British Cycling
Stephen Park
Alex Bowden

Alex has written for more cricket publications than the rest of the road.cc team combined. Despite the apparent evidence of this picture, he doesn't especially like cake.

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6 comments

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BehindTheBikesheds | 7 years ago
0 likes

the CTC (now CUK) sponsored a women's road team a couple of years ago, not sure what happened to it tbh or how much it did for either parties but at least they were in there and doing something that helps women's cycling as they (CUK) do all the time.

BC ... meh!

Avatar
Gkam84 | 7 years ago
2 likes

There is a reason many female riders avoid BC like the plague when asked to join their performance programs. Simply because it is track, track, track in BC's mind.

You just have to look at the riders leaving the performance programs to join road teams to see that a BC women team taking "control" over riders are never going to work, those they would want on that team would never settle for something like that anyway because their current teams allow them to do track when an event needs to be focused on.

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racingcondor | 7 years ago
3 likes

Someone at BC has finally done the maths. If Laura Kenny has another kid, Katie Archibald continues to enjoy road and with recent retirements BC are short about 12 medals at the next Olympics.

Even the statement reads as 'damn these women going off to do their own thing, we need more control so we can get them back on the Track where they can earn us funding'.

If it has been done 3 years ago it might have some credibility but this is the BC that still can't be bothered to fund half the things the Italians and French do when it happens to be women doing them.

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alansmurphy | 7 years ago
0 likes

Also the link between Sky and BC has been questioned, why would they repeat?

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Awavey replied to alansmurphy | 7 years ago
1 like
alansmurphy wrote:

Also the link between Sky and BC has been questioned, why would they repeat?

because then they can say "but we thought about it" to stop people keep asking the question why cant they do it, or why they cant just upgrade Team Breeze to a WWT status. I mean in the quoted article he's talking about how theyd need a yearly budget of millions, I dont think even the top level WWT teams spends millions a year so you can see how closely and how long theyve thought about it.

Avatar
Zebulebu | 7 years ago
8 likes

Pahahaha

British Cycling couldn't care less about women's road racing. It barely gives a shit about men's road racing. It only cares about track, where medals can be quantified and, within reason, 'guaranteed'. And now they want 'greater control' over riders' race programmes so that they can 'also' do track? Sounds to me like they're more interested in preventing track riders having a road career at all.

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