Not too long ago retired from skilled biking, Grace Brown has stepped right into a new function because the president of The Cyclists’ Alliance (TCA) and has highlighted security, salaries, and truthful working situations as just some of the areas by which she is going to assist the organisation proceed its work to enhance throughout ladies’s biking.
Brown retired from the game in 2024 after one in every of her most profitable seasons the place she received Liège-Bastogne-Liège, a gold medal on the Paris Olympic Video games and a rainbow jersey on the Zurich Worlds, each within the particular person time trial.
In a latest Q&A on TCA’s Instagram feed, Brown defined that transferring into her new function as head of the affiliation would assist her keep related to the game in a significant approach.
“TCA’s mission strongly aligns with my imaginative and prescient and fervour for biking, ladies’s sports activities and gender fairness. The function of president was the excellent alternative for me to proceed having a constructive influence on ladies’s skilled biking, regardless of stepping away from racing,” she mentioned.
Girls’s biking has seen important enchancment since Brown signed her first skilled contract to race below WIggle High5 in 2018. She went on to race for Mitchelton-Scott and FDJ-SUEZ earlier than retiring on the finish of this 12 months.
Throughout that point, the UCI introduced that it had added minimal wage necessities, together with a maternity depart clause and different securities comparable to insurance coverage to Girls’s WorldTeam contracts in 2020, though some groups had already been together with these kinds of provisions of their rider contracts earlier than the UCI’s insurance policies.
“I had a comparatively brief profession in skilled biking, however in that point I witnessed enormous modifications in the sport. The most tangible change has been rider salaries, which have greater than quadrupled for high-value riders in the previous 5 years,” Brown mentioned.
The newest race content material, interviews, options, critiques and professional shopping for guides, direct to your inbox!
“We’re additionally seeing groups with higher assets throughout the board. One in all the finest modifications has been the improve in broadcast of ladies’s races, which in flip has introduced extra followers to our sport.”
As well as, race organisers who have been a part of the Girls’s WorldTour have been required to supply a minimal of 45 minutes of reside tv protection in the event that they needed to uphold their top-tier standing, bringing extra visibility to ladies’s biking than ever earlier than.
The UCI additionally confirmed at a latest WorldTour Seminar held final month in Good, France that it will introduce Girls’s ProTeams in 2025. The three tiers of groups – WorldTeams, ProTeams and Continental Groups – will carry the construction of ladies’s skilled groups according to the lads’s groups.
It additionally confirmed that seven ladies’s groups have already utilized for UCI Girls’s ProTeam standing for the primary 12 months and a few further groups have already expressed their want to be part of this stage in 2026.
Nonetheless regardless of the numerous enhancements made to the top-tier of ladies’s racing, there have been rising issues that the underside tier of Continental groups has fallen behind. Continental groups should not obliged to pay its riders a minimal wage, though some do.
The 2023 TCA annual survey revealed that among the many second-tier groups, riders who responded to the survey indicated that they “wrestle to make ends meet“. As well as, those that responded to the survey indicated that “monetary causes” continued to be the primary purpose most ladies take into account leaving the game sooner than deliberate.
“Regardless of the constructive development of the sport, there are nonetheless some areas which can be lagging behind. We’re notably conscious that development at the high doesn’t at all times trickle down,” Brown mentioned.
“For instance, the situations on Continental stage UCI groups nonetheless depart quite a bit to be desired, with many riders nonetheless with no wage. We wish to be certain this cohort of ladies should not left behind, particularly as a result of they’re in an essential and susceptible improvement section of their careers.”
Brown mentioned that rider security can be a major concern on the forefront of the TCA’s technique for enhancements in ladies’s biking.
“With the stage of the ladies’s peloton growing annually, the risks of the sport have gotten extra prevalent. That is one thing that every one stakeholders in biking, together with riders, must work collectively on enhancing.”
Brown mentioned that she is dedicated to sustaining a “united voice” throughout all three tiers of ladies’s biking in order that they preserve the leverage wanted to barter issues among the many peloton.
“It’s also essential for riders to recognise that simply because the high tier of the sport has seen their circumstances tremendously enhance, it doesn’t imply it’s common. We have to proceed advocating for the situations of Continental stage riders in addition to riders of disciplines apart from highway,” Brown mentioned.
