Burning Question: Why Don't More World Cup Downhill Teams Sponsor a Woman?
With just 21 women across the 37 UCI registered teams in the downhill World Cup, there's a big gender divide between who's getting sponsored and who isn't. Unlike our skinny tired siblings on the road, women in downhill race on the same day and on the same course as the men but there is still a huge disparity between the coverage and opportunities afforded to the men and the women. Even if the events may run in parallel, men are given longer training sessions at more favourable times and in the race itself, only a quarter of the number of women can qualify for a World Cup as men, and just 10 women's race runs are broadcast as opposed to 40 in the men's. In short, things are not equal.
In a recent interview while talking about women's racing, Rachel Atherton said, "I think the sponsorship definitely needs to improve, I think it's ridiculous that big companies don't have a female rider and I think that's really shameful on their part." We spoke to team managers, racers and other industry personalities to see how sponsorship of women can be improved and what may be holding back more teams from sponsoring female athletes. The best responses are below.
Will Longden - Team Manager, Madison Saracen
 | Madison as a company has and still does support a number of female athletes across different cycling disciplines and previously, Manon Carpenter, Shanaze Reade, Tahnee Seagrave to name a few World Champions, also Rachel Atherton when Madison funded their Commençal Team. Madison Saracen Factory Team is always looking for talented riders who can fight for a podium and represent our portfolio of brands in the correct manner. As manager I don’t start that search based on a particular gender. The facts are, there are 15 UCI Elite downhill teams. There are only 10 women shown on the World Cup TV show, that’s not enough to go around. I know the top three female riders do a great job of marketing themselves and create a great following but beyond that the commercial reality is females not making the podium, don’t drive sales by the public and right now it’s hard to justify investing in a female rider who isn’t one of the top three and none of them are available. There is an exception in Madison Saracen Teams’ case and it’s one that has been at the heart of our team from the beginning, the development of young talent from grass roots through to WC podium. The first success story of that was obviously Manon Carpenter, followed by Matt Walker and I am on the look-out for the next opportunity. Sadly, in the last group of Development riders we only had one female interested and before that we had no requests from female riders when we put the word out that we were looking for riders. National races in the UK are no longer supported by the top UK female riders and by that I mean, turning up and racing every round. The talent pool has shrunk considerably in the UK and that is partly down to the demise of the National series and the removal of funding by British Cycling, which now also includes removing support for GB downhill athletes of any level. With regard to Rachel saying “I think the sponsorship definitely needs to improve, I think it's ridiculous that big companies don't have a female rider and I think that's really shameful on their part.” Perhaps that comment comes from the frustration of working so hard and being such a great role model and despite all of that, there is clearly still an imbalance that it would be nice to see levelled. It has to make commercial sense though, as I’m sure the Atherton’s will soon find out with their own recently launched bike company. |
Katy Curd - Racer, Privateer
| I would love to see more teams back women riders, I think its a shame that there are still a massive percentage of teams out there without a woman on their team yet so many women riders looking and deserving the backing and support. From my perspective it is really hard to make the step from doing everything on your own at races to having that backing and support. I believe the support and sponsorship really needs to be earned but it is hard to close that gap at races when you are having to compete against riders that have the full factory support, from having mechanics, endless spares, people on track filming and line spotting, even having food and meals prepared. All these differences take a little more pressure and stress off the riders and give them more time to focus. Compare that to a privateer who is having to do everything from travel, funding, spares, being your own mechanic, knowing the lines etc. I think its a hard gap to close to compete against those who have the backing of a team, which then becomes hard to prove yourself as a rider to get noticed by teams. The coverage for women has improved a lot over the last couple of years but it would always be nice to see more, the guys always get a lot more coverage every race when you look at online articles after each races but there are more of them so I guess its easier and needed to include the top men in the sport. I always get the feedback from people who follow the races, that Redbull TV should show more of the women on the live feed at World Cups and I believe this would help massively to help women get that extra sponsorship as well, to show to sponsors the coverage they can give back at each race. |
Kathy Sessler - Team Manager, Santa Cruz Syndicate
| Why don't more teams sponsor a woman? As you mentioned this as a topic for debate, therefore it makes the concept polarizing and divisive in my view. It will divide opinion among readers to take a side and I don't think this helps anyone, much less women. First, this implies that teams don't sponsor many woman, and you would need to examine the facts to see what percentage of woman are sponsored compared to percentage of men in the field and perhaps there might be an example of many woman having opportunity, or not. I'm not going to do this, just posing the perspective. Let's ask the question, why do teams sponsor anybody? I can speak for Syndicate when I say that we look for athletes that are podium contenders with personalities that align with our marketing goals and family style atmosphere. I believe teams sponsor "athletes" for marketing purposes to sell product. So teams will seek out "athletes" who fit their marketing perspective. This might be a male or female. Since 2006 the Syndicate has had six riders, so that is over 13 years... this team doesn't have many opportunities for anyone. I've seen us described as a "boys club", isn't that funny when this team has had a female team manager for 15 years! And it should be very clear that Santa Cruz Bicycles supports women evidenced by their Juliana line of bikes. So if a woman wants to be on the Syndicate there would need to be an opportunity in the line up... since our turnover is so very low, the opportunity won't present for many years. She would have to be very fast, capable of winning World Cups, and have a marketable personality that would fit with the team. We keep an eye on all athletes out there and if the right fit comes along you never know. But I am dismayed that this topic is presented in a polarizing way and that will just perpetuate a perception that woman don't have opportunity. It's been a personal perspective of mine for 30 years that women actually have more opportunity in this sport than men and my personal career has proven this to myself. |
Fabien Cousine - Team Manager, Polygon UR
| I think first of all there are fewer women that compete and it’s often the same women that are on the podium so for a team it is obviously it is a bit harder to hire women when the chances of podiums are a bit lower because of all the super-fast women that are always on the podium. That, I guess, is what the other teams are thinking but for us we are really lucky to have had Tracey Hannah on board for 8 years now. For us it's a huge advantage to have a woman, I think it opens up the perspective of the team in terms of feelings and communication. Throwing a bunch of men together, it sometimes gets a bit crazy so having a woman balances it out and gives everyone a different perspective. So far it has been great to have Tracey in the team especially as a person also she is a great friend and also professional, a great ambassador. Tracey can make a living out of racing but I remember when she started racing she was only part time and she was working also on the side and we had to push for extra from our sponsors mid-season to put things together to keep her. If we are talking about women on the downhill circuit, clearly the UCI could help more but unfortunately they went the opposite way. For the team rankings, the points given to women and men used to be equal but recently they have reduced the points given to women. I guess this was based on the fact that there were more men racing and that the field of men racers was more dense. Also since the beginning of the year this discrimination has continued as the points given to women to select UCI Elite teams have also been reduced so it means that teams supporting women have more chance to pay more fees, be less visible and have less voice than teams supporting men. I thought that the UCI made a lame decision, because they clearly have not taken in consideration of how difficult it is for a woman to get a career as a racer in downhill. Yes there are fewer women racing, men are faster but come on we are in 2019, these women ride the same tracks and they have also pushed their limits, pushed the quality of their riding and given us a great show the last few years, so giving them the same points and same change is, I think, a minimum that the UCI should do to bring back equality and encourage women racing. |
Lars Sternberg - Marketing, Transition Bikes
| Oh wow... I'm going to skirt around your question because I don't care to speculate why other teams don't sponsor women. I'll provide a little insight from our perspective though. Note* I want to clarify that I'm not talking about social media 'influencers' in my following comments. We don't sponsor anyone, male or female, based on how many followers they have. It's not even really a consideration for us. Ever. We choose to work with riders because of who they are and the personal connections they make. If they happen to have a solid social media following then that's just a bonus.* We are proud to have Tahnée leading our WC downhill team and being the most premiere athlete we sponsor. Tony (FMD/Transition WC team manager and Tahnée’s dad) and I have discussed this a number of times, and our firm stance remains that there is zero pressure from Transition to bring an elite male onto the team. I'd venture to say he's happy and proud to have his daughter leading the team as well. The team has an elite male rider in Tahnée’s younger brother Kaos - who is slowly climbing the ranks in age, style and pace - however, something is causing Tony to feel that he needs to periodically check with us to see if we require that top 10 male. The fact that he's had the notion a number of times that we'd want him to add another high level male athlete to the roster tells me there is a widespread disparity in that level of racing and sponsorship culture across the board. This is not a dig at Tony by any means, it's directed at the culture that he lives within that I view is the problem. I've heard arguments in the past for why women have been paid less at event's due to rider numbers being lower and so forth. But it's 2019, what the hell? The only thing that's going to change this is if more women get deals/rides/sponsorship's. What does it tell aspiring young girl mountain bikers when there are only a handful or women that can support themselves from a racing career? If there were more opportunities to justify pursuing a career as a professional mountain biker more young girls would do it, eventually increasing female participant numbers. Yeah, the old chicken before egg argument I know, but I feel it's up to the industry to create the change. We work with a number of other female riders and racers in various capacities and they all inspire us here at Transition, as much, if not more than our male riders and racers. Today, there was a video that came out on the world wide web featuring Veronique Sandler, she was absolutely ripping. It was sick, it made me want to go out and ride. So rad. I'm noticing this more and more, times are-a-changing. There is always room to improve though, we definitely don't have a 50/50 female to male ratio of riders we sponsor, but we're closer than we were a few years ago. And we're going to continue building our female roster. I encourage other brands to do the same. |
Myriam Nicole - Racer, Commencal Vallnord
| You have to look at the figures and it’s a fact that the sport is male-dominated. So, I kind of accept the way things are. If we get more women riding there will be more competition and that will increase participation levels and therefore coverage would increase and so on. I don’t think there is too much discrimination in our sport in relation to the figures. We now get the same prize money from the UCI for example, which is rewarding when I (and other female athletes) put the same time and effort into training and racing. But women don’t receive the same amount of media coverage as men and sometimes the quality of that content or coverage can be questionable. Overall I think in mountain biking, compared to other sports, women are much less ‘side-lined’ and compared to how many there are of us racing DH for example, it’s not surprising that men are talked about more because there are loads more of them racing! Does a girl make more bike sales for bike brand than a man for example? Personally, I don’t think so. But she is still definitely still indispensable to a brand. In Dh specifically for example, the top 5 women have the same support / team structure as the top 15-20 (ish) men. This is a huge difference in numbers and one that affects sponsorship and the means to which women outside of the top 5 can continue to support their training, travel, fees, etc. Those women must find a job to be able to try to be a professional sportswoman and this takes time away from training and so on. It’s a bit like a vicious circle at first. |
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However, I prefer watching male World Cup races, because there's drama AND they're the fastest in the world.
Bit of a flaw in that, women ride slower compared to men yes but, If a female is gonna get into DH an buy a DH bike.. Are they gonna look at male results an compare themselves to them?
No
They're gonna be watching other females as inspiration, an importantly in the marketing.. Companies that support those females
However, the potential market in men (and women) who get inspired by men doing DH at the top level is bigger. This is why if I had a company, I would spend less resources in women athletes. I am not saying that I would invest nothing, I'm saying less than in men.
If I owned a company I wouldn't want to alienate 50% of potential sales....... (that figure was just a random guess for the sake of my point, I have no idea of potential or actual female participation in DH)
I'm not saying no women deserve a job as a pro MTB racer. Some of them are absolutely good enough and fully deserve the job. That said, the market has obviously proven what that level is.
I've always wanted to be a model, but it turns out I'm not that good looking. Apparently people who buy clothes prefer to look at people who are more handsome than me. Can I have an article in Models Monthly please? "Burning Question: Why Don't More Modelling Agencies Hire Average Looking Guys?"
In simple terms, that means any potential market is likely to have equal number of male and female consumers. the perspective you hold is effectively anti the money you want to squeeze out of men only.
I think the companies need to be more savvy about the female market despite the obvious differences in speed.
There are many factors that affect a sport's entertainment value. Athleticism, competitiveness and most importantly, the characters and personalities within that sport.
Yes, speed is not only the difference but it's also a big deal. Watching Aaron Gwin smash rock gardens at mach speed is more entertaining than a slower version of Rachel's.
Story and drama and the personalities within that sport is a driving factor in attracting a particular audience. I guarantee you, if a female good looking version of ratboy who rides equally well and stylishly with a personality to match will be the highest paid mtber in the world and brands will line-up to sign her.
But will Santa Cruz sign her to sell more Nomads or Stegas? That's another question.
Did you miss that bit?
As to whether we *need* to alter gender roles, again you'd need to look at the restrictions placed on people's ambitions, explicit or implicit, conscious or unconscious. But yes, it's all very deep seated and I guess what needs to happen will happen, given time and an equitable social environment.
How is riding a mechanical device down a hill part of a men's genetic makeup?
Men are women and women are men. Sorry, but half the political spectrum has already lost sight on reality.
The first episode of The BMX in our Blood podcast is an interview with her where she discusses a bit of that drama.
If thats the case then why not market to women more heavily because more participation in the sport is definitely a good thing regardless of someones gender.
Yes and no. My girlfriend is a mountain biker, but she doesn't read Pinkbike and doesn't watch mountain biking on TV. She also doesn't know that there is a bike company called Transition.
It is easier to strip a mtb woman from cash by selling clothes and trips, than bikes. Because of that Women will always be worse clients to bike companies.
If you want more women in the sport, get sponsors from outside of the bike industry. Make the bike feel as a part of something greater.
Oh crap I need an own column on Pinkbike... Pewdiebike
Personally, I care about good racing and currently the male DH WC has more drama, closer decisions etc.. As much as I love Rachel as an athlete, I think her dominance is a problem for the sport. In XC racing I feel the opposite: I think there the female races are way more exciting than to see Nino win another time. Face it, races are a show and the better the show the more people will watch it.
Another aspect is the athlete itself. I have been a fan of both, male and female athletes depending on if they inspire me, get me stoked to ride and I agree with their values and image. So I don't think an athlete has just marketing potential to their own gender. If a brand sponsors a female or male racer doesn't matter to me, if the persons they sponsor are cool and fulfill the above criteria I am on board.
Cycling is actually not so bad in relation to woman participation. There are other sports which have had less than a handful of woman, albeit in history woman have proven their worth and beaten men. Formula 1 is a good example.
Please don't misunderstand me, I have absolutely no issue with your decision, I wish you every happiness for the future and I can't begin to imagine the courage it must take to go through the transition. I do however, struggle with the fairness of a situation where a cis woman loses the win/podium/sponsorship deal to someone who's transitioning and bringing advantages that every physiologist I've heard talking on the subject acknowledges are there. On average, males have a larger heart and lungs, no amount of HRT can alter that.
I feel for you in your situation and understand that you want to compete, but the only truly fair solution that I can see is a separate category. As you say, it's a very complex issue. I hope I haven't offended in anything I've said. If so, I apologise as it wasn't intended.
But let's say you can perform a kind of negative doping using the methods currently available (including HRT) to the extent that you can measurably "handicap" (no connotations intended) someone who has transitioned to give them an overall level of ability that would be attainable by the average female athlete. Does the UCI's testosterone threshold work like this, i.e., does it overcompensate sufficiently so as to make up for the parameters that can't be controlled? No idea. But if that's the regulatory threshold currently in force, then what are you going to do? I'm sure there are some fine minds working on how to develop all these metrics, minds a f*ck of a lot finer than ours, because as people find the confidence to morph themselves into a person they can live with being, there will be more and more cases to address. Hopefully, everyone can be satisfied with the solutions eventually found.
I'm not sure how we quantify fair when it comes to trans issues. Whichever side of the argument you're on, the other viewpoint may seem unfair. In which case, should we decide by way of choosing which affected party has the majority? As Waki says, life isn't fair and I'm really not sure how everyone affected can be placated.
In any event, I think you’re getting at something by suggesting another category. I am, however, gonna take that in a different direction and propose that maybe it’s time we rethink how athletes are categorized. Not all men’s bodies are the same, nor are all women’s bodies. Some women are stocky, muscular sprinters; and some men are featherweight hill climb specialists. So there is quite a bit of physiological variation within each of our current categories. But our goal, presumably, is to have people competing against people who are biologically similar to them. Given, too, that many people (intersex and nonbinary folk, as well as those of us in the awkward middlin stages of transition) would prefer to respond “no” to the ol “man or woman” question, it seems there could be a better system. I don’t pretend to know what that system would look like, but it would ideally avoid the thorny issue of defining “man” and “woman,” and allow trans people to race our damn bikes without feeling miscategorized or receiving death threats.
Anyway, I’m glad you responded. Nice to talk to somebody who actually wants to have a discussion.
WAKIdesigns: keyword is hopefully. It might take some sci fi
magic to sort out.
the disparity grows exponetially when you start going down the talent tree.
If I was to give a contradicting example, it would be BMX racing, where males are more muscular than MTBers, and I mean much more muscular, yet girls are tiny. Even Caroline Buchanan, who deadlifts just a tad less than I do, she is slim (ekhem olympic gold medalist in sprint vs me... troll). Her Hubbie, BMX racer? A mountain of dense flesh. The National BMX Dutch or Australian teams? Bejesus Christ... suddenly Adam Brayton looks like a Jerry.
I think you need to choose the women you hang out with a little better if this is your impression. I know plenty of pansy-ass men as well. Just because the women you happen to associate with "want to play social games", does not mean that women as a whole are like that.
pansy... really? Whatever you say.
@getrad24-7 if you can’t get that women barely qualify into mens race and that has to do mainly with their genes you WILL always be disappointed. Just like with the fact that a muscular male transitioning into being a woman will regain most of his musculature which tends to be double of a woman who trained as mich as he did. No amount of HRT driven muscular atrophy will level out the field unless you started competing 10 years after transition. I would qualify to womens race. Waki would qualifyto womens race, do you need any more proof?
Background: the issue is beyond obvious because figuring it out is not that hard if you ever had any contact with scientific method. We can for instance take a sport where environmental variables are limited. Like short distance running. We are speaking of elite competition, like 400 meters on Olympics. That is a developed sport, meaning all participants, both men and women categories have dialed the training methods as well as draft to Olympic teams. In this way the variable of TRAINING (as getrad suggests) becomes a constant. Each participant has maxed it out (unless you want to argue that women are opressed and cannot train as well as men, which is extremely unlikely in popular discipline on Olympic level...)
Aim: Determine whether Gender an play a role in athletic performance.
Method: So, please take the results from Olympic finals of best men and women, from Rio Olympics:
Womens gold: 49.4. Mens Gold 43.03, The slowest male in the final run at 44.68 which is like 8-10 meters behind the winner. That means the fastest woman arrived at least 20m behind if not more. Video and results available online.
Weight lifting, snatch/ clean and jerk under 58kg body weight (my wife weighs 58kg):
Womens Gold 105/130kg
Mens Gold: 137/170kg
Whoever has trained weight lifting for a bit should be able to easily realize the dramatic difference between 105 and 130 kilograms on deadlift, not even mentioning snatch. As the weight (read available muscle mass) grows, the disparity between genders grows. 75+kg class (heaviest women 120kg body mass) 130/177, mens (157kg body mass) 215/258. For comparison best sub 120kg man: 179/232. If you look at the results, the desparity between women themselves drop dramatically. Men are more uniform.
Swimming: Men win in each single category, on shortest distance 50m freestyle 3 seconds. I quit Olympoic male domination examples here. These results are widely available and nr of disciplines where men beat women is dominant to put it mildly
Now for a change BMX racing, here the gender is virtually irrelevant actually women win. Mens gold: 34.642, Womens Gold 34.049
2018 Val Di Sole World Cup DH: Amaury Pierron 3:36, Tahnee Seagrave 4.26. Last place in Mens final Kenta Galagher 62th 4:18. This is a dramatic difference. If any of these men, and pool is 62, decided to transition into being a woman, they would have a high chance of winning. Their motorics and skill cannot suffer because of HRT to any bigger degree. Neither their musculature, given they keep training as they did. It is insane to think otherwise. Given the opposite situation, there is almost a minute to be made. It will not happen.
XC: Nino 1:26:32, Maja:1:30:51. 4.5 minutes, equals 26th male.
Conclusion: on elite levels of (vast) majority of sports women get worse results than men by a (fair) margin. Since training methods have been developed under scientific scrutiny to limits of human ability, they can be treated as a constant factor. Both men and women, coming in various body types, have equal training opportunities and devote same time scales to reach maximum available performance. The only factor left is genetics. And it so happens that statistically, on average, males do better. Therefore gender matters.
Conclusion nr2. One does not need scientific degree to come to such conclusion.
The further research is necessary to determine how much of a handicap can be generated in a biological male through the process of transitioning into a woman. It is however worth considering, that a transitioning male has a high incentive to retain as much of their physiological advantage (built over the years of training) as possible.
Trivia:
Whoever looks for any form of justice in universe driven inequality of opportunity in the sphere of athletic performance where male dominance is evident (as shown above) will always be disappointed since his expectations cannot meet reality.
On amateur level the case is impossible to resolve, especially in endurance sports where muscle mass plays little role. In fact in ultra marathons, women do much better. We are on a mountain biking site dedicated to gravity riding where mental aspect of taking risks is a big factor. Studies showing male higher tendency to take risks are plenty. Once can however do a quick google search on gambling, speeding, extreme sport participation how men fare with women.
That was going to be a brief reply.
@WAKIdesigns: it's easy to overthink it, but it's also necessary. Good luck to those with skin in the game.
www.bbc.co.uk/sport/formula1/45796892
And please stop calling me your catholic priests pet names and seek help. Someone once said to you: you know enough to be a problem but never enough to actually be of any use.
Conclusive proof of the patriarchy.
That is the only possible reason for there being only one female race winner in the history of the sport.
m.youtube.com/watch?v=IYkIH9U-GmM
Begs for question... do women ride same track as men on XCO? Aren’t they like 1 lap shorter and still slower?
What are we talking about again?
Women also raise quality of conversations during a ride, and when that pompous twat starts talking how great his new long bike is, we ignore him and talk with Ebbie and Annie how great it is to squat in Yoga pants, how awesome it is to ride in Finale Ligure where you can rip great trails then take off your clothes and jump straight into the sea. Otherwise we would have to listen about 35mm rim width or forks in BMW motorcycles.
At my work, women outperform men in nearly every single aspect. If I am asked whether I need help I always ask for a woman. She will perform the task, find 5 problems we didn’t find, solve half of them, then quote regulations that apply that we didn’t see. When a woman is asked what does a particular rule will say about this and that, she will point to the exact location of the book where I can find the information. A dude will say I think it is like that, which in 90% of cases will be a wrong answer straight out of his arse.
Otherwise, sounds like a fun alternative reality.
...Unless it has to do with Michael
Also called Marxism (oppressor and the oppressed ideology) and probably beta cuckery that keeps fueling this BS
So hey cheer up man, don’t let JP SJW get into you, it certainly did.
@Ian713 That was fricking funny
Every Messiah goes dowm that drain because through such mega exposure, they expose all sides of their personality and nobody likes everything about somebody. You no longer need to fill the blanks and many of them have been filled with something you may not like. Also, there is no way to get this much exposure and zeal without creating a distorted persona of what you used to be.
She campaigned for multiple years to get the UCI to make women worth only 1/2 the overall ranking points in the WC DH series just to prevent teams who had women on them from being considered for the overall team title.
She voted, along with Martin Whiteley to make this happen.
Sessler is the SOLE REASON that more WC DH teams don't sponsor women.
It seems like Pinkbike always interviews her on these topics and she's been notoriously anti equality when it comes to women in sport.
Women absolutely DO NOT have more opportunities then men in cycling.
In reality anyone who makes it to the top anywhere, has had a long chain of being in the right place at the right time and good luck combined with the hard work and effort they've put in over the years that they credit their achievements to, and at the moment, there is a diminishing scope for being 'in the right place at the right time' for female athletes in downhill mtb, despite it appearing, at least on the consumer level, to be a rapidly growing sport for females.
I think a savvy mtb brand / team should always have at least 1 female rider on the team as they are invaluable towards the overall marketing of mountainbiking, more women observed riding = more non riding women being accepting of the sport or even starting to ride = more ride time for us husbands! Lol
Lars on the other hand, well done sir.
Is she out of her mind? Can you imagine if one of the males in this article said that?
I'd like to hope this was taken out of context somehow.
Have you never met people, regardless of gender, who credit themselves with way too much? In every discussion about economy you will hear "self-made-men" telling you how they achieved everything they have totally on their own only to learn they were born to middle class parents with higher education, were sent to good schools, had time for homework because they didn't have to help pay the rent or hide from abusive families and started work experience at their parents' (or their mates') companies. She's doing exactly the same, ignoring the fact that only a tiny minority of women get to where she is (and she isn't even anywhere that impressive). Don't ask me why people BS about that - I never had a problem admitting I had a very good start in life and crediting my family or circumstances where it's due. Maybe people like Sessler low key doubt themselves and thus need to build that facade? Maybe they're insecure about their positions to the point where they'll actively hinder others' careers? I don't know man, maybe they simply need an excuse to exploit their employees 'cause then if someone doesn't want to be a slave anymore they just give them the old "what do you mean you want to get paid for work you ungrateful, entitled millennial; when I was your age we didn't sleep, ate experience and drank prestige".
Really, you get all of that from this short interview? She just gave her opinion, you're free to disagree with her. I just don't think she deserves to have her mental state questioned by some of the people here.
That said, I think at the local/regional level it is easier for women to get some level of support than men. There are just fewer of us out there, so I feel like if you're personable, compete regularly, and don't totally suck, you'll at least be able to swing some bro, er, sis deals from a local shop or something.
But if you actually are quite fast... just not fast enough to make it on the race broadcast... sorry, the LBS isn't going to fly you around the world to compete and neither is any manufacturer. I think there's kind of a catch 22 at the moment where the women's field isn't very deep, therefore it's not very interesting, therefore it doesn't get a lot of coverage, therefore fewer women are inspired to really commit to racing because they--and teams that might sponsor them--just don't see a bright future in it.
The other thing that made me roll my eyes is her equating her Team Mom status to female representation in 50/01. Really? That's a super lame excuse. She's not the one in front of the lens, pushing boundaries, representing. Women don't need another 'caretaker' role model, thanks.
Also, in my own opinion, Juliana do a good job of holding women back into that 'aspirational adventure' cliche. They'll justify by saying it's more immediately relatable, i.e. lowest hanging fruit, but if you believe that representation is important, it's incredibly limiting.
Come on, there are so many women out there accomplishing way more than just 'heading out for an adventure with my girls'. Let's start seeing that.
She reminds of those college girls who "only hang out with guys because its less drama"
The alternative is a mere conversation where the participants don't take sides but just openly and fearlessly talk things through.
For the record I don't think her perception of the question being framed as a debate is accurate, but these things very often are.
FYI : Are you running a "savvy" brand to comment on what is valuable... BECAUSE if not --- your statement is not credible.
>>>> and " more ride time for the husbands"..... now you are contradicting yourself and putting "us women" in a "box"--- ughhhhhh
I fully agree with your sentiment though, if Kathy Sessler was secure with herself she would have the capacity to be supportive and optimistic.
My wife loves watching the womens DH and is inspired by it, i'm sure she's not alone. We (well, maybe some of you do?) don't want it to be a boys club that does everything to put women off. The EWS and wnduro seem to be doing a much better job at bringing women in and (correct me if i'm wrong) but there are now more supported EWS riders than DH.
I think in reality, that's probably the only route for female riders, get started with Enduro and then try downhill.
Does the top woman rider influence what the majority of mostly male bike buyers want?
Of course whether women's race results sell bikes is another issue... Honestly as a woman I would be more likely to buy, say, a Liv if somebody put it on the podium in the EWS because that shows that despite being purple the thing can still fly and take a beating, and I'm more likely to buy a Trek because Katy Winton rips on hers and she's about my size. But then again, based on the current numbers, most bikes are gonna be sold to men, and if men don't care about women's race results, well... that's a good reason--well, it's A reason--for teams to not sponsor women.
I think women are more likely to buy bikes based on participatory-type marketing, as practiced by Giant and Trek programs. Women are communicators, men are competitors, and the way to sell your product to them differs.
Would you be influenced if a company did trail advocacy instead of a race program?.
Ya, like the time I was at DH race and watched Tippy, who was the announcer for the event, congratulate the men on the podium and hand over new tires too each of them and then when it was the ladies podium, he had only one tire left to give out, so thought he should make them compete with pushups for it...
"What does it tell aspiring young girl mountain bikers when there are only a handful or women that can support themselves from a racing career? If there were more opportunities to justify pursuing a career as a professional mountain biker more young girls would do it, eventually increasing female participant numbers. Yeah, the old chicken before egg argument I know, but I feel it's up to the industry to create the change."
Maybe if they sponsored a woman who was not very near the top, I would be impressed.
Until then they are just like every other company out there.
I respect them for it and I guess they then deserve the right to suggest other companies to do the same.
Transition is a local company for me. After reading their take, I feel like I've got a better reason to support them than just the fact that they are locals.
You are right about Tahnee being Transition's top rider though, but it just makes good business sense. Sponsor one of the top 4 female riders and you are virtually guaranteed a podium in every race. The men's is so much less predictable.
If you asked me, one of them has to do a leap of faith and currently it's not the big teams committing to that...
Start up that progressive thinking company and sponsor people that don't help you sell bikes.
Oh, it also has actual economic data attached to it as well.
blog.amandabatty.com/2017/02/hot-take-intense-factory-racing-and.html?m=1
Boys aren't just handed sponsorship and contracts. They do it by training hard and winning races and they do it against fields ten or twenty times bigger than the junior women. To say women need to be handed pro deals in order to prove themselves is an insult to both men and women.
She also fails to recognise that DH is very different to the rest of MTB, where women are doing very well and their representation is higher. DH sales are only a small component of MTB. I've raced DH and XC (and a whole bunch of other disciplines) for thirty years and it is only DH where the ratio between the sexes is so great.
If I owned a MTB company the figures show I would be wasting my money sponsoring a woman. However, on my XC or enduro teams, I'd be an idiot not to have a women or two on each.
I've never heard a highly-successful woman blame the patriarchy - only the wannabes. It's like a poor tradesman blaming his tools.
I still see a niche of a big-ish brand to create a "female only" DH race team. That would get quite some coverage in the media and advertise the brand and also female racing. If this brand then gets a lot of coverage, others would follow to not be outdone.
But that 15 women qualify vs 60 men and 40 broadcasted men vs 10 broadcasted women is pretty close to equal if you do the simple math and compare it to the number of people who are actually competing.
In Leogang last year there were 38 women who finished qualies of which 15 qualified. That's 39%. There were 149 men who finished qualies and 60 of them qualified. That's 40%, so pretty darn close.
And then both in the men and women, 66% of the qualified riders get broadcasted.
There may be casual descrimination in the sport on an individual (and team?) level, but more males participate in and are naturally drawn to sports like MTB both in racing and recreation.
Offering encouragement and promoting the inclusion of the women that WANT to ride bikes comes first, then the ones who don’t know it’s even an option may be the next group? In the long term this may make a difference, but men will still carry on with their current trajectory of participation maybe making the results kinda stagnent?
I ride with some shit-hot women who’s attitude is far more pragmatic and infectious that 90% of male riders I meet.
The most exciting thing about last year's men's series was that AP came along and set everyone on their ear and not the fact that the first five boys in any race were three seconds apart and twenty seconds ahead of 10th place.
last national i went to watch she would have finished last but 2 in elite men (1 of them crashed out too btw)
or 10 seconds behind the fastest 15 year old.
would have won the 12-13 boys category by 2.5 seconds though.
Likewise where are all the women F1 drivers? It's purely indicative of the level of chauvinism at the organisational level in a sport.
DH seems to do better than many sports and the future looks bright with Vali and Mathilde and all the other upcoming female riders, not to mention the brilliant riders in the womens elite already. Teams will hopefully realise that adding quality riders to the roster will produce a thrilling championship regardless of gender.
It's pretty sad to see some of the usual comments here about women being slower and less drama cos Rach is so quick. BS in my book, money is an issue and so is the old world order.
Couldn't it be that there just aren't that many women who are into racing cars and that's why you don't see anyone making it to the absolute top in F1? If there was a female F1 driver who could compete with the top guys, she would be a PR gold mine for any company. It's very likely that this person just doesn't exist.
I see similar watered down assertions in these comments.
It's just plain prejudice. Own it if you think that way, but don't dress it up with dodgy excuses.
You're both right IMO, the attitude filters down and leads to many fewer girls wanting to get involved. F1 is probably the most extreme example, as these days you need to be karting from the age of 7 to be up to scratch.
Encouraging grass routes just leads to a bigger talent pool and improves it all the way through.
vali holl is a perfect example to disprove your point, she is one racer and has no real competition in the juniors.
she will move to elite and in the year or two it will take her to get to winning pace rachel will more than likley have retired or started a decline and your back to 3-4 viable racers.
It's a reasonable comparison given F1 is a sport which has failed to promote a top female driver. It's got eff all to do with women not being strong enough that's pure Stirling Moss light, a reckon based on sitting in an armchair. In reality women have tested F1 cars and proven to be in the 'grid window' on the timing. Dana Patrick and Suzi Wolf being good examples.
To state that Val Holi is the only talent in the juniors is a bit limited, Mathilde Bernhard beat Jill Kiltner on the pump track last year, is transitioning from BMX to DH and will likely only improve.
Also Tahnee and others have proved that Rachel isn't head a shoulders apart from the field, they've all had their quick moments in the past season, Rachel very much leading the way but there's a broad field of quality riders there, the limiting factors seem to be that the reduced coverage limits the sponsorship deals available and that's skewed, and the imbalance isn't based on talent.
It's a fact that fewer women race, both in cars and on downhill bikes. So you comment that it's 'plain' prejudice is just wrong.
The truth probably lies somewhere in the middle, I don't think the lack of female participation is the only reason for limited sponsorship,as team bosses and other interviewees here have mentioned, the coverage is one of the governing factors.
I guess it boils down to if you believe women should get an equal shout in opportunity, coverage and therefore sponsorship or whether you believe it's t do with some of the other factors cited in the comments here, i.e. strength, interest, capability.
I know what I believe to be the limiting factors here, other opinions are available.
And yes vali holl will be the only girl that is likely to mix it with the fast girls over the next few years. Take the sjw boots off and embrace reality.
For the record, women fly fighter jets in military operations experiencing G-forces greater than those in an F1 car for similar lengths of time. www.nytimes.com/2018/05/02/magazine/women-pilots-military.html I'm not sure where your getting your observational data from but I believe women are capable enough to train and gain the strength necessary for F1, DH, combat. I think you probably don't agree, but the evidence is there.
She wasn't allowed to fly Combat missions, I wonder why????
You can not change biology and physics no matter how much you try to link up tenuous news articles, physical strength is a huge part of sport there is no getting around it. Serena Williams for example is an utterly dominant on the ladies tennis circuit but would rank around 1500th on the mens circuit. Chris cyborg is apoximately the same height and weight as Connor mcgreggor how do you think that fight would go?
I'm not denying that the top 8-10 women dh racers in the world are talented. But outside that small group there is very little competition.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fighter_pilot#Female_fighter_pilots
www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ghACpKirqQ
airandspace.si.edu/stories/editorial/first-female-fighter-pilot are perhaps better examples.
I'm neither a biology professor nor a sports training expert so part of my beliefs are based on what I observe.
You make some accurate if slightly predictable comparisons between male and female athletes.
I think the original point was more down to the whether the amount of coverage and therefore sponshorship is deservedly less than that of male DH riders. My belief is that it's not deserved given the quality of the womens field.
You need to check out the amount of kit that gets slung at Instagram mtb girls too, there are literally hundreds of them with sponser lists longer than your arm and most of them cant ride for toffee, perhaps if some of that budget was channeled towards racers there may be a few more spare £££ for the ladies.
And would you say it bears any relation to the perceived gender domain of the sport? ie. more competitive male riders than female?
Would more female role models might promote more female riders and inevitably increase the overall competition? (or quality as we seem to be focussing on this).
Also I think it's often cited by factory riders that the level of support you from the team means you gain the ability to focus on training, diet and ultimately better times. Comparing some sponsorship to full team backing might be relevant.
in DH you have rachel and tahnee in enduro its cecile ravannel and isabeau cordurier, if they don't crash or have a mechanical thats your top 2, the others are usually out of sight, in the case of DH the gap between the top 3 ladies is often the same as the top 30 or so men.
could a great big field of fully supported well paid pro ladies getting demolished by 30 seconds to a minute by 2-3 truly elite level racers be considered role models?
It won't matter how much support you give the rest of the field, the gulf in talent is too vast. no amount of help is going to make a rider 30 seconds faster down a 3 minute track, pinkbikes privateer series showed that quite recently, yes he got a little faster but not much.
I'm sure they know each other.
I think any rider who is pushing for the top should be supported, but I'm not interested in watching anyone who either lacks total commitment or real potential. The idea that a team should commit money to someone they don't believe in is ridiculous and I think forced gender quotas could be damaging in term of reducing the quality of the women's field.
I'd love to see the same level of competition in the women's, but this requires a steady stream of talented and committed females riders coming through the ranks.
Is the issue that there simply aren't as many women who want to race DH? Enduro is a big draw now for people who previously only had a choice between XC or DH. Few people have the guts to race DH (myself included) and to take the high risks involved; look at Manon Carpenter's withdrawal from the sport. There's arguably more money and opportunities available to young women without taking any risk through marketing a lifestyle/Instagram etc (insert your own example.)
If things are going to change, it's going to have to start at a grassroots level. There may only be a handful of top female riders at the moment but they're more than enough to inspire girls into the sport.
Having said that, I've heard Kathy Sessler's argument a couple of times now and it's paper thin. Santa Cruz could easily find and develop a female rider if they wanted to, and with Juliana as a female specific brand to market, I can't understand why they don't. Who doesn't want to see the next Missy Giove race?
Just my 2 cents
One thing that we can see is that equal prize money hasn't done much to grow the women's side of the sport.. Why? My thought is that equalizing the payout is trying to build from the top down... That rarely works.. They have to get them started young..
While mountain biking as a whole is seeing more women getting on bikes, not all of them want to be racers... Same with men... A majority of the people who buy bikes will probably never race.
Potentially they are over represented in DH? Don't get me wrong, I'm all for equality but not for the sake of it. You can't make people of a particular sex, orientation, religion or culture like something they don't, so the best you can hope for is a reflective % participation? I'm not saying let's not promote it and encourage, but is it that big a deal?
And the private sector in general...almost every developed country has had to implement government laws to enforce equality in the workplace whether it be women, people of color, etc...they ain't gonna do it on their own as demonstrated by the bike industry.
As far as the money part goes...it's sad that industry trade teams don't have the marketing ability to bring on more non endemic sponsorship that would appeal to fans outside of the industry. (beyond Red Bull and the big green claw)
Mic drop
How many women practise DH? and men?
This is it about numbers... not about another thing... dh is a physical sport.. more mens practise it...
today, been a woman its by far better in "another worlds"... like Fashion for example.. could we talk about it? Come on... the decision are in womens hands... if next year the audience increase a 50% watching women top5... they could be a change... meanwhile... things are this way.
Women like Rachel Atherton get sponsored because they are out there, they are known by everyone who follows DH in any capacity.
If a woman creates a following for herself and sells products then she deserves to be sponsored, just like the men.
Sponsorship is a business not a charity case!
Though this galls me, I can't think of a way to shift the emphasis from image/appearance to other qualities like true athleticism and commitment. Very few brands would want to go out on a limb and heavily back a female rider that is very athletically talented but that doesn't fit the cheerleader-on-a-bike image.
What do you want a WC team to do? Bring a very average woman on board to make up numbers? As more women get involved and the women’s field size increases things will even out, it’s not something we need to politicise and force though.
Jokes. Companies need to stop with the whole "social media" BS. Tennis tried this years ago with Anna Kornikova. How did that work out? "Retired" early and vanished into the ether. Who wants to see a rider on a factory ride barely qualify for a WC? Give me a privateer that sticks it to the big gums week in, week out and give that rider Jenny Sugartits' ride for the following year (same goes for the mens with Johnny Bigschlong's ride).
She said it very well. When women want to ride and represent the cream will rise to the top and if there's a market for thier talents, people will pay. That's the way free money to play sports works.
On a different note I would challenge every bike shop in the world worth their wrenches to support women’s riding on the ground level so there will one day be more women at the top!
The primary issue is that at no time should us blokes ever EVER in any way hinder anyone regardless of gender, age or sexyal orientation for giving DH or any other type of cycling a red hot go to their hearts content...or I reserve the right to come over there and kick you in the nuts.
Where I live, over 40% of our trail association membership is female, and over half of the board of directors are women
So um, maybe you just live in an area that isn't doing enough to get women out onto your local trails... because I've met women and am a woman and know that we are interested in having fun in the forest, who the eff wouldn't be???
At very least, (not trying to offend you), but maybe the personal anecdote of one dude living in Toronto isn't really that relevant or credible in a convo about the community of women in biking, as a whole?
So if you own a company and a higher percentage of your market is male, who do you choose to sponsor? If we're talking about sponsorship, we're talking about numbers. It's a business decision. It really doesn't get much more black and white than that.
That being said, whose job is it to change this? Should companies start forking over free gear, bikes and money to more female riders when their marketing analyst can't justify the return on investment? Or do we need to see more women devoting themselves to the sport? Having just as many women show up to events as men? Seeing just as many women enter a race as men? Should we see an equal number of sales in the cycling industry come from women? Chicken or the egg?
Hot topic: Should races award the same prize money for men's and women's categories when 3 times more men paid entry fees than women?
Slight off topic but I think riders, both men and women need to talk openly about their saleries in order to be able to negotiate better.
Hannah Barnes has made a lucrative career travelling and taking photos with her Stumpjumper and she will never reach the podium of an EWS race. You could say that Specialized has given her too many opportunities in fact but Hannah found a niche and added value to her sponsors and the community. So good for her.
It's easy to blame sexist men "at the top" for not giving women opportunities when there are smart and savvy women like Hannah Barnes who have proven that there are opportunities out there. But no one gives it to you. You have to take it.
nsmb.com/articles/rachel-atherton-goes-faster-than-danny-hart
There should be more support for female racers. It should be a duty by all top race teams (the big teams who do have a team) to have at least one female racer in their ranks. Santa Cruz anyone?
Women's beach volleyball gets way more coverage at the Olympics and WC, sponsors and money than men's beach volleyball. Hell, they broadcast the women's matches live while only show a 60 second clip of male games. There are no calls to "equalize" that sport now is there?
In the end, the best product gets the best rewards.