In 1973 Billie Jean King forced the tennis overlords to award women the same prize money as male players. Forty years later, and female cyclists are still trying (and failing) to win a minimum wage in the professional peloton.
A 2013 survey by the Women’s Cycling Association showed 50% of female pro cyclists earn $3,000 (£1969) or less per year. This is just one enraging statistic from Half The Road, the superb documentary by Kathryn Bertine, who herself battled with the UCI, cycling’s chauvinistic governing body, to qualify for the Olympics.
Featuring our own world champion, the ever eloquent Emma Pooley, plus Marianne Vos, the most decorated female cyclist riding today, the documentary is a powerful call to the UCI to get its house in order.
Brian Cookson, the Lancastrian now at the helm of the UCI, is also interviewed. He told me last year that introducing a minimum wage “could backfire”. On camera he explains why women aren’t strong enough to ride the Tour de France - a claim powerfully rebutted by one woman who rode the Tour in the 1980s when it used to run on the same day as the boys’ race. At least he isn’t going down the same route as Hein Verbruggen, one of his predecessors. According to Inga Thompson, ten-time national US champion, Verbruggen once tried to introduce a rule to stop women racing when they were on their periods.
Half The Road is showing at the People’s History Museum in Manchester on Saturday at 2.30pm. Tickets are £5 from Eventbrite.
