Prize disparity at the Dwars door Vlaanderen

Here's an interesting little factoid for you all. The winner of the men's race at the Dwars door Vlaanderen will receive €5785. The winner of the women's race will receive €1000.

The women's race is, of course, much shorter than the men's - 81.5km compared to either 199.5 or 201km (the former is the distance stated on the route details, the latter is stated elsewhere). So if we divide the prize by the distance, we find that the winning woman is going to receive €12.67 for each kilometre; around 44% of the  €29 (199.5km) or €28.78 (201km) that the winning man will receive.

Margriet Kloppenburg
(image credit: Margriet Kloppenberg)

Or at least, that's what Cyclopunk thought. Since then, Danish road and cyclo cross rider Margriet Kloppenburg (see the comments after this article), who says she's happy just to be able to race, has informed me that the top prize is not in fact €1000 at all - that's the entire prize fund for the women's race, to be shared among the winning riders. I'd wondered about that when I read the event rules, but the idea that €1000 could be the whole pot was so ridiculous I dismissed it.

Any one of them could earn more than  €1000 each week working in a full-time job. Split between them, it's peanuts. In fact, with the way food prices have increased in the last couple of years, their prizes would only just about allow them to afford a packet of peanuts.

That, of course, is why there are so few women's races mid-week: the riders are working in full time jobs, because the prize money and team salaries don't give them enough money to live on. It's also why women's cycling isn't as "developed" (as Pat McQuaid likes to say) as men's cycling - it's not that female riders are any less competitive, it's because they simply don't have the time to devote to their sport like the men do.

Come on, Pat. Sort it out.
(image credit: Oblongo CC BY-SA 2.0) 

The Dwars door Vlaanderen is showing the way ahead by including a women's race and it's not the organiser's fault that so little money is available - the problem is that the sport simply doesn't have the sponsorship. The way to get more sponsors is to have more exposure, because commercial companies other than those directly involved with bicycle or athletic equipment manufacture (with the possible exception of Rabobank and one or two others) don't hand over the cash for the good of cycling. They do it because they want to advertise stuff to the fans. The way to get more exposure? More races. The UCI can help with that one by encouraging more existing men's events to run corresponding women's races, like the Dwars does. It wouldn't hurt if some of that vast pile of cash they've been bragging about recently could be used to help support women's cycling, too.


Kloppenberg also says that the women's prize fund at this Sunday's Gent-Wevelgem is, incredibly, only €500;which may be why at the time of writing the information isn't available on the Flanders Classics website - the poor organisers are probably embarrassed.



Come on, Pat. Sort it out.

Olympic velodrome gets award but designer can't get tickets

(© Carlbob CC2.0)

Just days after it was announced that the £80 million London Olympic Games velodrome had beaten a host of rivals - including the main Olympic stadium which cost £406 million more - to recognition in a prestigious architecture award, track and interior designer Ron Webb has revealed that he's been unable to secure tickets to attend races at the facility.

The velodrome, a stunning hyperbolic paraboloid mimicking the shape of the track within, finished runner-up to the Evelyn Grace Gallery, also in London, but was chosen as popular favourite with a 63% share of the vote in a public poll - the remaining 37% being shared between the Gallery, The Angel Building (London), An Gaelaras (Derry), the Royal Shakespeare Theatre (Stratford) and the Folkwang Museum (Essen). Once the Games are over, it will continue in use as a velodrome hosting national and international events and housing a bike hire centre and cafe. The track is one of 62 created by the designer and forms the centrepiece of the 2012 Games' velopark in Leyton, East London.

Though Games organisers reserved 90,000 tickets to be given to corporate sponsors (who will also enjoy a four-course champagne lunch), Webb had to apply through the lottery and was afforded no special treatment despite his creation being widely lauded as the finest in the world - not only has it proved a hit with the British public, who are not traditionally known for their appreciation of modern architecture, it was the first Olympic structure to be completed and cost less than its estimated budget. While he accepts that he probably won't be able to see his track being used for the purpose for which it was designed, he says he is "disappointed the application system wasn’t run very well."

Any of those corporate sponsors like to show their appreciation by donating a ticket to him?