It was a weekend of ‘firsts’ for the professional women’s peloton: after racing the iconic “white roads” of Tuscany for the first time on Saturday 7th March, they united in Siena the next day for the first ever UCI Women’s Teams Seminar. Fittingly, the seminar took place on International Women’s Day.
The seminar for the teams was in line with the renewed propulsion experienced by women’s cycling over the last year. The UCI organised the seminar in order to review the 2014 season, outline plans for 2015 and put forward longer-term proposals for the years to come. The new Women’s Teams Working Group also took part in the seminar.
The UCI will continue its push for media coverage of the UCI Women Road World Cup, which last year registered 152 hours of broadcasting, with news clips and highlights distributed to more than 20 channels worldwide. On the UCI YouTube channel, the competition was followed by nearly 300,000 people, an increase of 40% on 2013. Concerning the social networks, the account @UCIWomenCycling became a main platform for women’s cycling in just a few months and now has nearly 9,000 followers.
Following the increased media exposure for the UCI Women Road World Cup in 2014, the UCI is now working on further developments including extending the women’s series from 2016 to include both one-day and multi-stage races. A working group will be established to ensure the new calendar is coherent and where possible avoids clashes between events.
UCI Road Manager Matthew Knight explained how the points system would function with more races joining the calendar and some events being upgraded. Notably, more points would be available in the qualification process for the 2016 Rio Olympic Games.
A proposal for a new team structure, to be gradually introduced from 2016 onwards, was also put to the UCI Women’s Teams Seminar. The proposal includes a review of the current structure which will address the existing gap between top and bottom teams. The aim is to boost the professionalism of women’s cycling. To give participants of the seminar an idea of how this would work, UCI Professional Cycling Manager Javier Barrio outlined the existing structure of men’s professional cycling teams.
Finally, former athlete and Wiggle Honda Team Manager Rochelle Gilmore gave a presentation on securing sponsorship and giving investors a return on investment.
“The aim of the seminar was to open up dialogue with the teams,” said UCI Women’s Cycling Coordinator Andrea Marcellini. “We are working with a very motivated and efficient Women’s Teams Working Group, and now we are looking for feedback from the teams.
“The seminar was very positive, and the proposals put to them well-received.”
Following on from the seminar, a number of the team representatives will meet during the second round of the Women’s World Cup, the Trofeo Alfredo Binda in Italy on March 29th. They will summarise their feedback and share it with the Women’s Teams Working Group.