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Equality and inclusion in professional cycling

Article

Equality and inclusion in professional cycling

Article

Equality and inclusion in professional cycling

Team Visma | Lease a Bike

Article

Equality and inclusion in professional cycling

Team Visma | Lease a Bike

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This article was first published when Visma was a co-sponsor of Team Jumbo-Visma. Today, Visma is the first title sponsor of Team Visma | Lease a Bike.

We’re incredibly proud to co-sponsor Team Jumbo-Visma, the top-ranked cycling team of the 2020 season. Not only did they consistently exceed expectations across stage races, grand tours, and championships, but 2020 also marked a milestone with the establishment of their new women’s team.

What inspired this step, and how was it received in the cycling world? We recently sat down with Team Jumbo-Visma’s General Manager, Richard Plugge, and rider Anna Henderson, to discuss this on our podcast. It turned into a meaningful conversation about the team’s ongoing commitment to promoting diversity, equality, and inclusion in professional cycling.

Find the full podcast episode below:

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Leading by example

In professional cycling, newly established teams must compete as a continental team for a full year before they can qualify as a world tour team. This usually means lower salaries for first-year riders, making it difficult to live off professional cycling. But after establishing their women’s team, Team Jumbo-Visma took a stance and offered their women riders the same salary as those of the world tour men’s team. They wanted to support the women in pursuing their cycling careers:

“Women athletes are no less than male athletes, so we need to give the women an equal opportunity to do what they’re good at – and that is cycling. It’s not mandatory for us to pay the female riders the same salary as if they were a world team but we wanted to have this as a minimum salary, so that the riders actually get to live as the top sports athletes they are, and be able to put 100% into the sport and become professional,” Richard Plugge explains.

The Team Jumbo-Visma Academy is one of the team’s primary initiatives for recruiting young talent into the sport, which also includes a development team. In collaboration with schools and associations, they are encouraging young people to get into cycling, regardless of gender:

“We believe that cycling is good for everybody, and we try to encourage young boys and girls alike to start cycling. We do it through our academy, which has worked well in the Netherlands, so far. We’re also trying to do this in Belgium. That’s also a reason for why we wanted a women’s team, because the ultimate goal for young riders – men and women, boys and girls – can then be ‘I want to be on this world tour team for men’ or ‘I want to be on this world tour team for women’.”

– Don’t let anybody tell you that you can’t do something. If you have a dream, then go for it!

In the episode, we also get to know Anna Henderson – one of Team Jumbo-Visma’s riders – who gets candid about her journey from professional skiing to becoming a pro cyclist. We asked her what advice she had to give young women and girls interested in a cycling career, as well as what it's like to be part of such a male dominated sport:

“I hope there can be even more women riding their bikes and becoming a pro. Every athlete is the same: you put in the same work, the same hours. And with the minimum salary coming in, I think that’s really good because it allows women to be professional athletes. That would be really good for this sport.”
- Anna Henderson

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