There is no easy path to a life as a professional cyclist for anyone, but throw in a huge geographical boundary coupled with limited development opportunities and the uphill battle becomes even steeper. It is a scenario all too familiar for Australian women in cycling as while the opportunities and professionalisation of the top level of the sport is growing, for many the pathways to get there aren’t.
It was back in 2007 that Cycling Australia identified a gap in the development of women’s road cycling as a consequence of limited opportunities for international competition and started a program to try and address it. That program has come and gone, along with a number of domestically-based teams that had aimed to provide racing development within Australia and a pathway to international opportunities. Some have stepped into the void, but the depth and number of opportunities is still severely limited.
Donations have come in from top Australian cyclists including Grace Brown, Amanda Spratt and Chloe Hosking. Those behind the crowd funding plan to start a new domestic cycling team, with up to 14 riders from the age of 17. It would not only provide racing opportunities but also have resources available to educate and train them in the sport, adding in four months of international racing to give them exposure to the highest level of competition.
“Now is the time we must act; with the gap growing, not narrowing, we must do something now,” said the GoFundMe page (opens in new tab) aiming to help extend the development opportunities through the creation of a new team. ”We have an incredible opportunity to make a genuine difference for the current generation of young women cycling and the many generations to come after.”
Leading the push for the new team is Pat Shaw, a cyclist who competed internationally and domestically and spent a number of years racing with Australia’s men’s Continental teams before retiring in 2016. After years of commentating on cycling, Shaw had also stepped in as the new women’s team director sportif at InForm TMX Make from mid-year.
However, not long after the 2010 Jayco Herald Sun Tour winner had taken up the role, the announcement was made that the men’s and women’s team was coming to an end in 2022 and the ambitious plans for 2023 all of a sudden fell into disarray. Shaw wasn’t prepared to leave it at that.
“The sport of cycling has been very good to me,” Shaw told Cyclingnews. “It’s offered me so…
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