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PCW: Today I am interviewing Karl Lima of Hitec Pro Women's Cycling Team. I had done a work up last year on the team plus Karl had sent me some press releases every so often, so I thought it was a good idea to talk about his team, as well as the current state of women's cycling.PCW: Can you introduce yourself and tell us a little about what your position is, and what are your functioning duties on Hitec Women's Pro UCI cycling team?
Karl: I am the Team Manager and representative of the team towards the UCI. I do the selection of riders and staff to the team, and most of the contact with sponsors and race organizers. When we double programs, I am also director sportif in the races. I am a former amateur rider and know the sport a little from within the peloton, but have followed women cycling on top level for some years through my good friend Tone Hatteland, who also rides for the team.
PCW: As the manager, do you feel you have a good working relationship with your riders, their specific needs, as well as helping them refine their roles within the team?
Karl: I think that I have good relations with the riders, and try my best to give them information and advice in a timely manner. I treat all of them as equal as possible, but sometimes, as in other business environments, equal is not always fair.
PCW: Does Hitec have excellent coaches and trainers onboard, and are the women going to the training camps again as usual in Spain or Italy, France? Everyone knows about the excellent conditions in Mallorca Spain, and HTC loves to train here in Santa Barbara California which is renown to have some of the best year round weather in the world.
Karl: This year we had Thijs Rondhuis, former coach of the DSB team and Marianne Vos, as a main coach until May. Thijs pursued other opportunities (more specific, he lead the Noris cycling team the last half of the season), so we hired in Martin Vestby to step in the last part of the season. Martin was doing very well with the team, and is now hired for the 2011 season as well. He has been combined with leading the Norwegian men's U23 team this year, but will next year be 100% a Hitec man :-). The training camps for next season is not yet decided, but I have a special love for Gran Canaria, so I will try to persuade Martin to think that's a good idea!
Emma Johannson of Red Sun will now Be Hitec Captain!Emma Johansson, Olympic silver medal winner of 2008, number 4 on the UCI world ranking and Number 2 in the world cup 2010, will ride for Norwegian UCI team "Hitec Products UCK" in 2011. This will enable Hitec to challenge the best women teams in the world. At the same time, former Pro cyclist Martin Vestby will switch from Norwegian national coach for U23 men, to Sports Director for team Hitec.PCW: I understand Hitec has acquired one of the top talents in the sport today, Emma Johansson from Red Sun. Will she be the team leader, what are her goals for 2011, and will that fit in with the overall team goals of Hitec? What will be Hitec goals for 2011?
Karl: Emma is a great athlete, and a natural captain for us in 2011. Her goals is the highest possible, winning the world cup, world champion and Olympic champion in the long term. Hitec's goal is to rise to the level of Scandinavian women's cycling in general, and Norwegian in particular, and Emma fits well into this picture.
PCW: Emma Johansson is clearly a world-class rider, who seems to have it all. She's a very classy rider who has shot to the very top of the sport in a relatively short time. Some riders by their mere presents have saved teams or given more to the sport then they will receive from it. Do you feel Emma can lead Hitec to some World Cup victories and a birth in the World Championships and Olympic Games in 2012?
Karl: No doubt, the introduction of Emma into Hitec will give opportunities for other riders on the team to blossom. Emma Johansson loves the races as hard as possible, she has high class technique, she has no fear, the best attitude, she climbs, sprints and time trials well, and is at the same time a modest and considerate person. Having such a person in your team is priceless, and must lead to victories.
Lise Nøstvold!
Lise Nøstvold came from handball sport into cycling. She is now leading the Norwegian cup, is the new Norwegian champion, and is selected to the worlds after convincing riding. She is a climber and time trialer.
PCW: I know Hitec was already a solid team with some very classy women already, so now it's starting to look like a Dream team? As you know last year, Tibco was sort of known as a Dream team since it has so much talent with so many beautiful women on it. Do you think Hitec is a good example of what a Pro women's team should be?
Karl: We have the riders, the talents, and striking beauty, no doubt about that! If we also had a lot of money, we would be impossible to stop :-). Joke aside, there is something about a team mostly consisting of blonde girls, we are bound to get at lot of attention, and I am the first to admit it helped us to many invitations in the start when the level was lower than today.
PCW: I mean Hitec seems to have solid talent, beautiful women and a great overall team, and that's what we want in women's pro cycling right?, teams that can show the world what top professional women can do both with their talent and their image?
Karl: I agree. We had an uphill struggle in 2009, when few believed in us, now everyone and her sister want to ride for Hitec.
PCW: Now will the kits change for next year, and what kind of bikes will they be riding? Will it be pretty much the same as last year as far as kits and their bikes?
Karl: The kits will change very slightly, while we are considering various offers for bikes. Scott Addict, as we have been riding the previous 2 seasons, are a serious possibility of course. Any new offers must be better.
The UCI Women's team Hitec Products UCK recently signed a contract with Danish Trine Schmidt. She formerly rode for the African team MTN. Trine is 22, but already an experienced cyclist and she has raced professionally for 18 years, most of the time for Dutch Team Flexpoint, but also for Italian Menikini-Selle Italia-Gysko. Her most important results was the silver medal in the points race at the Track World Championships in Manchester 2008, which led her to the Olympic Games. Trine is a very good time trialist and known as one of the toughest work horses in the women's peloton, and with her 180 centimeters it is not so strange that she is nicknamed "the Viking"!
PCW: What can you tell us about the transfers? Trine Schmidt recently came onboard, will Emilie Moberg and Nathalie Lamborelle stay? How about Sara Mustonen?
Karl: I can't tell you much, because we are in the middle of negotiations, but of the riders you mention I can tell you that Trine Schmidt, Emilie Moberg and Sara Mustonen have already prolonged their contracts for next year.
PCW: I would like to start a serious of questions about the current state of women's cycling, and what the future might be. I guess if you are willing, we can just take it one question at a time. This is a subject that has been in the spotlight for some time now, and it's also been a very timely subject since it's during a time when riders will start looking for new teams and signing new contracts.
PCW: How do you feel about having a Women's Pro Tour team to race alongside the men? I guess a kind of Yin and Yang of the Pro Tour. Do you feel this is something that can be done reasonably well if the UCI was willing to give it a shot?
Karl: I would love if the UCI were doing that, even if small teams like ours would suffer. All Pro Tour teams should be forced to have a women's team.
Addendum:
I had wrote about the possibility of a Pro Tour Women's team over a month ago in the Problems with Women's Cycling, and then shortly thereafter I saw the subject surface here when Vroomen talked about. After that, it surfaced again in this interview.
PCW: How do you feel about the concept of a Pro Tour salary for women with guaranteed minimum prize money?
Karl: I would welcome it, but then the conditions must change, first of all there must be TV broadcasting of the women's races.
PCW: As you know in some races over the years, some salaries are not always paid correctly and sometimes prize money from races doesn't get paid or is very late in coming. I'm not sure about Europe but those problems have occurred in the USA before. Do you feel this would be fair since for pro women to be part of the Pro Tour would be asking them to raise the bar even more professionally as solid full time paid professionals? I mean their training would have to kick up a notch it seems?
Karl: Since Hitec has no problems in that way we would welcome this too.
PCW: I have been studying the problems and solutions concerning how to raise the status of women's cycling worldwide. We want to think of top women as professional elite world-class women pros. That is saying a lot in six words. It's a very powerful set of words. How can women live up to those words if they are not paid a living wage?
Karl: They cant :-)
PCW: I know this is very difficult to talk about, but we need to at least try to address it in some way that is acceptable. We know top women are very dedicated and train reasonably hard all year long. If they are not making a living wage along the lines of what a middle-income family does, doesn't that affect their morale and motivation of women over the long run?
Karl: Women cyclists are extremely tough and really love their sport, being twice as professional as the average 3rd division soccer player, despite being paid a 10th of their salary. Of course, many women stop because of feeling treated bad in many ways.
PCW: I know often transfers are like a game of musical chairs, riders going this way and that every year, but perhaps that wouldn't seem so shady if women were paid better to race at the elite level. I know there are no money trees, and we can't just hope to get Bill Gates onboard to pump billions into women's cycling so let's take a more practical sensible approach to these problems and see if we can get a few ideas out there with this interview?
Karl: Broadcasting of women's races, every pro tour team must spend 5% of their budget on a women's team, every pro tour race must arrange a women's race (Like Tour of Flanders, La Fleche Wallone already does, bless them). All federations should be made to give financial support to anyone willing to run a UCI team. All federations should be forced to arrange at least one UCI women's race.
PCW: Do you feel if enough Pro Women wrote letters to the UCI that this might have an effect, and maybe this would renew the subject with the UCI? Maybe they would at least take a closer look at these problems. 4 years ago, Pat McQuaid gave this short interview addressing very briefly the problems with women's cycling, but I can't remember anything much since.
PCW: In fact, there were rumors through the grapevine that the Grande Boucle and the Tour de l'Aude were partly canceled because the organizers had some problems maintaining these races within the guidelines of the UCI. Some have speculated even worse, as Pierre Boue will write a book about some of the problems and his beloved Grande Boucle. Do you feel the UCI just isn't interested much in women's cycling, or is it more like bureaucrats who don't really have a hands on feel of the real problems confronting the hardships that are hurting the sport for women?
Karl: I cannot speculate in this as I don't know.
PCW: I mean the top men are getting paid millions of dollars, as where the top women are probably getting less then a tenth of that amount. Would transparency help? As you know finding the salaries of the top men is quite easy to find on the internet, but the top women? Never, I have never seen their salaries posted over the years.
I have only been told in secret over the years what the salaries were for some women, and it seems the women are not forthcoming to share this info either. I can understand that maybe it's somewhat embarrassing, but what if the top 50 women salaries were published on the Internet alongside the top 50 men's salaries, do you think this might get the attention of the UCI or the USAC? Would that send a shockwave through the cycling community?
Karl: I for sure know that women salaries are low. But I don't know if that would have any effect.
PCW: It sounds drastic, but isn't transparency the way forward? Why are we hiding this information from the public? If the problems with women's cycling remains a secret, isn't it true that we will never be able to move forward? I mean it seems money is at the root of all these problems and if we cannot have public discussions and include the fanbase worldwide, then we can't turn public opinion around, correct?
I have said it before, and I have also read what others have suggested that women's cycling seems like a secret society. Indeed here at the races, often they are content to just race and go home. Shouldn't women become more active at promoting their own side of the sport, otherwise who is going to do it for them? I know mostly men work in support roles in women's cycling but I am more and more thinking women are going to have to lead the way if these problems are going to be fixed?
Do you feel the sport needs a female leader at the highest levels? I mean a real smart savvy person who can take an extremely serious look at these problems and work with the UCI and perhaps the USAC to get their side of the sport moving again for women?
Perhaps a modern day Joan of Arc?
During the Golden Years, top women were pulling 100k or more, but they were very few. On the men's side, you have many riders who are paid well. This has never been the case with women. If women were paid well, then don't you think more women like Evelyn Stevens would enter the sport, instead of just being unknown, or perhaps more coming from Tennis, Running, Volleyball and such? Crossover athletes, that's how we get a lot of our women here in the states.
I think the sport suffers from a high turnover rate because it doesn't offer them a career in cycling like the men get. If they want to stay in cycling, they will not profit from saving money over the long run like the men do, or even from a middle income job that average people do. We know that pro cycling is a hard sport to be in, the seasons are so long, the sacrifices women make, very high when often they have to pay out of pocket for hotels, food, gas sometimes. This might not be true for UCI women, but it's a fact for some Pro women here in the states. In fact many work full time jobs and race at the pro level, which really doesn't remind you of being a Pro, or at least not someone who the public will take seriously. If we had something like the Pro Tour with a select group of women who got paid well, at least we could say we have a group of top tier women who could bring honor to the sport. Do you agree?
Karl: It is interesting thoughts, but without TV coverage, we will get nowhere. When we have that, the big money will be available.
PCW: What else can women do? I have suggested that races here should endorse and practice the Euro version of Presentations, both Presentation days and pre race Presentations. I know we don't do them here like Europe and I know that really hurts getting a solid image of our women out to the public. That's our problem, but otherwise what can women do in the long run? How about inviting the press into their inner circles more often? How about women actively engaging the press, as well as their DS's?
I know over here, they often remain in the shadows or hide by parking down the street for a quick exit. Do you feel women could spend a bit more time by engaging the press in interviews, photos, profiles, etc? I hardly see any interviews of women anymore. I used to read a lot of them during the Golden Years on CN, but you almost never see any today anymore.
Karl: It is true that most cycling women seem to dislike interviews and attention. I have encouraged my riders to talk to the press whenever they can!
PCW: I know a mogul might be a big help like Bill Gates, but I don't think he's a cycling fan. I know Grass Roots support is always good, I have seen it first-hand work very well for women. I know we need Big Media and the UCI onboard, as well as a year long series for women on TV and maybe even a Pro Tour series. I have mentioned for women to write letters and perhaps find a leader, someone who can lead the way and bring in fresh ideas to the sport. I have even suggested before that women try to build their own businesses and start their own teams. Also I think women should support themselves in this sport at the races, on the blogs or forums, in facebook and all forms of media, as well as becoming better educated about the history and the inner workings of their sport, but in the end, I have always felt women must lead the way.
What are your closing thoughts?
Karl: I am happy to see that there are many people like you that care for women's cycling, that gives me energy and hope for the future of the sport!
PCW: Thanks again for your time and your thoughts on these matters.
Procyclingwomen.com
Interview by Bruce Johnston
Some Additional Thoughts - Addendum
That gives me a lot of hope that women can silence the nay Sayers, but they can also solve their own problems if they want to. The idea that women could solve these problems gives me Goosebumps! There are so many highly educated women who ride in the pro ranks that I believe they can work together to fix the problems in women's' cycling. They will need a leader, yes a modern day Joan of Arc, someone who can break through any obstacle set before them, and the determination to see it through.
I think if women can look at their roots and remember they lead the way in cycling in the earlier days, that they can again lead the way and bring fairness and equity back to the sport, like the early days. Once it gets in their blood, we might see a snowball effect where women in cycling become really focused and exciting about fixing these problems.
One thing I have become convinced of recently and that is Big Media. I had said it time and again, that women could write letters to the UCI and Big Media to try to get the ball rolling. Writing letters is a very powerful medium, more so then most people might think. However what I have come to notice now is that I think writing letters to Big Media is probably the most powerful way to use the pen. While writing to the UCI or the USAC might get their attention, most people I have talked with as well as just about anywhere else I have read things written about the problems had the same single most important idea about what is the fastest way forward, and that is TV.
What Karl said is correct. TV is the fastest way forward, and when that happens, the big sponsors and the big money will start to flow. Also when that happens, then the UCI is likely to jump onboard as well as everyone else. How do we do that? Public demand and smaller organizations who are willing to do it. I had said I know one guy who did it single-handedly and that stage race was broadcasted nationwide. If someone is willing to do it, TV execs are usually pretty fair in giving it a shot on national TV.
Otherwise if a sport is popular, networks generally covers sports, but that is not the case for women's cycling. So it's going to take a campaign of both those women who work inside the sport, as well as those who can get out and shoot these races and work with the TV networks to get these productions out there. The idea of writing letters to Big Media would be a good idea to prime the pump and get them to meet us halfway.
However the short answer is TV, we must figure out how to get these races on TV, because without it, there is little hope. Right now men's races dominated almost 100 percent of pro races on TV here in the states all year long, and that must change.
I think what Karl is doing is fantastic on his end with the women's teams, and I know his dreams are the same ones we all have, but there is much to be done! As they say, Brick by Brick, Brick by Brick!!
Cheers!
I don't have a lot of extra time but I did this quickly enough. I don't have time to tinker with a lot of variables either, but if we just take a basic look at the hard numbers, and get a sense of the disparity here. Yeah, we need parity, and that would be refreshing to see. I just posted how many links or articles I can count from the front page only of a number of notable cycling news sources online. I might make a few mistakes and the counting is not totally precise, as well as some mixed articles were not counted. Some sites have a women's cycling section, so I skipped those sites too.
I wanted a sense more of what's going on when genders are not clearly seperated into catagories. Some sites have a women's section like Canadian Cyclist and Podium Cafe, and what's good about that is they have to generated enough content to make it credible, as where on mixed mainstream sites, by mixing they can get away with giving women's cycling almost nothing, cause it's hidden in the overall scheme of things. This is an attempt to flush out those numbers to some extent and bring some transparency to it.
However, I just simply tried to count how many men's articles there were versus women's articles, and then tally that number. This should be somewhat illuminating. I will try not to include tech, mixed or non gender articles. That should tighten it down quite a bit. I know that men are often part of mixed articles as well, so I will even take that huge number out of the equation. I don't have time to click through, so if I can't get a sense from the title link, I will overlook it. I will just try to include the most obvious articles linked in at these sites. Again, this is rough, and all I wanted to do here, is to give a rough idea, nothing more, but still very compelling about the disparity in cycling.
The Total number of articles/links for October 1st, 2010 was 198 for men and 18 for women roughly speaking, about 10 percent for women, which is probably higher then the norm. I am guessing it's usually around 5 percent, and that's the same percentage that has been recommended by numerous people concerning the Pro Tour with regards on how much of their budget to allocate to a women's cycling Pro Tour counterpart. If you ask me though, that's pretty token.
Can you imagine if I had a candy bar and I wanted to share it with you? Ok, that's 95 percent for me, and 5 percent for you. You five percent would probably be just a tiny piece torn off the edge of the candy bar. Now you get an idea of how disparinging salaries are between men and women, but also the press as shown with these numbers. Pro UCI teams for women were designed originally by the UCI years ago with their trade teams concept. While they stipulated a minimum salary for men, women's pro cycling never gained a foothold with pro salaries which would be credible as Top Elite World Class UCI Pros. This must change, no doubt about it!
| Date | Source | Men | Women |
| October 1, 2010 | Bicycle Dot Net | 17 | 1 |
| October 1, 2010 | Bicycle Magazine | 8 | 2 |
| October 1, 2010 | Bike Radar | 17 | 0 |
| October 1, 2010 | British Cycling | 7 | 2 |
| October 1, 2010 | Cycling Weekly | 14 | 1 |
| October 1, 2010 | Cyclingnews | 60 | 5 |
| October 1, 2010 | Road Cycling NZ | 33 | 2 |
| October 1, 2010 | Velonation | 42 | 5 |
