Copyright or © - Phil Marques

Probably nothing comes to mind more then the World Championships. Indeed, women were racing in the Worlds all the way back to 1958. Since then no one has dominated the Worlds more then Jeannie Longo, and the fact that she is still racing into her late 40's is a testament to the human spirit, and something both men and woman can admire plus aspire too. The world's is the biggest one-day race and the desire to win the fabled rainbow jersey is a dream that has escaped even some of the greatest racers. Fabiana Luperini once said she was not born to win it, out of frustration since it has eluded her so many times. After winning everything else time and again, it's the one dream she has not obtained to. Even at the Worlds in Columbia where the course was favored for the climbers, she failed to obtain the prize. Indeed, the Worlds is a hellish one day race where nerves are on edge and attacks are coming all the time. The desire to be off the front and in the limelight is great since as it's name suggests, the whole world is watching.

However when it comes to raw pure physical talent, nothing comes to mind more then the grand tours. They represent all aspects of racing stressing both the road circuits, time trialing and mountain courses, but equally important is the ability to race day after day, testing the limits of stamina and endurance. Grande Boucle and the Giro De Feminin used to be really the biggest test of such qualities in racers, but at one time the HP Woman's Challenge was actually the hardest event on record. In fact so hard that the UCI refused to sanction it because the organizers wanted to extend it to include a brutal 22,000 feet of climbing covering 663 miles in 17 stages. Inga Thompson captured the win that year over Ruthie Matthes. Also the Tour of the Gila and the Tour De Toona, are considered to be very hard with the Silver City to Mogollon Road Race and the Gila Monster, and the Tour De Toona has the Blue Knob with sections around 15 to 20 percent on the climb. The big tours capture the souls of the riders, and their tales are the stuff of legend for the men as in the old days of Gino Bartali and Fausto Coppi, but the women are creating their own legends and folklore.

Some of the biggest battles that come to mind are the years where Maria Canins and Jeannie Longo went head to head, and probably none more spectator then when Leontien Van Moorsel and Longo had their epic battles in 1992 and 93. Also who can forget when Fabiana burst onto the scene capturing her first grand tour win in 1995 beating Jeannie Longo by 8 minutes! Of course the rest of that story is probably the greatest story ever in women's tour history, as she went on to win both grand tours back to back 4 times, well almost, Faby lost her 4th Grande Boucle by less then 2 minutes to Edita Pucinskaite. Today the Giro De Feminin and the Tour De l'Aude have become the premiere stage races in Europe, while in America, it's the Gila and Tour De Toona, since the HP Women's Challenge ended it's sponsorship in 2002. Stage racing takes a special athlete being able to recover day after day. Most racers are more suited to one day classics.

During the 90's these stage races allowed the climbers to shine but today even the Giro has been cut back to 9 stages over 15 as in the past, and since the number of good climbs have been scaled back, it no longer favors the climbers. More then likely this is why Luperini has not won the Giro since 1998, but she came in a close 2nd in 2004. The last really hard stage race was the 2003 Grande Boucle, it had 14 stages and many of the big climbs were lumped together in the first stages of the race giving the climbers a chance to shine in the mountains day after day. Indeed they did, since Joane Somarriba took the lead early on and never gave it up. She went on to win, with the two greatest climbers in the world just behind finishing 2nd, 3rd, and 4th on the final GC. That was a great stage race and we have not seen the likes of it since for the women, partly because the Grande Boucle is in turmoil, split by problems with duel ownership. In 2005 it overlapped the Giro, so all the top women rode the Giro instead and the Grande Boucle for the first time was rode not by the best women in the world, but by the B teams so to speak. Hopefully the greatest stage race in the world will return to it's full glory and grandeur.

While the Giro has always been reduced to the shadows of both the Men's and Women's Tour De France, now the Giro De Feminin is enjoying the status of being the grandest stage race in the world. Last year's list of top women racers in the world was indeed impressive. This year should bring more of the same, but still it lacks enough mountain stages that are hard, and just needs more stages overall to bring it back to the status of Grande Boucle. Lack of enough stages and mountains probably caused the defeat of Luperini in 2004, as Cooke took the victory in the last stage on some climbs that were mild by comparison to other years. Still stage races are crown jewels of women's racing, as is the Worlds and a handful of classics.

The more notable stage races both past and present are Grande Boucle, Giro De Feminin, Tour De l'Aude, Tour De Snowy, Rotterdam Tour, Geelong. In America we had HP Challenge, Tour of the Gila, Tour De Toona, Redlands, to name the bigger ones, but both in Europe, America, Canada, and down under there are a number of others like Emakumen Bira, Gracia Orlova, Giro San Marino, Giro Del Trentino, Street Skills, Tour De Feminin Bretagne, Thuringen Rundfahrt, Trophee d'Or, Tour of Tuscany, Tour De Suisse Feminin, Tour of Grand Montreal, Vuelta International Mallorca Feminas, Prix Des Foundateurs a Neuville Les Dames, Etoile Vosgienne, and in American, Nature Valley, Tour of Tuscany, Tour of Texas, San Dimas Stage Race, Joe Martin Stage Race, Fitchburg Longsjo Classic, Cascade Cycling Classic, Solano Classic, and Valley of the Sun.

The crown jewels of one day classics in Europe brings to mind of course the newly and very successful Fleche Wallone, which Luperini has won three times. It's a highly prized race for the women and always brings the best talent. Since the 20 percent Mur de Huy climb comes at the end, it not only favors the climbers, but more like the mountain sprinters in the San Francisco Grand Prix otherwise known as T-Mobile International. Both races Nicole Cooke sprinted to the finish and collapsed from exhaustion. The steep finish of those two races allowed for solo efforts at times at the finish with cases like Luperini or the more dramatic sprint finishes with Cooke. This also brings to mind the extremely steep finish of Nevada City in California. It was at one time a premiere one day event in America. Boosting 16,000 feet of climbing, it has an extremely steep finish suitable for mountain sprinter. Other big one day classics in Europe include Primavera Rosa, Amstel Gold, Tour of Flanders, Tour De Berne, Gran Premio Castilla y Leon, Montreal World Cup, Nurnberger Altstadt. In America some of the more notable one day classics are T-Mobile International, Bank of America Invitational, USCF & USPRO Criterium Championships, Liberty Classic, Tour of Somerville, Nevada City, and Cats Hill. However there are many two or three day classics, which are really sort of mini stage races, like Mclane Pacific, Central Valley Classic and the Visalia Sequoia Classic.

Other one day classics in Europe include Giro Del Toscana, Pollsportiva Cavrie, Trofeo A. Binda Comune Di Cittiglio, Tjejtrampet, Giro Del Piave Feminin, Tour De Finistere, Women's Tour Beneden-Mass, Omloop Het Volk, Canberra Tour in Australia, Criterium International in Canada. From the land down under are a number of events both stage races, world cup events, games and classics including Trust House Women's Tour, Commonwealth Games, Wellington World Cup, Geelong Women's Tour, The Advertiser Women's Criteriun Series, Australian Open Road Championships, Jayco Bay Cycling Classic, New Zealand National Championships. In America other one day classics include Mt. Hood Cycling Classic, Bob Cook Memorial Mt. Evans Hill Climb, Wells Fargo Twilight Criterium, International Cycling Classic, Tri-Peaks Challenge, Raleigh Twilight Criterium, US Elite Nationals and of course the World Road Championships which comes late in the season.

Many of the women continue to compete on all levels on the track, stage races and one day classics. However the men's calendar has become too brutal and many specialize in certain events like Lance does with the tour. Rarely do you see any men riding all the grand tours, let along all the classics, it's just not possible anymore. The races are too fast and hard and there are too many now, plus many new ones since the old days. However many women are able to ride the grand tours, classics, world championships, and some even are doing track on top of all of that. There are fewer races then the men, the courses are shorter and the speed and competition not as frightening or as daunting as the men.

The women are able to race many of the events on the calendar, but that's not to say with better teams, training and equipment that the stress of a full year doesn't take it toll on the women, it does. But the time may come also where you see the women specializing to win only certain races like the tour. Some women are organizing their seasons as best they can to get a spot on the Olympic team, and this also depends on how this works out with their team commitments. The problem is right now there is not enough money in the races to allow women to cherry pick events for a big payoff. Consider the prize money for the biggest events compared to the men is still very little, and keeps the women on the run to race and win as many events as possible in order to not only earn income, but raise their profiles that in the hopes of the next year, they can get picked up by the best teams.

Some of the biggest prize money in racing worldwide has been in America. In 1981 the biggest prize at the time, ($15,000) went to Jacque Bradley when she outsprinted Connie Carpenter at the Mohawk Carpet Classic. At the height of the famed International Women's Challenge, the prize has reached an incredible ($125,000) in prizes. In 2000 Nicole Reinhart was on her way to winning the biggest purse in women's cycling history, ($250,000) for a four part series in the 2000 BMC Software Cycling Grand Prix. In 2005 the Bank of America Invitational Criterium at Charlotte North Carolina, offered the biggest cash purse in the world for a criterium. Ina Teutenberg won the day, with the purse being ($50,000). In the scramble for the prize money, there were numerous crashed, and there was a plea for calm from Ina, but she won the day anyway.

In the last five years, women's cycling has improved a lot. Teams are must better, sponsors, and more money has come into many events, and while it's not anywhere near a level playing field compared to the men, it's certainly better then five years ago. In some events in America, records have been set for the amount of women that have turned out to race in certain events. While interest in women's cycling grows both for fans and riders, better teams and sponsors will integrate with the media not far behind. In the past, many events have been on local TV. In Europe coverage at times has been good for the Grande Boucle, Giro De Feminin. In American, coverage of Liberty Classic, HP Challenge has been excellent. Also the women's road race was given at least an hour at times like with the road race in Barcelona in 1992.

In the early years America had TV broadcasts of Red Zinger and later followed the Colorado Classic. In the 90's they covered both the track and women's road race at the games in Japan. In 1992 they covered the pre Olympic Trials, and the road race in Barcelona, as well as some excellant segments done on women riders like Leontien Van Moorsel and Jeannie Longo, as well as Inga Thompson and some historcal segments about how women's cycling began and evolved over the years. At the Atlanta Games in 1996, Jeannie Longo was covered as she won gold, her first and only prize left on her list of great achievements. Also during the 90's, there was decent coverage in Europe, in France, Italy and other countries of various women's classic and stage races.

During the 90's Italy covered the Giro De Feminin on RAI 3, as well as many classics with generous daily segments, and France covered the Grande Boucle with excellent segments on their channels, but Velo Feminin even went so far as to make a video for public release in 2004 of the 2003 Grande Boucle. Also in the 90's the worlds was covered every year by Eurosports with a generous one hour segment of both the women's road race and the time trial. Sometimes special interviews and profiles were added for a number of top women. In 2000, the women's track and road events were covered in many countries and America produced a segment on HBO about Leontien comeback and three gold medals at the Sydney games down under. Holland also produced a special one hour segment on her three golds. In 2004, Eurosports covered the Athens road race and time trial and the USA channel devoted 4 hours to the entire road race which was perhaps the most coverage ever of a women's event in history.

During the period after 2000, OLN starting airing segments of Sea Otter, Redlands, and other classics. Liberty Classic also had their yearly one hour special on local TV of their famous race. There were one hour segments of the HP women's challenge on national TV as well. However even during the 90's even men's events like the prestigious Tour De France was not given more then one hour segments once a week on weekends until Greg started winning, which they ESPN picked up more nightly segments where you started to get more stages covered instead of the weekly wrap-up the big networks used to do. That all changed when Lance started winning and then for the first time, we started seeing classics that were never aired before on OLN, and that continued for a few years with the women also getting more events covered, but it was nowhere near as much as the men were getting. However when Lance left, and the drug scandals started hitting the sport hard, coverage of men's races dropped off dramatically, and of course the women's races by default suffered as well.

Today, Women's race coverage is prettly much confined to the worlds and the Olympics on America TV, but in Europe, coverage is decent in Belgium with Fleche Wallonne, Numerous races in Holland, Giro De Feminin in Italy, and the Grande Boucle in France, but even smaller classics in Europe get some TV coverage and webcasting has exploded for women's events all over the world including the Geelong in Australia. Various cycling websites are also covering women's events and posting them online like Deltavelo. Women's race coverage are almost always effected by the state of men's racing, and while things are in disarrays with all the bad press over doping violations, the women are pretty much clean and don't deserve the bad press by default that effects the sport as a whole. This shouldn't last very long however, and again you should see women's events on TV nationwide once a resurgence of interest and networks start picking up their events again. One of the best things that could happen would be for DirecTV to pick up Europsports in their packages, and if enough people request Europsports, then we could get the women's worlds every year here in America. How cool would that be? Once the war is over in Iraq, look for things to get better in sports coverage, as tourism will increase as well.