Ashleigh Moolman-Pasio on the attack(Image credit: Getty Images)
Ina Teutenberg(Image credit: Tim de Waele/TDWSport.com)
Ashleigh Moolman-Pasio (Cervelo-Bigla) on the podium(Image credit: Sean Robinson/Velofocus)
Ina Teutenberg celebrate after winning the 2009 Tour of Flanders women's race(Image credit: Tim de Waele/TDWSport.com)
Cyclingnews is proud to introduce the first episode of our Cyclingnews Podcast Women's Edition, brought to you by Sportful, Pinarello and Floyd's of Leadville.
Since its inception over 20 years ago, Cyclingnews has been committed to covering women's cycling, and our new Women’s Edition podcast is a part of that commitment.
You will be able to find this and other Women's Edition episodes in your usual Cyclingnews Podcast feed, so you won't have to adjust anything to get even more coverage from the world of cycling.
The Women's Edition will take on a slightly different format to our usual podcast as we take a more in-depth look at the sport. Topics will range from colour race commentary to interviews with athletes and prominent figures within the sport, while diving underneath the surface to bring you the most captivating stories from the peloton.
That brings us to our first episode, following the first major race of the season, the Women’s Tour Down Under, where Editor-in-Chief Daniel Benson sat down to discuss the state of women's professional cycling with CCC-Liv rider Ashleigh Moolman-Pasio and retired-rider-turned Trek-Segafredo directeur sportif Ina Yoko Teutenberg.
Women's professional cycling is about to undergo some big changes with the Women's WorldTour reforms set to start in 2020. There will be a new two-tiered team system and a minimum salary introduction for riders who are contracted to race with the top-level teams.
There will also be heightened contractual standards to better protect self-employed riders, whereby teams must offer social insurances such as maternity, health and pension.
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Some teams and riders believe the reforms are not affordable and too aggressive and that there are other areas of women’s cycling that need to develop first, such as improvements to the exposure of women’s races through live streaming and television.
"It's all being done in the wrong order, as such," Moolman-Pasio said. "It's one thing to make a new set of rules, and to enforce certain minimum salaries, etc., but if we don't have the means to raise those funds, in other words: enough exposure, than it's just going to kill the sport.
"We are at a delicate point at the moment where there is a huge potential and scope for the sport really exploding and becoming super popular. But there is also potential that it could just go down the same road as men's cycling and have all the same issues."
Teutenberg and Moolman-Pasio, combined, have over 20 years of experience at the highest level of the sport and have seen it change first hand over the years, for good and for bad. Sit back and enjoy our conversation with them as they discuss their own experiences, the developments within the sport, and the Women’s WorldTour reforms.
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