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The talents jump off (nd current)

The 18-year-old Linda Riedmann won the junior championship gold. Now it’s time to make the leap to the elite. But it is too big for many.

Foto: imago images/Shutterstock

Those who demand also receive something. The world championships in road cycling in Belgium are just showing that. A few days before the title fights, some women had denounced the unequal treatment between men and women and particularly pointed out the lack of U23 category for women. During the World Cup, David Lappartient managed to find a compromise. At the next event in Australia in 2022, there will be at least one U23 world champion in road racing, the president of the UCI promised the industry service cyclingnews. Although there is no separate race for young women, he restricted, but the best female driver under the age of 23 in the elite race will be crowned world champion. “This is a first step. There will be one race, but two sets of medals, ”said Lappartient.

In fact, it’s at least a start. It remains to be seen whether national teams will even give their young participants the opportunity to have their own race in their age category in the middle of the world championship of the elite. After all, another elite driver would have to be deleted from their own roster.

After all, the UCI is now facing the problem. And there is a problem. »At the moment it is almost impossible as an 18-year-old to move up from the junior category to the elite category and keep up there. The step is easier if you still have a few years of development among your peers, “says Lotte Kopecky about” nd “. The Belgian, 25 years old and one of the favorites in the women’s road race on Saturday in front of her own crowd, was given a professional contract five years ago as a great talent. It was only in the last two, however, that she advanced to the top of the world.

Kopecky had to bite through for years. Other talents prefer to turn their backs on the sport, observes Anna van der Breggen. “It’s a big problem in women’s cycling. The level in the elite field is very high. Hardly any junior can keep up with that right away. And when they are 21, 22 or 23 years old, they have already left the sport. Not because they don’t have enough talent, but because the step is simply too big, «says the two-time world champion and defending champion at this World Cup. The 31-year-old from the Netherlands also wants more than just one race at a World Cup for the youngsters. “There should be a full U23 racing calendar for the entire season,” says van der Breggen.

There are already enough female drivers for this. This is confirmed by a simple look at the UCI’s world best list this season. Out of a total of 1128 women who have scored points in the international competition calendar, 392 come from the age group under 23, and eight are even still among the juniors. It is the most numerically represented age group in the whole peloton, analyzed cyclingnews. Behind them are the 23 to 26 year olds with just 250 female athletes; Belgium’s star Kopecky is one of them. With increasing age, there are fewer and fewer female drivers.

However, if you look at the number of points achieved in the ranking, then, as expected, the age cohort of women in their late twenties (26,891) is the most successful. Behind them, only slightly separated from each other, are the 23 to 26 year olds (24 730 points) and the 31 to 34 year old drivers (24 510). If you add up the results of all professionals over 30 – series winner Annemiek van Vleuten now has 38 Lenze – you get almost 40,000 points. One thing can be deduced from this: the young women are used in large numbers as “workhorses” in the peloton, but the older women are in the limelight of the winners’ podiums.

That should also be the case at these world championships. The favorites for the road race are the Dutch Marianne Vos (34), local hero Kopecky (25), the Italian Marta Bastianelli (also 34), Germany’s captain Lisa Brennauer (33), the American Coryn Rivera (29) and the British Lizzie Deignan (32).

Now one can argue about whether it might not also be helpful for young talents to have a comparison with the stars as early as possible. For some, that may even be true. But so far, in contrast to their male colleagues, they simply haven’t had the choice of whether they want to make the leap into the elite or take the slower route via the U23s.

That would not only require a World Championship race, but many competitions throughout the season, as world champion van der Breggen rightly points out. And it also needs the teams for it. »There are now many professional racing teams in women’s cycling, also because the men’s teams have increasingly set up women’s teams. It’s good. But now we need the development team, ”says the Swiss Marlen Reusser to“ nd ”. »The youngsters are pushing their way, we have the drivers, the talents. Now we need the teams in which they can develop, ”emphasized the 30-year-old European champion and runner-up world time trial champion.

In spite of all the criticism of the shortage, one must of course also state that the lack of U23 category is only noticed as a shortcoming because of the recent upward trend in women’s cycling. “When I was still U23, the power density and the number of female drivers weren’t big enough to install something like this,” Lisa Brennauer recalls of her beginnings. Women’s cycling is growing in breadth, peaks and depths. Now the structures have to grow back.

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