By the editorial staff
Posted 8 minutes ago, Just updated
Jeannie Longo, Marc Madiot. INA Capture
LE SCAN SPORT – In 1987, the French manager was not kind to women’s cycling. Since then, discipline and mentalities have come a long way.
The Women’s Tour de France (epilogue this Sunday in Pau, with a time trial reminiscent of that won in 2019 by Julian Alaphilippe on the Grande Boucle) is experiencing its second edition in its new guise.
Social networks took the opportunity to bring out the images of an exchange, dating from 1987, between Marc Madiot (accompanied by Laurent Fignon) and Jeannie Longo on the set of Jacques Chancel in “ Each turn “. That year, during the Tour, the champion of France had not hesitated to express all the evil he thought of women’s cycling.
« It’s completely unsightly. There are sports that are masculine, there are sports that are feminine. Seeing a woman dancing for me is very pretty, seeing a woman playing football or on a bicycle is ugly. It’s my opinion. If some find it good, so much the better. Me, I don’t like it. Cycling is an extremely difficult sport and I love women too much to see them suffer. I am against women’s cycling. You were ugly, I’m sorry. I’ll watch women’s cycling the day they put on some nicer jerseys, shorts and shoes “, decided Marc Madiot, manager since 1997 of the Groupama-FDJ team.
Since 2017, the FDJ has been working for women’s cycling. And the FDJ-Suez team is taking part in its second Tour.
Last July, questioned by AFP on the episode with Marc Madiot, Jeannie Longo (who, at 64, has just won her 60th title of champion of France) underlined: “ He evolved, he was a young man in the peloton. I could cite others. They were some who didn’t particularly appreciate that I was put forward and that women did the same things as them. They were giants of the road and we arrived as little dwarfs of the tarmac, as I called us at the time. »
SEE ALSO – Women’s World Cup: Les Bleues are preparing to face Brazil (Saturday)
Mario Rousse, director of the Women’s Tour with Zwift recalled the path traveled by women’s cycling: “ It was nevertheless necessary to change mentalities. VS‘East arrived at the right time. Maybe ten before that wouldn’t have interested people at all. Before discussing the progress still to be made: For a long time, in women’s cycling, we didn’t exist, we had no social status, we weren’t paid to ride a bike. The Tour de France has brought a broadcast in more than 190 countries, sponsors and therefore money, which is reflected in women’s cycling. The level rose thanks to all that and everything that had been done before because the evolution of women’s cycling was not done in a year. That will take time. We shouldn’t go too fast and shut down in three years, because the ecosystem remains very fragile. »
