Women’s cycling at the Olympic Games
As a road cycling fan, with a particular focus on the women’s peloton, I was shocked to learn that women’s cycling has not long been part of the Olympic Games. So I thought I’d share some of the rather disappointing history, as well as shamelessly plug the Aussie women riding in Paris 2024.
In fact, women’s road cycling didn’t feature at the Olympic Games until 1984 in Los Angeles. But men’s road cycling was there from the very first modern Olympics in 1896! Albeit the men’s race was then excluded for 40 years, returning in 1936 in Berlin.
And since that time, Australian women have won the race twice – Kathy Watt in 1992 at Barcelona and Sara Carrigan in 2004 at Athens. And guess how many times an Aussie man has won the men’s road race – that’s right – zero.
The individual time trial for women first joined the Games in 1996 in Atlanta and we won our first Gold in that event last week when the fabulous Grace Brown won gold. The men’s time trial was first featured in 1912 at the Stockholm Games. Strangely it disappeared from the program in 1936 and didn’t feature again until 1996 in Atlanta. Like the road race, it’s never been won by an Australian rider either.
Track cycling has had a love/hate relationship with the Olympics. It first featured in Athens in 1896 with an individual sprint for men and since that time has gone in and out of the program with different races being added and subtracted. And in track cycling, Australian men have excelled with a swag of medals.
Women were first admitted to the Olympic track program in Barcelona in 1992 with an individual pursuit that is no longer part of the Olympic schedule. Since then, more races have been added and then subtracted and I’m sure it will continue to evolve. Anna Meares has been our most successful Olympian on the track.
Mountain biking has a more gender-neutral approach with women’s and men’s cross-country mountain biking first featuring at the Olympics in 1996 in Atlanta, and no Aussie has snagged a medal in that event yet.
BMX has also been introduced more recently and like mountain biking is more gender inclusion than the other disciplines.
For Paris 2024 the organisers have focused on gender neutrality with the women and men racing on the same time trial course. Plus, they’ve capped the number of riders in the men’s and women’s road races at 90 which is the first time this has been done. In the past, there was always more in the men’s race. I’m looking forward to watching both of these on the weekend.
The Paris organisers have also achieved gender equality for the first time at the Olympic Games, that’s a vast improvement over the first time Paris hosted the Games in 1900 when only 2.2 per cent were women!
But enough of the statistics and historical reflection. Let’s focus on the Games at hand.
The Aussie women representing Australia in cycling across all disciplines:
- ROAD: Grace Brown, Ruby Roseman-Gannon, Lauretta Hanson
- TRACK: Kristina Clonan, Georgia Baker, Alexandra Manly, Maeve Plouffe, Sophie Edwards, Chloe Moran
- BMX: Natalya Diehm, Lauren Reynolds, Saya Sakakibara
- MOUNTAIN BIKE: Rebecca Henderson
The individual time trial has been run and won by Grace Brown. Rebecca Henderson finished 13th in her cross-country mountain bike race last weekend. And Natalya Diehm won a bronze medal in the BMX freestyle event.
Tune in to watch the remaining events:
- Women’s Road Race: Saturday, 4 August, from 10 pm
- Track Cycling Events: 5 to 11 August
- BMX Races: 30 July to 2 August