Women's Cycling Weekly Issue 70
A weekly curation of women's cycling news and content straight to your inbox
Hello! Welcome to Women’s Cycling Weekly issue 70 🚴♀️
Well, The Women’s Tour has DELIVERED this week has it not? Yes, the signal has been a bit dodgy at times and there hasn’t been a km to go banner but the amount of live coverage has been fantastic to see. That…eventful first stage, Wiebes’ winning streak and then today’s queen stage 🤯 topped off by Elisa Longo Borghini and Grace Brown now being tied for time (!!) on GC and Kasia Niewiadoma just 2 seconds behind — tomorrow’s final stage is going to be 🔥.
In the words of some numpty called Matilda:
Enjoy this week’s issue!
Amy x
News 📰
Annemiek van Vleuten will not ride this month’s Dutch National Championships as she focuses on recovery and preparation ahead of the Giro Donne and Tour de France Femmes.
The UCI are organising the 2022 Afghanistan Women’s National Championships in Switzerland this October. Around 60 riders, who fled Afghanistan to Switzerland, are expected to participate.
However, new details and allegations have emerged about ongoing abuse against Afghan cyclists who have been evacuated to Switzerland.
Elinor Barker has been selected to represent Wales at the Commonwealth Games this summer, just months after giving birth.
Read 🗞️
Australian cross country mountain biker Rebecca McConnell on her recent winning streak.
Annemiek van Vleuten says that the women’s calendar “needs to be ‘reanalyzed’ to better spread out races.”
Thalita de Jong on breathing new life into her career by joining Liv Racing Xstra.
She animated stage two of The Women’s Tour, meet Sammie Stuart, firefighter turned cyclist.
Listen 🎧
If you can’t be arsed reading the interview I did with Bec McConnell (or you’re dead keen to hear more from her) then be sure to check out this week’s Freewheeling.
Results 🏆
Women’s Tour
Stage 1: Clara Copponi (FDJ)
Stage 2: Lorena Wiebes (DSM)
Stage 3: Lorena Wiebes (DSM)
Stage 4: Grace Brown (FDJ)
Stage 5: Elisa Longo Borghini (TSF)
Dwars door de Westhoek
Chiara Consonni (VAL)
Sofie van Rooijen (PHV)
Gaia Masetti (AGI)
Leogang XCC
Loana Lecomte
Anne Terpstra
Caroline Bohé
Alessandra Keller
Rebecca McConnell
Upcoming Races 📆
Road
11th June: The Women’s Tour stage 6 (2.WWT) ELB and Grace Brown TIED ON TIME do not miss!
Live on Eurosport/GCN+ from 11.55 CET
MTB
10th-12th June: 🇦🇹 UCI Mountain Bike World Cup Leogang - DHI #3 & XCO/XCC #4
Friday: DH qualification, short track 17.30 CET
Saturday: DH juniors 10.30 CET, elite 12.30 CET
Sunday: Cross-country U23 8.30 CET, elite 12.20 CET
Watch on Red Bull TV
Tour of yore 🇫🇷🥐
In 1955 Millie Robinson from the Isle of Man became the first British person (male or female) to win a Tour de France. Sure, the race in question was a five-stage tour of Normandie but it was modelled on the men’s Tour.
The backdrop to that 1955 race was one of hostility towards women taking part in bike races. The ink had barely dried on national federations updates to the rules allowing women to take part and the Tour de France Feminine was only the second-ever stage race for women to be held.
Robinson and her teammates dominated the race but, due to the backlash it attracted, it was the first and last of its kind — until the 1984 event came along.
There is very little information out there about the OG ‘Manx Missile’ and her Tour de France victory. A sparse Wikipedia entry contains a summary of the basic facts of her career and includes this fantastic nugget:
One of the most detailed accounts of her Tour win and her life is in Isabel Best’s Queens of Pain in which Best herself describes how difficult it was to track down information on Robinson.
Best uncovers a talented and eclectic woman with myriad interests and a wicked sense of humour having read a note written by Robinson outlining how she rode her first time trial:
“‘with my mudguards and lamps on, as then I didn’t realise you had to strip down, the bike I mean of course.”’
She details how Robinson grew up on a farm in Ireland, moving to Peel aged 10. She served in the Land Army during the war and her cycling career began when she started working in Douglas and joined a club. After enjoying some success she moved to England in 1955 (the same year as he Tour win) to focus on cycling. Later, she became a truck driver, worked in the Raleigh factory and, in 1958, broke the world hour record.
After cycling she returned to the Isle of man and took up golf, yachting, and joined various societies as well as taking up myriad career paths including as a women’s prison warden. She never married or had children and died in 1994.
Friday fun 🕺
It started when everyone was sat around shivering their tits off in down jackets as stage one of The Women’s Tour was postponed. The riders of Team Coop Hitec Products made the best of a bad situation and started doing a dance for the (presumably equally bored) tv cameras. Then, they made it a Whole Thing:
Good vibes all round.
That’s all 👋
Thanks for reading Women’s Cycling Weekly!
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Until next time!