Instead, the solution has to come from the top, in cycling’s case the UCI. Brian Cookson was president of British Cycling throughout my career and nearly £77,000 of public money was spent on a PR campaign by UK Sport supporting his successful 2013 bid for presidency of the UCI. He had a manifesto pledge that within one year of his coming to office, there would be a minimum wage for women cyclists as there is for men. His advising “action” committee, packed with individuals whose business model only works when the majority of women team riders do not receive the minimum wage, were never going to “advise” him that it was practical; turkeys do not vote for Christmas. Three years later that minimum wage for women to match men riders remains as illusory as it was in 2012.
Cookson and UK Sport have to be held to account and the best people to do this are the sponsors. Professional sport only exists because of sponsors whose customers do not want to see discrimination. Sponsors can demand that organisations actually comply with their own policies on gender equality. When I won the world road race championships, Sky sponsored a men-only team. I never received a penny, but I still had to wear the logo. Was Sky aware of the inequality of the distribution of its funds to the sport? I am confident that it was not.
Opening up right now are big opportunities for women’s sport and its sponsors. This is the time to address some of those issues that have remained hidden or ignored for decades. I didn’t win at London 2012 but time and again during those Olympics, as I travelled around the capital on Tube or bus, I was so moved with the kind words of so many to me recalling my win of four years earlier. The people of this country could not have been clearer; the old, the young, the slow, the quick, they valued the exploits of their daughters every bit as much as those of their sons. They, every one of them, did not discriminate. Now is the time to drive discrimination from the establishment of sport.