WOMEN | 06/21/2024 | 08:20
by Giulia De Maio
The winner of Italian Tuscany Championship 2024 she will be able to pay for a dinner for her companions, but little more. The theme of prize money at the Italian matches had emerged forcefully in 2016 when Elena Cecchini, supported by the rest of the pink group, had raised the topic after winning in Boario Terme and had obtained an increase for the years from the then FCI president Renato Di Rocco subsequent ones.
Since then the women’s movement has grown considerably, the contracts of World Tour cyclists are now equal to those of men, the Tour de France Femmes has returned to shine, new races have been born (and will be born shortly, including Milan-Sanremo), but the gap between prizes at national championships remains embarrassing. During the Italian event, in fact, the Elite Women are not equal to their colleagues of the same rank but to the Under 23s. The minimum prize money foreseen by the regulations for the women’s in-line road test is 2,180 euros, compared to 26,000 for the men. From FCI tables Elisa Longo Borghini will receive 1,000 euros if she confirms herself in the tricolor jersey, while the title that Simone Velasco will have to defend is worth 10,400 euros.
An exaggerated gap, which is not found in other European countries nor among the furthest from the continent, the cradle of cycling. In Nigeria, for example, premiums have been equal for a few years now. As far as we know, the Association of Italian Professional Cycling Runners (ACCPI) and the Italian Cycling Federation (FCI) are trying to find a solution to gradually obtain an increase in the women’s prize money and bring it closer to the men’s prize money, which in truth is also stopped by times when the euro replaced the lira.
While waiting for politics to take its course, the gesture of the organizing company of this year’s Italian elite women’s championship, As Aurora, is appreciablewhich decided to raise the prize money in a symbolic way by 100 euros each for the top 10 classified in the online test to raise public awareness on the issue of gender equality in sport.
«It is still necessary to work a lot and seriously to bridge the differences between the female and male sectors in the Italian sporting world, especially in terms of the prize money of the competitions and managerial roles, just to cite two examples of a long series of situations of gender disparities that can no longer be tolerated» declares Daniele Grazi, general director of Toscana Tricolore 2024.
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