Great women in the Great Britain Cycling Team

This week, at British Cycling and across the country, people were celebrating International Women’s Day. While IWD23 is recognised globally to celebrate the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women, it caused me to pause for a moment to reflect on the ground which our riders and staff have covered within the Great Britain Cycling Team (GBCT) over recent years.

It makes me incredibly proud to say that we now have women coaching at all levels of our GBCT programme, in more disciplines than ever before.?A number of them spoke on camera this week about what it takes to be at the top of your game in cycling, which you can see ??: https://youtu.be/ac3aAzPwKzs

Between Helen Scott , Emma Trott and Kaarle McCulloch OLY, they have:

??Over 33 years of professional cycling experience

?? Eight world championship titles

??One Paralympic title

??Six Olympic and Paralympic medals

There is no doubt that they are great cyclists, however the real pleasure has been watching them flourish as coaches and see how they are managing to both grow their own professional practice and the skills, confidence and competence of the riders they are working with.?

Emma Trott has followed our Tokyo 2020 Women’s Endurance Coach Monica Greenwood who graduated from on the UK Sport female coaches leadership programme, developing her practice and sharing experiences and learnings amongst other women within the high performance sport community.?In turn she has been developing the riders on our Junior Women’s Endurance programme, most notably working with Zoe Backstedt, who currently holds four world championship rainbow jerseys in different cycling events, and is recognised as one of the sport’s eminent rising talents.?

Also on the rise are our women’s track sprint squad led by Kaarle McCulloch OLY.?It is worth noting that the GBCT has not qualified a women’s team sprint team at the Olympic Games since 2012, so to move the programme on to the stage where these women now expect to medal at every international event is quite something.?

However, again it is more than just the performance outcome that is impressive. Kaarle has built the confidence and re-enforced the responsibility the riders have to act as role models and use their platform for the benefit of girls and women in sport, talking about their journey and important women’s issues, whether that is building confidence to win a 60kmh bike race or to talk openly about periods. This is very much in line with the desires of the British public who support athletes speaking out about social issues, as outlined in the latest UK Sport report: New research shows British public support athletes speaking out and driving social change | UK Sport

Following the success of our Paralympians at Tokyo 2020, British Cycling were able to benefit from Sport England investment to further grow the talent pool of future winners.

Helen Scott joined our coaching ranks after a fantastic career as a Paralympic tandem pilot, and is now making a huge impact supporting the next generation.?Her support of women riders doesn’t stop at the velodrome door.?This weekend, despite the snowy weather forecast in the north west she is leading a women’s ride out in Manchester.

But it doesn’t stop there.?Behind the scenes we now have women operating at all levels of our programme, from Senior Leadership Team positions, through our Performance Support Team, leading on technology programmes, Paris preparations, physiology, nutrition, and many more. And our team is far, far stronger as a result.

Our women riders are fantastic ambassadors for the sport. Their performances in competition continue to impress, from the hugely inspiring gold medals of Bethany Shriever and Charlotte Worthington at Tokyo 2020 to our two returning mums, Elinor Barker MBE and Katy Marchant , who both won medals at the recent European Track Championships at their first international events since giving birth only a few months ago.

Off the bike, their effort and commitment to giving back to sport and society burns just as brightly.

?For Katie Archibald, this week she was sharing experiences with the next generation of young riders who aspire to follow in her footsteps, while Bethany Shriever is now partnering with the Girlguiding , supporting the Girls Can Do Anything programme.

I could go on, and there are so many more great examples. But there is also much more that we at British Cycling can and will continue to do to support the development of women as part of our ongoing equality, diversity and inclusion work – and I will always ensure that the GBCT is at the very forefront at this work.

For now I will stop and raise a virtual glass, say thank you to all of our women, be they riders or staff, who continue to keep the Great in the Great Britain Cycling Team.