'We were always begging, now they are knocking on our door' - Van Vleuten on the transformation of women's cycling

Annemiek van Vleuten says the biggest milestone in the growth of women's cycling was not any single race or result, but the moment the sport stopped having to plead for attention, the former world champion reflecting on a transformation she lived through from start to finish during an appearance on the Domestique Hotseat.

Van Vleuten, who retired at the end of 2023 as one of the most decorated riders in the history of the sport, painted a stark picture of the conditions she entered when she began racing in the late 2000s. Her first contract paid €100 a month. By 2009, that had risen to €500. She could only afford to commit to the sport full time because she was still living in her university student house in Wageningen, paying €200 a month in rent.

"I earned 800 euros with cycling, I paid 200 euros rent, and I made the decision to go full time," she told the Domestique Hotseat. "I still lived a little bit cheaply as a student, but that's how I could start and follow my dream."

At that stage, only a handful of women in the peloton earned a livable salary. There was no television coverage outside of the Olympics and World Championships. Races at some of the sport's most prestigious venues were scheduled for impossibly early starts, Strade Bianche and Liège–Bastogne–Liège at eight thirty or nine o'clock in the morning.

The arrival of Rabobank as a sponsor in 2012 brought Van Vleuten's team a proper salary structure and the first team bus in women's cycling. Before that, her squad had travelled to races in the camper van belonging to teammate Marianne Vos's parents. But the wider sport did not follow suit, and Van Vleuten described a period of stagnation that lasted several years, with salaries flat, broadcasts absent, and interest from outside the sport close to zero.

"I really felt in those years that they were not interested in women's cycling," she said.

The first cracks in that wall came when the spring classics began to be broadcast on television, even if the time slots remained unfavourable. Then came the introduction of minimum salaries for World Tour riders, a change Van Vleuten credits with broadening the competitive field by allowing riders from more countries to commit to cycling full time.

"More and more girls can go full time for cycling, and then you see a huge step in professionalism and development," she said. "That's where we are now."

But the moment she identified as the true turning point was the shift in the commercial dynamic around the women's Tour de France. Where the sport had previously struggled to attract organisers and broadcasters, ASO moved proactively to stage a women's edition, and sponsors began approaching rather than being courted.

"We were always begging for sponsors, please help us, please broadcast us on television," she said. "And suddenly we are now in a phase where sponsors love to see it and broadcast it to the fans."

Riders below the World Tour level still race without salaries, and the pipeline of international talent that has made the sport more exciting depends on that changing.

"I'm not very happy to hear that there are still riders without a salary," she said. "The sport needs to grow from below. That's how to make it interesting, that we get riders from different countries that get the opportunity to live their dream."

She also pushed back firmly against the instinct to measure women's sport by how closely it mirrors the men's calendar. On the question of whether Grand Tours should extend to three weeks, she was frank about the possibility. The peloton is not yet ready, and adding days only makes sense if it produces better racing, not simply to match the men.

"It's not a goal to be the same as men," she said. "We have our own identity. It doesn't make it more exciting to copy it from the men." It is a position she holds with some feeling. "Sometimes it makes me a little bit tired, always that comparison with men's cycling," she added.

What excites her is the unpredictability that the sport's growth has produced. Where once a small group of Dutch riders dominated, the field is now deep and difficult to forecast. She pointed to the emergence of surprise contenders like Maeva Squiban at last year's Tour de France and an unexpected world champion through Magdeleine Vallieres as evidence that women's cycling is delivering on the quality of competition that sustains audience interest.

"Before, I always knew who the competitors were," she said. "Now, I don't know. And I think that's a treasure."

Listen to the full Hotseat podcast with Annemiek van Vleuten 👇