Sexism row: Catford Cycling Club redistribute Hill Climb prize money for overall and female winners after complaints

Equality is never really equality. Look at something like the TDY prize money. Equal to the men....but they only do two days and the workload is usually easier.

Surely gender is just a social construct and we can all just compete together? Yeah?

Don’t women have dinners to make on a Sunday?

  Catford CC President here.

   I have personally pushed for equal prize money in our events but it is not as straightforward as some seem. 

  All though Catford CC is a famous long standing club we are still very small in the scheme of things and our Hill Climb event runs at a circa £1000 loss, a big hit on a small club run with a small group of volunteers giving up a lot of their own free time to promote cycling, hence why the Comittee voted against any increases in the prize fund, it was also thought decreasing the main prizes to accomodate the equality required would detract on entry numbers.

 The Comittee have struggled to obtain regular sponsorship that would allow us to achieve that committment to a long term change in the prize distribution without putting club finances under strain.

   Le has done a fine job keeping the Hill Climb going in recent years with the neccessity for Road Closures and the increased Admin that creates and even though I am in favour of equal prizes I do not condone the level of bullying he has come under in private emails for this.

  Le has restructured the Prize funds and we hope to increase these over the future years with Sponsorship.

Kind regards

Steve Airey

This is so straightforward. Equal prize money . The rest is just waffle.

Or perhaps prize money should be scrapped and we should compete for the pure joy of the contest? Entry fees can cover the costs incurred in staging the event and the remainder put towards the development of the sport.

It's a hill climb, all competitors start and finsih the same places, so prize money should be equal, or pay only on general result and no other categories. This should apply to all TTs as everyone races the same course. I think it's ok to have male 1-3, female 1-3 and an event winner (possibly as a trophy only?). 

I do think tennis is different and prize money should either be paid in proportion (5 vs 3 sets) or the matches equalised at either 3 or 5 sets and pay same prize money. But in CTT races, we all race the same distance/course, so should receive the same rewards for winning.  Paying a bloke more for the same course than a female winner is just idiotic. (BTW - I get "chicked" regularly in TTs)

Exactly that Matt.

Also, if the winner had been female she would have got £275, a man couldn't have got this. Sexist pigs!

As Htc says Simon, they either need to segregate all categories or make it open.

At the end of the day there will always be someone with an advantage anyway...

HTC. Thats what some events do and thats what some people call unfair as it almost always means that the young mens class get the most as there will be more of them. 

Question is what is fair?  

Do you:

Split according to numbers as above. 

Split 50 / 50 by sex then subdivide by class which of course should mean that each has the same classes. and each of these gets the same prize fund. 

Not bother and be totally fair and treat all the same and ignore the male/female split. In my club that would often give 1st prize to a woman anyway.  Of course at this point the weaker classes get upset. 

Then you reach the smaller classes. Do you fund trikes and tandems the same way?  

To my mind each event should make its own rules and the riders can decide before they enter. If they don't like the rules they can ride elsewhere.

Imposition of rules by outsiders is the most unfair way of all. If the event gets it wrong entrants can vote with their feet and the event will change or fail. 

Split prize money based on the number of entrants in each category then winnings are related to the competitiveness (size) of each category.

Prepare away - do you know what the entry fee is, how many are competing in each etc?

Distribution of prizes should be exempt from gender if you want to be truly equal. Alternatively, can I claim £200 if I'm the first ginger diabetic over the line?

They should have just scrapped the prize for first female if they wanted equality!!!