Bezhoek Extreme race director Róan Rossouw has defended a decision to award women participants more prize money than their male counterparts.
In a statement released by Bezhoek Extreme in early May they announced they would offer the women winners R6 000 and the men R5 000 when the three-day event takes place from June 1 to 3.
“In order to be competition-ready, female riders train as hard and spend an equal amount of money on their bicycles, apparel and nutrition,” the statement said.
“They pay the same entry fee for events, cover the same distances and work just as hard as their male counterparts. So why on earth would it even cross an organiser’s mind to offer the ladies less prize money?”
Spur’s Ariane Luthi crossing the line and winning the third stage of the Tour of Good Hope in March. Photo: Robert Ward
Rossouw denied they are practicing reverse gender inequality, but said rather that they are aiming to raise awareness around the issue.
“We do not believe it is better to offer either of the genders higher prize money,” Rossouw told In the Bunch.
“The objective with this was to drive awareness and stimulate communication and dialogue around the inequalities that existed in the past, and that still exist.”
Rossouw questioned whether it was “right” for big corporate companies to put their weight behind events that offered men more prize money.
“We are certainly not saying women should get paid more, but based on all the feedback we have received we realise we have hit a sensitive spot.
“People are both coming out and defending the stance or they are saying it is wrong, so in that way we have achieved exactly what we wanted to.”
By contrast, in the same statement they said another unnamed event would offer prize sums of R10 000 for men and R8 000 for women.
Rossouw stressed it was not about the amounts in comparison to other events. “Again, we need to look at the objectives,” he said.
“It is not about the absolute amounts or the size of the prize purse. It is not about distinguishing [between] the sizes of prize purses, but rather about the allocation of the money.
“The objective was not to offer more money than other races. There are various sponsors behind these races and obviously if the Bezhoek manages to secure a bigger financial sponsor then the gross amounts of the prizes will increase.
“It does not have any impact on what people are trying to say or talk about.”
The statement also made mention of Ariane Luthi when she boycotted the opening event of the National MTB Series due to the lesser or “unequal” amounts of prize money offered to women.
Luthi, who has won multiple Cape Epic titles, provided her thoughts on the debate. “I think it is a bit of a marketing gag,” she told In the Bunch.
“It definitely attracts attention, but my stand is for equality and not placing some people higher than others.
“It has been a very long time where the men always received more than the women and I think this is just a way to fight back.
“I would not really want it turned around [or reversed]; I really respect the performances of the men. I just want that women get the same amount of opportunities as the men.”
Luthi admitted it was generally harder for men to win such races.
“There are still many more men competing at the moment, which does make it harder to win.
“I see that and appreciate the difficulty in their competition. If there are more people fighting for a single track then it is harder to get there.
“I am also not saying our category is easier; we just have different hurdles to overcome, such as societal hurdles.
“It is difficult to compare. I just want women to get an equal amount of cycling opportunities, where we will eventually take part in races that perceive us as equals to the men.”
