Broadcast options for the Santos Women’s Tour are limited to a one-hour highlights package on the fifth of February on Australia’s Nine Network, which means the first UCI women’s race of the season has been best followed in real time on Twitter. The official race feed (@SantosTDU_live), a handful of teams and a few journalists (including the author of this story) provide live race tweets for fans hoping for updates out of Australia.
Women’s cycling fans were quick to raise the pitchforks in response to this news. However, Santos Women’s Tour race leader Amanda Spratt called for patience with progress.
“It’s easy to sit here and say all sorts of things about the lack of coverage or not having highlights until one month after the event, but live television is expensive,” Spratt told Cyclingnews. “I think it’s important not to become too impatient with the development process.”
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A women’s race run alongside a men’s race inevitably invites comparison. All the men’s teams – riders and personnel – stay at the Hilton in central Adelaide while the women stay outside of town in college dorms. The winner of the Tour Down Under earns €12,000. The total prize purse for the women’s race is worth $12,000 (AUD) – which is around €8450. The men have six days of WorldTour racing plus a bonus race in the form of The People’s Choice Classic, a standalone criterium. The women’s four-day includes two road races mixed in with two criteriums.
And then there is the television coverage. The People’s Choice Classic is broadcast live in its entirety as is the final stage of the Santos Tour Down Under, a circuit race that last around two hours. In total, fans will be able to watch more than 20 hours of live coverage. The television broadcast is supplemented by a live stream on Nine’s Wide World of Sports and the TourTracker app, both of which offer 14 hours of live coverage globally.
No such broadcast or online stream exists for the women’s race. Race organisers provide media with a two-minute video daily news highlight video. The one-hour highlight package will air in three weeks.
You can read more at Cyclingnews.com
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