Chloe Hosking in the leaders jersey. (Image credit: Mark Gunter)
Chloe Hosking used her thrilling win in the Jayco Bay Classic in Geelong as a platform to call for more equality between men’s and women’s cycling. However Hosking also used her post-race interview to insult UCI President Pat McQuaid.
Hosking (Total Rush - Hyster) pounced on her opposition to claim her maiden victory at the traditional Australian season opener, after six years of racing. The 21-year-old who has signed for Specialized - lululemon for 2012 after a solid season with HTC-Highroad, chased down an attack off the front of the bunch by GreenEdge-AIS rival Tiffany Cromwell with three laps remaining to eventually cruise over the finish line, saluting the crowd. The race had been neutralised with five laps to race following a crash, therefore bringing the field back together.
Hosking said that she was never going to win the race any other way.
"I love racing like that, I don't like really like sitting in and then sprinting," she explained. "I don't think it's great for Australian racing.
"For me, it was really exciting to go out there and show what women's racing can be like."
Asked how she felt about comments made by McQuaid regarding the push for a minimum wage within women's cycling, Hosking was frank.
"What can you say, Pat McQuaid is a d**k," she said.
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"To say at the biggest sporting event for women's cycling that we haven't progressed enough to have a minimum salary - how do we progress if we all have to still work and we can't support ourselves."
Hosking said that it was unfair to judge women's cycling on the basis of one race, that being the road race at September's UCI World Championships, won by Giorgia Bronzini for the second successive year, and hit out at criticism within the media surrounding it.
"There's just been some really negative things said in the press lately about how women's racing is boring and how we don't deserve a minimum salary, that sort of thing," she continued.
"To me, [this] was one of the most exciting races I've done. The one women's race that gets televised, the world championships, that's enough to stereotype the whole of women's cycling, it's totally unfair."
As a sports journalist and producer since 1997, Jane has covered Olympic and Commonwealth Games, rugby league, motorsport, cricket, surfing, triathlon, rugby union, and golf for print, radio, television and online. However her enduring passion has been cycling.
Jane is a former Australian Editor of Cyclingnews from 2011 to 2013 and continues to freelance within the cycling industry.
