I know v little about cycling but...

[PlectrumElectrum]

This guardian article about Nicole Cooke's evidence to the select committee on culture, media & sport is quite something. The journalist describes it as an 'excoriating attack on British Cycling, calling it sexist and unaccountable' and to be fair, he's not wrong.

I'm off to read up on this some more as I'm not knowledgable enough to even begin to comment on it but the article alone has me and I want to know more.

I know people don't like the 'here, look at this & tell me what you think' sort of posts but just tone of the article & the summary of what was said just stunned me. I think I'm that used to the sort of reporting language used being reductive & loaded with judgement when a woman makes such a clear & bold statement about sexism/discrimination that it just stunned me & as I don't know much about cycling I'm not even in a position to comment on what she's said.

So if anyone else has more knowledge/understanding of what going/gone on, I'd love to know more. Ultimately will Cooke's testimony actually get anything done about the numerous complaints she has?

Apologies if this is better suited to a sports topic.

I hope her criticisms are addressed. I'm not surprised by the whole "by men, for men" comment. My amateur outsiders opinion is that it is a very male dominated sport and that women's cycling is not taken seriously.

I've just found & read this which is the statement she made when she retired. I think I might order her biography - she's really impressive.

I'm bumping this up because it's very interesting. Especially when coupled with the sex discrimination case against Shane Sutton. There is a problem in British Cycling, will be interesting to see what the select committee says

Cooke's not the only woman to have pointed out this problem in cycling. There is definitely an issue and I hope that having a light shone on it helps to improve things.

Leaving aside the shane Sutton stuff because that was 100% discrimination, I can't see it being news that cycling was run by men for men until recently. It's the chicken and egg thing that always comes up in these conversations.

Cycling has boomed in the last 5/7/10 years, for both women and men. It would be interesting to see the participation figures for women 10 years ago compared to today.

Absolutely love to watch the women cyclists now but I wonder how seriously it was taken by everyone except a hand full of riders ten or more years ago.