"We only receive 11% of what the men do" - Demi Vollering hits out at 'very disappointing' prize money gap at Milano-Sanremo
Cycling
Last weekend saw the first Monument of the 2025 season take place at Milano-Sanremo. Alongside Mathieu van der Poel's thrilling win over Filippo Ganna and Tadej Pogacar though, this year there was also a women's edition, eventually won by Team Sd Worx - Protime's European champion Lorena Wiebes.
In a big difference between the two races however, the women's World Tour peloton were only given a fraction of the prize money offered to their male counterparts. In the opinion of one of the leading lights in women's cycling, Demi Vollering, this gender pay gap is simply not good enough.
"We only receive, and this is very disappointing, 11 percent of what the men do. That’s a huge difference," explains the former Tour de France Femmes winner, who left Wiebes' Team SD Worx - Protime for a new challenge at FDJ - Suez over the recent off-season, in conversation with Eurosport. "Now, none of us are here for the prize money, but if people talk about equal opportunities, then we really want to see that happen. That includes the small things, like prize money. It just shows that we’re not there yet. There’s still a lot of work to be done."
It wasn't just the prize money of the women's edition that came under fire either. After the race, Puck Pieterse took aim at the significant difference in length between the men's and women's edition, calling for a similar level of equality there.
"I would definitely like it to be longer. The great thing about San Remo for men is that it is a long race. That makes the Poggio tough for them, but for us everyone arrived reasonably fresh," explained the Dutch star, comparing the women's 156km to the men's near-300km distance. "I think the distance should be at least 200 kilometres. But it could easily be longer. If we were on the bike for five, five and a half hours, that would be great."
Lorena Wiebes 🇳🇱 wins the revived Milan-Sanremo Women! 💥
— UCI (@UCI_cycling) March 22, 2025
The Dutch rider takes the victory in a small group sprint, with crucial support from team-mate Lotte Kopecky in the final. 🏆
🥈 Marianne Vos 🇳🇱
🥉 Noemi Rüegg 🇨🇭
A historic day for Women’s cycling! 🤩#UCI #UCIWWT pic.twitter.com/m2qipFcIlc
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- The finale of this race was an absolute mess, and the last crash that took out 1/2 of the field was caused when a double width road very suddenly funneled into a single lane, and riders had nowhere to go. I find it amazing how some of these courses get approved in the first place. So much for the UCI's campaign for improved rider safety, because if they actually cared, the organizers wouldn't have been allowed to run the finale on this parcours.
santiagobenites26-03-2025 - I hope Wout can come back. He has had 3 terrible crashes--not on par with Froome or Bernal, but at his level just a fraction of a percent is all that separates the grand champions of this new generation. Even if he is back all the way physically, those abrupt confrontations with pavement and mortality take a psychic toll, especially for a father of young kids.
Barney26-03-2025 - Everyone was so keen on free speech for a while, what happened ;-) But seriously, the problem is not so much that he gave his view as that someone follows it and spreads it, not totally unlike the schoolkids running US war games at present ;-)Mistermaumau26-03-2025
- We'll see what happens this year, hopefully he finds himself a little stronger.awp26-03-2025
- awp, the way and races he races, he probably doesn’t feel like he needs that many or specific race days before the Tour. His program isn’t very different from other years.Mistermaumau26-03-2025
- No, he just realises he’s not a one-day racer so why should he force himself?Mistermaumau26-03-2025
- Sacrificing E3 and G-W that were planned seems like he was hedging his options and only decided to do it after not winning MSR. Would he have planned to do all 5 and if so why hold back on announcing P-R if it wasn’t conditional? Guess people will get active with predictions now :-).Mistermaumau26-03-2025
- The MTB World title - there is no such thing. However, there are World titles in XCC, XCO, XCM, XCE, Enduro, Downhill......... He's after the World title in XCO, but could probably win the XCC title too, as his record is still better than anybody else, and he hasn't ridden an XCC World Cup since May 2021. Ten wins from twelve races says it all..... However, the XCO course is Crans-Montana is technical - he will surely need plenty of time back on the MTB, both training, and racing, otherwise it's going to be another doomed ambition.wipperman9526-03-2025
- Sweet. I wonder who's up on the next episode of Disgraced Ex-Doper Offers an Unsolicited Opinion?critguy26-03-2025
- well, paris-roubaix isn’t hilly AT ALL. it’s flat. the obstacle isn’t the hills it’s the cobbles, and what i’ve gathered over the years is that it’s almost impossible to imagine the beating that the body takes riding that course at race pace.OCexile26-03-2025