My first thought on it was.. “Maybe they should Be the first prize, and visa-versa.. It would make the game much more exciting.. in that it isn’t over till the prize has been fully explored and utilized at maximum ability on and in rough terrain…

Me thinks Woman should get at least 50% larger prizes than men, to show them how much we appreciate them…

absolutely not – at best the little things should be in the refreshment tent slicing sandwiches, baking buns and making tea.

Gee thanks.

There is one option missing, “women should get MORE prize money than men” as its harder for us, what with having to stop all the time and check our make-up etc.

And we have to get up an hour earlier before racing to pick our outfit 😉

No,

a) Smaller fields, easier (or at least more) wins. checkout the DH results for the last 15 years. AC won pretty much everything, Peaty, Minnar, Barrel, Atherton, Gracia and many others have won WCup/Champs races in that time, is it fair that AC would earn 10x those guys through simple lack of competition? Most Womens national DH races struggle to get 5 so a top 5 finish is a gaurentee!
b) Smaller market; Gee wins a race, 1000 MBUK readers lust after a Commencal. Rachel wins a race, maybe 1% of the MTB market is interested?

b) Smaller market; Gee wins a race, 1000 MBUK readers lust after a Commencal. Rachel wins a race, maybe 1% of the MTB market is interested?

commerical sponsor value should never correlate with prize money.

MTB race prize money is usually a pathetic amount anyway.
for prize money to be decent, mtb racing needs to radically change the format to be more armchair spectator friendly and attract TV coverage, larger sponsors/advertising/funding. If you want to “win” money choose another sport.

prize money at events ive helped organise is proportional to number of entrants in catagory …..

you have 5 woman vs 50 men …. men will get alot more prize money than the woman ….

you want more prize money bring more women !

as gary says – who really races for the prize money…… its pitiful in comparison to outlay – i got 100 quid for a race i won a while back – that just about covered my brake pads and fuel. but i had fun doing it !

If a woman places in the open cat (i.e. mens) do they take that prize if it is of higher value?

Worcestershire athletics (running) have a rubbish rule that says that if you are a vet and place (not win) in the open category, you cant take that prize, you take the vet prize instead. This happened to Mrs S in a local race and I was furious at the patronising nature of it. While I was venting the guy next to me confessed to being a committee member and couldnt work out why there was a problem (Mrs S came first V35 and second lady in the open category) claiming that the first vet prize was a higher rank than the second prize in open. I pointed out that if that was genuinely the case why was the prize money for second lady higher than for first vet and the trophy was bigger too!

This policy also can have the effect that if a V35 wins the open cat and hence the big trophy, if a V35 comes second in the open category they get NOTHING because there is only one vet prize. The second open prize goes to the first non-V35 lady even if she comes in 10th!

dumb.

there won’t be decent prize money without bid spending sponsors, and there won’t be big spending sponsors as long as football exists.

I know a few who have won races and got money, the comment was “doesn’t cover the petrol, let alone the entry fee.”

When I used to help organise the Beastway Series (back when it was at the old Eastway circuit), we always gave equal prize money for the Men’s and Women’s field at least for the first 2 places. After that, the Women’s would tail off quicker than the Men’s did – usually Men would have prizes down to top 10, Women would be down to about top 4 or 5, it was based on a percentage of the number of people in the race.

At events we organise there is always equal prize money, unless UCI mandated.

It is not the women’s fault if there is a small field, you can only race whoever else turns up, and treating women like second class citizens is not going to help with that.

In fact from now on I will start giving MORE prize money to women. So nah nah nah nah (pokes out tongue at smelley boys).

I was at a road race once where women were combined with vets 50+. A lassie won the race outright that is beat all the men. They gave her the womens prize. Chap 5 places and 10 minutes behind her got better prize. SHAMEFUL.

last year at our races women (bundled into a single main category)got the same prizes as the top mens category, the “have-a-goes” also had matching prizes.

subject to getting the sponsors (hopefully in the bag)we will be doing it again

so if you are up for potentailly £100, £50, and £25 in vouchers and £25 for fastest first lap and a great series prize then keep an eye out for our dates (not decided yet)

I was at a road race once where women were combined with vets 50+. A lassie won the race outright that is beat all the men. They gave her the womens prize. Chap 5 places and 10 minutes behind her got better prize. SHAMEFUL.

So if your giving equal prize money to each Cat, what about this scenario?

Woman Wins overall, claims 1st womens prize. say £10?
Woman 2nd overall, claims 2nd womens prize. say £5
Bloke 3rd overall, claims 1st mens prize £10 (ie. equal to womens 1st)

Is that fair? its probably not based on what everyone is saying here.

Its simple to organise if you want to be fair… only 1 cat, the winner is the winner, end of.

Worcestershire athletics (running) have a rubbish rule that says that if you are a vet and place (not win) in the open category, you cant take that prize, you take the vet prize instead. This happened to Mrs S in a local race and I was furious at the patronising nature of it.

Dont know if this is the case with your race but usually you can tell the organisers you dont want to be in a certain category when you enter, that way you are competing for the prize you want (assuming you are eligable, i assume open means it was available to anyone?, surely she could have specified before the start she did not wish to compete for the Vet prize?).

I was at a road race once where women were combined with vets 50+. A lassie won the race outright that is beat all the men. They gave her the womens prize. Chap 5 places and 10 minutes behind her got better prize. SHAMEFUL.

That’s shocking. Usually when races are combined like that, it’s just prizes for the top ten regardless of category. Points should be split between the categories, prize money shouldn’t.

we get around the Vet’s category issues by not having the categories

This then gives the Vet’s who care about these things something to moan about and we have a decent prize list for the categories we do run :- ergo everyones happy 😉

Dont know if this is the case with your race but usually you can tell the organisers you dont want to be in a certain category when you enter, that way you are competing for the prize you want (assuming you are eligable, i assume open means it was available to anyone?, surely she could have specified before the start she did not wish to compete for the Vet prize?).

havent heard of anyone doing that, might get Mrs S to try that this year though. I suppose one just doesnt think like that when you enrol for the race. In running (unlike more structured cat stuff in cycling) you just sign up to run the “race” without thinking about what subset of the throng around you you are competing with.

commerical sponsor value should never correlate with prize money.

Depends,

event Scotland sponsor the Fort Bill DH a fair bit (and presumably therefore stumped up (some of?) the prize money. As a return on investment the Mens competition must bring in more money, therefore should have more spent on it?

In the same way as male models barely earn anything, women can make a living out of it. Thats because more women shop for/are more influenced by advertising for clothes so consequently there’s more ‘prize money’.

Fort Bill DH prize money mandated by UCI, nothing whatsoever to do with sponsors. Of course, it is a minimum prize fund…

hels If you win a WC the prize money is still pretty pathetic considering it means you were the best in the world that day! and unless you are a complete tool when it comes to marketing yourself it’s just beer money.

don’t be daft, they can’t have possibly put as much effort into training as their male equivalents and what’s more if they think its a chance to get more money to buy shoes or make up or kittens or some other suck fripperies then who the hell is going to do the bloody housework?! stop this madness now!

absolutely not – at best the little things should be in the refreshment tent slicing sandwiches, baking buns and making tea.

You forgot about the bike washing tent!

Que ?? I think its about 5000 euros for winning a WC, last time I looked at the UCI prize fund regs. And about 3000 for the ladies. Thats a lot of beer, even the special Belgian kind.

What do I care? I’m not a woman and I’m never going to win anything!

kittens

This is relevant to my interests…

Hels – Has it gone up then? last I looked the total prize fund for a DH WC (mens & womens) was 10k euro. IIRC first place was only something like 2.5k form the men and around half that for the women and prizes went down to 10th place.

as Terry said earlier, lucky if it covers your expenses for doing the event and travel.

That was off the top of my head – the stupid Financial Obligations thing is well hard to find, with the rubbish search engine on the UCI site. Maybe I am thinking of the World Champs that is the only event with more cash then World Cups.

me too. I’ve never seen it on the UCI website, just heard it from riders. dunno about world champs.

if you are a vet and place (not win) in the open category, you cant take that prize, you take the vet prize instead

Most organisers opt for the common sense rule of choosing the best prize for your finishing position or allowing you to choose. I’ve chosen both options dpending on how good each of the fields were obn the day and how good my performance was!

I think women should be treated the same. Although I’d take up racing for a kitten LOL

I’ve never been convinced women should have a different catagory from men in the first place. Yes, Mountain biking is a physical sport, and yes, women are at a disadvantage. However I’m tall, and of a big build (not fat, just wide). If I trained every day I could probably get my weight down to 12.5 stone. Compare this to an xc whippet who weighs 8.5 stone, I’m at a 50% disadvantage to him. Should I get a seperate catagory cos I’m heavy? I don’t think I should, but why does the logic stop at gender?