Julie is a World Champion. She is worth 200.000 Euros less than her male colleagues.

Spring marks the beginning of the cycling season. Monuments, stage races, and Grand Tours all begin in the early days of the year, feeding the hungry cycling fans after months on pause.
In these days, the cycling season’s first Grand Tour, Giro d’Italia, is roaming the Italian streets and gives the world the first glances on who is going to rule this year’s podiums. 

The performance is the same. So is the physical pain, and the isolated lifestyle. Yet the difference between the male and the female winner is up to more than 200.000 Euros. And this is nothing new in the world of cycling.

One of the riders who has experienced gender inequality firsthand is Danish Julie Norman Leth. Since 2013, she has been a professional cyclist. Touring the roads across the Earth, she has sacrificed her life in the name of the sport, just like her male colleagues. Yet one crucial thing was profoundly different.

“For a long period of time in my cycling career, I did not make any money. It was limited. My expenses were covered but no monthly payment. I was driven by my dream. I was young and dumb, and I was able to do this because at this point, I did not have children and a mortgage,” the 33-years old Dane says and continues:

“My Olympic dream was keeping my career alive. I became a professional cyclist at a relatively early age, but I did not make any money, and I was not on the national team of Denmark because it simply did not exist at this point yet.”

In 2010, she won the World Championships at 18 years old, but her reality remained the same. No raise, no economic security. 

On the same day, her male colleague and now husband, Lasse Norman Leth, claimed the same title. In that instant, his world was changed. 

With his new title, a spot on the Danish national track team was his. For him, cycling became his job in that moment.

It opened doors for him, something Julie and her female colleagues could only fantasize about. Cycling paid him, paid his monthly paycheck.

“My husband got a spot on the National Track Team in Denmark immediately. Everything was more professional. The set-up, everything. He became a part of the 4 KM team and two years later, he won Gold at the Olympic Games in London,” says Julie whose palmares consists of medals from the Olympic Games, World Championships, and European Championships.

“Only for the last three years of my career as a professional cyclist, I have been able to live off my paycheck solely,” Julie adds.

Gender equality by law

In 2020, the official international union for cycling, The Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI), introduced a minimum salary for the female riders on WorldTeams for the first time in history. This means that every rider on the first division of women’s road teams is required a minimum wage of 38.000 Euros yearly and is hereby secured to live as a fulltime professional cyclist. 

On the American cycling team EF Education Oatly, they do things differently. Danish Daniel Foder is Sporting director, in cycling also known as directeur sportif, for the Women’s WorldTeam.
Since 2022, Foder has been a part of establishing a sustainable environment for the female riders. He reveals the team’s attempts on how to close the gap between the genders. 

“It is important to create a set-up that secures the riders economically. It is important to create a set-up that allows the riders to live entirely from cycling, so the young talents do not have to quit simply because they are not able to have a sustainable living,” Foder says and adds the importance of guidance and encouragement.

“A lot of young riders quit cycling early into their professional careers because they see their non cycling friends finish their education and start making a bigger payment in their new jobs.”

According to The Union Cycliste Internationale, the creation of a minimum salary has closed the gap between the male ProTeam riders and the female WorldTeam riders from an average gap on 67.53% to 44.21%. 

Former professional cyclist and now expert and commentator on the Danish news media TV2 Sport, Lars Bak, worked at the Uno-X Mobility Women’s WorldTeam for two years. From 2021 to 2023, Bak was a part of the management team and was a crucial part of establishing the team’s first season as a WorldTeam. He handpicked the staff, the coaches, and the team’s first riders. 

“If you look back only 10 years, the female cycling scene looked completely different. Now, the calendar consists of almost all the Classics and all three Grand Tours. Paris-Roubaix Femmes is one of the races where men and women race the same day,” Bak says and explains:

“It is proven that the number of viewers of the female races is higher when the race is located the same day as the men’s race. The first year the Belgian Classic Omloop het Nieuwsblad Women was held directly after the men’s version, the number of viewers was sky high, simply because the viewers kept watching. And more viewers mean more exposure to the sponsors. This is what it is all about: to create more media coverage to attract more sponsors.”

When it comes to female races, the television broadcasting often starts with only 30 to 40 kilometers until the finish line, compared to the male’s events that shows the entire race. 

This has been a dominant issue in this season’s peloton.

"Why can't they switch between the two races?”, the Dutch FDJ United-SUEZ rider asks after her win in Liege-Bastogne-Liege. Vollering continues:

“We have come a long way, but it shows we are still not there yet. Only the last 30 km of a race is not enough. It’s not fair and we need to keep highlighting this. We’ve come a long way, but moments like this remind me that our sport still deserves to be seen in full, not just the final part.”

“This is not about comparison. It’s about giving our sport the visibility it deserves,” the European champion states.

Systematic gender inequality

When Jonas Vingegaard this last Sunday of May could ride into the streets of Rome as the winner of Giro d’Italia, 265.000 Euros came with the victory. 

When Demi Vollering finished first in the general classification of this year’s Giro d’Italia Women, with her Maglia Rosa only 50.000 Euros followed.  

And this is only an example.

In the Belgian monument, Liege-Bastogne-Liege, the statistics are the same. With a prize for the male winner at 50.000 Euros and 22.000 Euros for the female champion, the gender inequality is deeply rooted. With male cyclists being favored for hundreds of years, the change will not come overnight. 

“It is all about supply and demand. The number of people viewing the races in television is higher in men’s races. That is a fact,” Bak states and continues:

“The good news is that in these years, most of the companies who are sponsoring men’s cycling teams are investing in women’s cycling too. More sponsors are going into female teams, creating better set-ups for the female professional cyclists.”

One step to closing the gap is by equalizing the prize money. Last year, the new Danish WorldTour one day race, Copenhagen Sprint, decided to award equal prize money for the winner in both the women’s and the men’s event. 

A decision that caught attention in the cycling community and was praised by the world. 

Former professional cyclist and World Champion Julie worked as one of the experts and commentators at the Copenhagen Sprint 2025. When she received the news of the decision of equal prize money, her reaction was not quite aligned with the rest of the world.

“I felt like I had to clap my hands. I felt like it was expected from me to celebrate this. I do not think this should be praised. I think this should be expected. It should be the norm that the prize money is the same in both the male and the female races, especially from federations like The Union Cycliste Internationale,” Julie explains and closes:

“Making male and female cyclists worth the same, consequently. To me, that is equality.”