Women's cycling in distress? 'The cracks are visible'

Natascha Knaven-den Ouden has expressed her concerns about the state of women's cycling for the second time in a short time. In a first cry for help in October, she addressed the problems posed by the level playing field, now she addresses the structure of the WorldTour and the teams riding in it.

'Last year, the Women’s WorldTour had 15 teams. This year, two have disappeared, including Roland, and only one new WT team has been added. The top tier has not expanded; it has shrunk. Even within the remaining 14 teams, stability is uncertain. Team Picnic PostNL received only a one-year conditional licence under strict financial oversight. When the WorldTour includes teams on probation, that’s not a sign of strength but of structural fragility.

Just below the WT layer, the foundation looks even weaker. There are seven Women’s ProTeams, and four of them are French. One country is essentially carrying the entire second tier. And the uncomfortable truth is that if you have the budget, you can buy a ProConti licence and automatically access the biggest races. But financial entry does not equal organisational readiness, competitive depth or long-term stability. A licence is not the same as a capable high-performance structure.'

'Roland’s collapse reveals this clearly. It was a WT team on paper, but never truly WT level in organisation, staffing or capacity. The fact that such a team could hold a WT licence shows just how stretched the system has become.

All of this is happening while roster sizes stagnate or shrink. Teams are not growing; they are surviving. Sponsorship in women’s cycling is also fragile, often short-term and dependent on individual team owners rather than stable, long-term investment. Even teams with strong sporting potential can struggle to secure budgets, making the sport financially top-heavy and unstable.

The sport pushed hard for equality in salaries and prize money, an essential step, but mistook financial equality for structural equality. True parity requires strong development pathways, stable organisations, sport science and medical support, multi-year planning, a deep ProTeam layer that can properly prepare riders for the WorldTour, and sustainable financial backing. None of that can be achieved simply by increasing budgets or awarding licences.

Women’s cycling is now experiencing the consequences of building the roof before reinforcing the walls. A shrinking WT tier, an unbalanced ProTeam layer, licence buying without sporting maturity, inconsistent development structures, fragile sponsorship, and conditional WT approvals do not create growth. They create overstretch.'

'The warning signs are not a failure but feedback. If the sport wants real, sustainable equality, it must shift from expanding the top to strengthening the base. Equality is not achieved by fast-tracking teams into the WorldTour, but by creating an ecosystem in which teams can survive long enough to truly belong there.

The cracks are visible. This is the moment to rebuild the foundations, not to pretend the roof is still intact.'