nnnoooooo…

Anne-Marije Rook — @amrook

As some of you may have heard, this is my last week at Ella CyclingTips. Due to financial reasons the position of Ella Editor has been eliminated. Ella has been my passion project since day one, and I am grateful to have had the opportunity to give… facebook.com/amrook… pic.twitter.com/J9Wm6pr7Ds

10:59 AM — 3 Apr 2018

Dear Friends,

After a couple of weeks of processing time, I am ready to share with you that my time with CyclingTips is ending.

Due to financial reasons, the publisher has decided to eliminate the position of Ella Editor.

Ella has been my passion project since its inception three and a half years ago, and I am so very grateful to have had the opportunity to give a platform to women’s cycling.

It was my aim to give visibility to the women’s side of sport and share the stories of the many incredible people within it. I wanted to celebrate athletes while getting more women stoked on bikes. Ella also served as a platform to talk about inequalities and injustices with the hopes of maybe having a teeny, tiny impact as the sport progresses.

More than anything, I hoped to unite a world-wide community of people who share my passion for all things cycling related.

While riding a bike is the most freeing, empowering, self-realising, adventurous and plain fun activity I can think of, the cycling world can be an incredibly challenging, obstacle-strewn and discouraging space for women.

Be it as a rider, worker or journalist, throughout my time in cycling there has rarely been a day that has gone by without some obstacle.

Yet there have been so many women out there that inspired me to keep going and our growing Ella readership gave me hope.

However, financial investments in women’s sports are lacking. And while CyclingTips intends to keep the Ella brand alive, its operations were deemed unsustainable.

My head had an easier time processing this than my heart did. And it has taken me these past few weeks to try and get through the disappointment.

Rather than seeing it as a disappointment, I’m trying to see Ella as a spark. A spark for more visibility, publicity and discourse about women’s cycling across sports media and the cycling industry.

We have a long way to go still, but I do feel that the past years have been monumental, not just in terms of the professional sport but also in the sheer number of women on bikes and the products available to us.

Awareness is the first step to progress and I love the discourse around rider salaries, sexist advertising and podium girls, and the demands for more live racing.

I commend Wade Wallace in taking the initiative to launch a women’s publication, and hope a financially sustainable revival of the Ella brand is in its future.

Thank you to my lovely colleagues, past and present, for the support, and to the women’s professional peloton for always making time for me and letting me tell your stories.

While I do not yet know what is next for me, I do have a few freelance projects in the works, and will continue to be involved in women’s cycling in one way or another. I’m not done with this story yet.

Love,

Anne-Marije

… Нынче вообще катастрофически мало хорошей журналистики, а уж хорошей журналистики, посвященной женскому велоспорту… И как видим, становится все меньше. По финансовым причинам (личным или корпоративным) люди уходят от освещения женского велоспорта, но главная печаль, что пустошь на месте цветущих садов их работы ничем и никем не заполняется.

Моя благодарность Анне-Марийе невыразима, я с огромнейшим удовольствием читал ее материалы и материалы под эгидой =Ella CyclingTips=, что не только давало информацию, но делало меня, отстоящего от событий на тысячи километров, почти сопричасным…

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