chloe Hosking is among the maximum a success Australian highway cyclists of all time. She has notched up over 40 wins in her profession, together with dash victories at the iconic Champs-Élysées and at her house Commonwealth Games. But chatting with Guardian Australia at a espresso store in Canberra, Hosking is in tears. They are tears of unhappiness and tears of frustration.
In early December, Hosking’s skilled workforce, French outfit B&B Hotels, collapsed. The 32-year-old was once in Tenerife, Spain, coaching solo at altitude forward of what she was hoping can be a large 2023, when she was once pulled right into a Zoom name. “One of the moments that really stood out to me,” she says, “I was obviously very disappointed, and I was told to smile. I was like: ‘I don’t have a job, my 13-year career is over. Why should I smile?’”
Hosking had spent the final two seasons at Trek–Segafredo, a significant World Tour workforce. But halfway via 2022 she determined to just accept a freelance from B&B Hotels, price $150,000 consistent with 12 months for 2 years, beginning in January. B&B Hotels have been reputedly a workforce on the upward thrust – the boys’s squad had raced 3 consecutive editions of the Tour de France, dash legend Mark Cavendish was once because of signal with them, and for the first-time, they have been forming a girls’s workforce. “So it was an established team,” says Hosking. “It wasn’t like I was coming into something new, with red flags around it.” She even became down every other contract be offering.
It gave the impression the very best method to finish a glittering profession, right through which era Hosking had witnessed first-hand the professionalization of ladies’s biking – from pocket cash in her early days to a just right wage as she moved against retirement. “This would have been my last two years as a professional – I’d set that up in my mind, working towards the Paris Olympics,” she says.
And then, all of it fell aside. A significant sponsorship deal didn’t materialize and the ones in the back of the B&B Hotels workforce pulled the plug. “How are teams allowed to sign riders if they don’t have the financial backing to execute the plan?” Hosking asks. But no quantity of anger would deliver her a brand new contract; , she was once left scrambling. “Ever since that moment I’ve been in problem-solving mode.”
Hosking would have ordinarily been a lovely prospect for lots of professional groups, however with the contract season in biking working from January–December, maximum already had complete rosters. Other riders impacted integrated Olympic gold medalist Anna Kiesenhofer and French champion Audrey Cordon-Ragot.
“I’ve been contacting every team,” Hosking says. “There have been a few riders recently announcing their pregnancies, so as soon as I’ve seen that I have reached out to the teams being like, ‘do you want to fill the spot? I’m available for a year. Nothing has come of that yet, but my life motto has always been that the worst anyone can say is no. So I’ll always ask the question. Right now all I’m getting is no, but all it takes is one yes.”
Financial issues afflict all sports, but are particularly prevalent in cycling, where teams come and go, are heavily-dependent on season-by-season sponsorship deals and TV rights are held by race organizers rather than the competing teams. B&B Hotels is far from the first team to leave riders out of pocket.
“I’m not naive,” says Hosking. “I’m not the first person to be affected by this. And I won’t be the last. But it’s hard – it’s been mentally draining, it’s physically exhausting. And on top of that, you have to keep training, because if you want to get a contract, you’ve got to be able to prove that you’re capable of performing.”
Hosking has picked up some riding opportunities over the Australian summer of cycling, and will ride for the national team at the Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race this weekend. She is pursuing every avenue – her husband Jack even took to LinkedIn, asking his network for sponsorship leads. “I’m reaching out now because I need help if my wife is going to continue her exceptional career,” he wrote.
So far, nothing has materialised. Hosking has been offered a European contract, but at a salary that was not financially viable. Unless a contract arises in the coming weeks, Hosking will be forced to retire.
“The hardest thing about this is that I’m facing retirement when it hasn’t been my choice,” she says. “I had a contract, I had another contract offer. And then I just made a bad decision. I’ve navigated a 13-year career that I’m really proud of, and I made one bad decision. And now my career is facing its end, when I don’t feel I’m done with the sport.”
HOsking was an active child as she grew up in Canberra. “I was playing basketball, tennis, little athletics,” she says. Her father was once a willing bicycle owner; One day, following a working damage, Hosking requested to start out using. “I think he’d been waiting for the day, because there was a bike ready,” she provides. The pair would trip in combination round Lake Burley Griffin. “We’d do sprint sessions and he’d offer me $20 if I beat him. I never got the $20.”
On graduating from high school, Hosking enrolled in law at the Australian National University but first went on a gap year to Europe. “Then I just never came home,” she says. At the time, there were few pathways for professional road cycling for women. “It’s not like I ever set out that this is what I was going to do. I’ve seen that transition now, where women can say: ‘I’m going to become a professional cyclist.'” Her first contract was $15,000, but she had to pay for some of her own expenses. “So the money disappeared pretty quickly.”
Hosking grew up with the sport. She began winning stages at races across Europe and Asia, making a name for herself in the sprints. The money eventually followed, as investment poured into women’s cycling. “Probably for the last six years I’ve been making proper money out of cycling,” Hosking says.
In 2018, the Australian won the gold medal in the road race at the Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast – which she describes as the best win of her career. “That was once tremendous particular,” Hosking says. “It’s easy to be consumed in the tunnel of what’s going on right now, but if I step back and look at my career as a whole, I can be really proud of it. If it ends now, I haven’t failed.”
For some years now Hosking has been studying online towards a law degree. She says she has always been interested in player rights, particularly for women athletes, but that her recent personal experience has only consolidated this as a likely next career. “I always had the desire, but this has really cemented that,” she says. “I’m a fighter – I want to fight for women athletes.”
The present ordeal, she says, has underscored “my frustration at some of the positions that women can find themselves in, particularly in sports. I’ve been offered a contract to keep riding, but it’s a contract that isn’t a liveable wage. I’ve won the Commonwealth Games, I’ve won La Course by Le Tour de France, I won a stage at the Giro d’Italia – this is a career that deserves more than the minimum wage.
“And I know that some women would say yes to that. [offer]she says. “But it’s just so against my values to do something for free. This is my work, I deserve to be paid for it. I’m not going to do it for free. If I can’t get a contract at a wage that allows me to perform at the level I know I’m capable of, then I want to put my energies into helping women make a career out of their sports.”
On Saturday, Hosking will race in her first, and perhaps final, World Tour tournament of 2023. Amid the entire contract turmoil, she’s been coaching laborious at the streets of Canberra to make sure she’s in most sensible situation.
“I have a point to prove,” she says. “This is a chance to have a appearing that may both get me a freelance, or it will be my last-ever skilled race. I need to pass out on my phrases.