Australian cyclist great Anna Wilson has won the World Cup, set the hour world record, and carved out an impressive career while becoming a lawyer.
Wilson told SBS Sport how the experience of racing, mostly in the 90s and early 00s, differs from today, but also how cycling is still pretty much the same beast if it was supposed to start the sport today.
“I don’t see it as that different in a lot of ways,” Wilson said, “bike racing is bike racing. Obviously the bikes have gotten better, the technology has gotten better, there’s more teams now and more opportunities.
“But if you can race a bike, you can race a bike, and you can learn to adapt to all kinds of different circumstances. I could be as successful in this era as mine, this “bike brain” is transferable to this era.
WorldTour teams currently have minimum wages aligned with men’s Pro-level teams, although some have gone further and instituted minimums in line with men’s WorldTour teams. This level is something that was nowhere near the norm in Wilson’s day.
“When you went to Europe to race, it was often just in exchange for food and accommodation, your bike and your clothes,” Wilson said, “so there was no money involved in unless you can win a cash prize and the prize money was pretty meager.
“It is certainly a big development that there are more paid places open. There is obviously more to be done to close the gap in men’s wages.
The 50-year-old sees plenty of opportunities for the women’s peloton these days, speaking ahead of the inaugural Women’s Tour de France about how this race and the different ways of reaching fans has opened things up for women’s cycling .
“I think technology has really paved the way for races and teams to be advertised and then you can generate enough revenue to pay riders properly,” Wilson said. “Everything continues to evolve and I’m really looking forward to seeing the Women’s Tour de France on SBS.
“It’s great to be able to turn on the television and see the women’s races, it would never have been possible in my time. We are now in the age of the Internet, certainly much more than in the 90s and it is much more everyday now.
Wilson’s racing history in France did not include a race called the Tour de France, but featured spin-off races in the Grande Boucle Internationale and the Tour de l’Aude which were tough stage races in the same regions, with the Grande Boucle having had to change its name after a dispute with the organizers of the Tour de France. Wilson took stage wins in both cases and again the common denominator between those eras and now was the difficulty of the race, in this case amplified by poor accommodation and recovery facilities.
“My experience of racing in France is that it’s always been very difficult,” Wilson said. “(Wout) Van Aert said something the other day that he had never seen a flat piece of asphalt in France and I think that’s pretty much it. You can have roads flat in Belgium or Holland, but there are not many in France.
“I remember doing a few World Cup days in France and the extreme heat of some of those days… this really sweltering heat. When we were racing it wasn’t 5 star hotels, it was a lot of cheap motels with no air conditioning. It was a real challenge to recover when we raced in 35-40 degree heat. You would be forced to suffer from the heat and try to sleep.
World Cup races were where Wilson achieved arguably his greatest triumph, winning the World Cup in 1999 in an uphill battle that went down to the final race of the season.
“It was very special, very hard fought,” Wilson said of his triumph. “I think there were nine rounds of the World Cup that year, my main rival was Germany’s Hannah Kupfernagel and it was a bit of a seesaw battle over who would win the overall standings.
“I couldn’t attend all the World Cup races that year because I had responsibilities as a professional with the Saturn team, I think I missed Flèche Wallonne, so I I had some ground to make up for in the second half of the season.
“I rode the last round of the World Cup with the national team and it was a great experience for the national team who came to support me and were able to take the victory and secure the overall title. It was great to be able to share this with the national team.
Wilson’s other notable achievement was his hour records, holding the Australian record with a 45.399km run in 1997 and then setting the world record with a 43.501km mark in 2000. The world record lower was due to a change in UCI regulations about the use of aero equipment in record attempts.
“I did a law degree, that was 1990-95, then I went to AIS and trained for the Olympics, that was 96,” Wilson said. “Then in 1997 I decided to go back and finish my articles, What You Need to Do to Practice as a Fully Qualified Lawyer.
“So back here I decided to set myself another goal of breaking the hour record. It worked without having to do long hours of endurance training and I was able to combine it with a full-time job.
A from when it was reported that Wilson couldn’t stand for 30 minutes after the effort, with Wilson revealing that she would have walked out of the event if the crowd hadn’t wanted her to.
“After the 2000 Olympics, they opened the velodrome in Melbourne, the Vodafone Arena as it was called then,” Wilson said. “They asked me at the opening if I would like to break the hour record again under the new rules.
“It presented a new opportunity because it took the record back from about 20 years ago to the 80s before new aero technology came into the sport. So it was more accessible. Even though I didn’t ride as far as the previous record, I set a new world record.
Olympic appearances, world hour records and more race victories than remain to date in the incomplete history books of the time are just a few of the career highlights of Wilson, which ended at the age of 30 in 2002.
“I quit cycling against my will, I had a right leg injury and I couldn’t get to that level of racing – 110% as they say – without my body giving in,” Wilson said. “At first I struggled with not being able to run and trying to adapt to ‘normal’ life.
“I went back and worked in a law firm and found it quite difficult at times, I now work for myself as a barrister at the Victorian Bar. I like that, the independence, the adrenaline of appearing in court. I find a lot of similarities with what I do now in sports, the long preparation for a day in court or a day of racing.
His history with cycling, his long list of accomplishments and post-cycling accomplishments put Wilson in an interesting position to assess the sport, both in cycling circles and without being beholden to any industry stakeholder. She sees a lot of positives in the accessibility of cycling these days and this is key to sparking interest in the sport, and especially for women, in the future.
“SBS has done a great job of pioneering cycling on TV and cycling in Australia for decades,” Wilson said. “Now we’re really starting to see an increase in the broadcast of women’s races. I think it’s key to developing the sport that you turn on the television and it’s there.
This article is part of a series of interviews with Australian women’s cycling pioneers. Click on the links below for an interview with Kathy Watt which focuses on some of her incredible anecdotes from past editions of the previous Women’s Tour de France and an interview with Tracey Gaudry which reflects on her racing career and role within from the UCI to help develop women’s cycling to the position it holds today.
