Australian cycling's "most influential benefactor, team owner Gerry Ryan, says Cycling Australia's decision to cut a women's road development program should be reversed," according to Samantha Lane of THE AGE. The former Cycling Australia president "remains a director of the organisation and is concerned the decision will disadvantage Australian women cyclists." Unhappy he was not consulted about the matter, the owner of professional outfits Orica-GreenEDGE and women's team Orica-AIS learned from Fairfax reports that the program "had been scrapped." Cycling Australia National Performance Dir Kevin Tabotta said last week that "the women's road development program would definitely not continue this year." Ryan said that "he would formally object to that at a Cycling Australia board meeting." He said, "I was very surprised, and as a major sponsor certainly I wasn't consulted on it." Tabotta said that while he was adamant the decision was not what he termed "gender based," top riders were unconvinced, saying in recent days that "they believed it was another example of women getting the raw end of the deal, not only in cycling but in sport more broadly" (THE AGE, 1/7).
