How to build a generation?

If you compare the men's & women's nation rankings than you will recognize familiar nations in both lists who are there already for many years now. But one nation is a strange exception. While the men's part of the country slipped down to the 23th place on the rankings, the women became a top 5 nation in cycling, ahead of more traditional cycling nations. What explains this sudden rise of Polish women's cycling? Is Kasia Niewiadoma's Tour de France victory a coicidence or a result of a greater plan? Where are all these other strong women suddenly coming from? In this article we look at how Polish women's cycling can punch above their weight. How did a country with a moderate population and not the most traditional cycling culture became one of cycling's powerhouses?

The new generation

Currently, Poland has a generation that is marked by a rare combination of quality as depth. A group of riders that can only be matched or surpassed by the traditional strongholds in the women's side of the sport like Italy, France and the Netherlands. Below, we line-up the riders, their age, and their main qualities.

Kasia Niewiadoma (30) : Winner of the Tour de France, Fleche Wallonne, Amstel Gold Race, Worlds medals

Daria Pikulik (28) : Top sprinter, Vice-Olympic Champion omnium

Marta Lach (27)  : Puncheur, stage hunter

Dominika Wlodarczyk (24) : Talented climber, succesful on hilly terrain

Agnieszka Skalniak-Sojka (27) : Strong & fast

Karolina Perekitko (26) : Climber with big potential

Other honourable mentions : Aurela Nerlo, Marta Jaskulska, Karolina Kumiega, Olga Wankiewicz, Malwina Mul

Centuries of leading women

To understand where all these prominent cyclists are coming from, we should also dig a bit deeper than only the domestic history of the sport itself. Apart from cycling, Poland delivered many succesful women in different key areas before too, in times were many other countries lacked prominent women who took these kind of iniatives. Scientist Maria Skłodowska-Curie is only one of the various Polish Noble Prize winners in the past Centuries. Strong women who were active during times of occupation, when the country was sometimes not even on the map anymore.

After World War II, Poland was placed under communist rule, when promoting gender equality (especially in sports) was not longer mostly done bottom-up, but arranged by the top of the institutions themselves instead. Equality was one the key values of the communist ideology and apart from a few legal differences (like voting rights), the government also invested a lot earlier in women's sports than their capitalistic counterparts in Western Europe. 

The current young Polish generation of cyclists is not really connected a lot with these times anymore, but this history created a ground for them where they had examples before them and made that their performances are equally supported & valued as those of their male colleagues nowadays too. In for example other historical leading cycling countries like Belgium & Switzerland, they still struggle to deliver the same quantity in women's cycling today as they do in men's cycling for decades now. A combination of historical features and a smart investment plan that go hand in hand now. 

Developing the next generation

One of the big strenghts of Polish cycling is their development program. Poland has good youth clubs and the national team makes it possible for junior riders to race against the best foreign riders abroad. The country has also built a modern velodrome in 2008, where for example top road sprinter Daria Pikulik started her early development. Overall, Poland spends a relatively high amount of their GDP on sports, what advantages their female athletes over those of certain other countries, where private money favours men's sports more and their lower government investments can't compensate the difference. 

Mat Atom Deweloper team played an important role for young Polish women to adapt further to pro cycling. The squad is active as UCI Continental Team and that gives time to Polish girls to become a pro and take part in international races through the years, just as CCC did for the men before. The disappearance of the latter also made that the Polish women overtook the Polish men by a big margin now in recent years. Polish women could use their team as a launching path to sign a contract with a WWT team (f.e. Dominika Wlodarczyk, Agnieszka Skalniak,...) while the men had to be succesful in the U23 or even junior juniors category already if they ever wanted to achieve a place in an international team. 10 years ago, 18 men could develop with CCC. Nowadays their chances are limited to a few avaliable spots abroad.

The future

Most of the current Polish top pros still have to reach the age of 30, and still have top years ahead of him. This makes that the sport still has a lot of potential to inspire coming generations to reach the same level or higher in the future. Kasia Niewiadoma's Tour de France victory also reached media outlets who usually didn't cover cycling as much before. If Polish cycling can keep growing the same way in the future will depend on many factors. The growth of women's cycling will bring more private money in the sport who will decrease the impact of Polish government spending against youth of other nations. More strong foreign teams will also have an impact on the program that Mat Atom can offer. So it will be a matter to keep the momentum and to keep attracting bigger government & private investment. Poland overcame many challenges in history and always came back on the same high level. Will they do the same in cycling too?