Not Quite Tennis: B&M
We all know mountain biking is a pretty great sport don’t we? For most of us, chasing our friends up and down hills is our favourite part of the week. However, mountain biking as a professional sport still seems to be stuck in the Dark Ages as Tahnee and Vero point out below.
There’s a huge amount of topics covered that could be commented on, but what stands out for me is the World Cup prize money. As Tahnee mentions, it’s €3,500. Just read that again, €3,500.
For a bit of perspective, Wimbledon finished yesterday and the winners of the men’s and women’s singles took home £1.7 million each. That’s 485x more than you get for winning a World Cup. I’m not taking anything away from tennis players, they are insanely skilled and their sport is a lot more commercial than DH, but I think it’s fair to say the risks the DH riders take are somewhat higher than those in tennis.
We’ve all seen the dark side of downhill racing (Brooks McDonald’s Mt St Anne crash for example) and it’s not hard to see that the top racers are putting their lives on the line. All for €3,500.
I don’t know about you but I don’t think that’s fair.
HG
