Salt Lake City – Half the Road – The Passion, Pitfalls & Power of Women’s Professional Cycling, a documentary, will be shown in Salt Lake City, Utah on July 15 at 7 pm at the main City Library auditorium on 200 E and 400 S. There is no charge for admission.
Following the screening, there will be a discussion with pro cyclist Nichole Wangsgard (associate professor of special education at Southern Utah University. Dr. Wangsgard is also the promoter of the upcoming Cedar City Gran Prix, a women’s pro cycling event to be held during the Tour of Utah in Cedar City on August 4, 2014.
The documentary is directed by former pro cyclist Kathryn Bertine and is narrated by Bobke (Bob Roll).
The movie showcases women’s professional bike racing, both the competition, and the issue of inequality compared to men’s professional cycling. The movie features many prominent bike racers including Evelyn Stevens, Utah pro Nichole Wangsgaard, and former Utah resident Ina-Yoko Teutenberg. Stevens says, “It’s the most freeing activity I’ve ever partaken in.”
Bertine says,
“During my quest for the Olympics, which took me from prestigious U.S. events to rural villages in Central America to bustling cities in Asia and to the narrow roads of Europe, I began to notice some interesting issues within women’s cycling. Races were often shorter than the men’s events, prize money was pitifully lower, the female pros had no base salary or any sort of union to protect their best interests, rarely were women’s events linked to the major men’s events, and the governing body of the sport treated the female racers like second-class citizens. Not to mention, the path toward Olympic qualification for third-world or less-than-wealthy nations was strewn with red tape and roadblocks that discouraged growth and prosperity for rising female cyclists. At best, present-day women’s professional cycling was stuck at the same level of women’s professional tennis in the 1970s. Quietly, I wondered “Why?”
I began this documentary with the assumption it was about women’s professional cycling. A few months in, I realized the film was about equality and society, as told through the medium of cyclists. Half The Road is my hope that someday the whole world will see sports not as “men’s” or “women’s” but as equal athletes on equal playing fields.
“If we hold up half of the sky, where’s our half of the road,” remarks film maker Bertine.”
Watch the trailer here:
The showing is presented by the Utah Film Center in partnership with the Salt Lake City Library and the Bicycle Collective.
For more information, see:
http://www.utahfilmcenter.org/event/half-road/
