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Video: Colombian riders "not ashamed" of That Kit

Outfit designer Angie Rojas says they are curious and amazed at the fuss

The designer of the team kit for the Colombian IDRD-Bogota Humana-San Mateo-Solgar women's squad has defended her design and says she's not ashamed to wear the outfit.

Angie Tatiana Rojas, the team rider who designed the kit, spoke about the design to Cycling Inquisition, a site that's devoted to Colombian cycling.

She said the idea of the design was simple: "to highlight our team's sponsors, that was always the goal."

The colour of the gold mid-section, which can looks like a flesh-tone when photographed in poor light, "came from the primary colors of our sponsors," Rojas said. "In fact, it was going to be the kit's primary color, throughout the upper portion. But within the peloton, that color would not be visible enough, so we opted to switch it to the shorts, and instead used red and yellow on the upper part, for the sake of visibility. The red and yellow are the colors of the flag of Bogota.

"As for the color around the shorts … it's the primary color used by Solgar, a company that makes vitamins, and also similar to that of San Mateo University, another one of our sponsors."

Rojas has a degree in communications and journalism and started her sporting career as a speedskater before turning to cycling "because it's so challenging, so beautiful and so hard."

Her poise in fending off the daftness of kit-that-looks-nude-in-bad-light-gate shows in this video, posted to YouTube by the Telegraph:

"As an athlete, as a woman, as the cyclist that I am, I wouldn't be ashamed with this kind of design," she said.

"I think the feeling we have is more curiosity and amazement," she said about the furore that erupted when a pic of her team kit went viral last weekend.

"We don't know why these things happen. But we put our souls into cycling and try to give the best for our country."

Talking to Cycling Inquisition she said: "I think it's sad that it takes something like this for cycling, and women's cycling in particular, to get this much press."

She added that if anything, the experience has strengthened the team.

"Even before this, we were very close," Rojas said. "We are at peace, because [we] know that as a team, everything we've done has always been done with the best intentions. No malice or anything other than love and passion for the sport has ever been a part of what we've done or continue to do."

Meanwhile, however, the UCI issued a statement saying that it had looked into the issue of the team's kit.

It said:

"The Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) has investigated the issue of the kits worn by women’s club team IDRD-Bogota Humana-San Mateo-Solgar of Colombia, this weekend in Italy, in the Tour of Tuscany, a 3-day event registered on the UCI calendar as a 2.2 race. The UCI will be sending a letter to the Colombian Federation reminding them of their responsibility regarding article 1.3.046 in the control of regional and club team kits that compete in international events."

For those not familiar with the minutiae of the UCI rule book, article 1.3.046 says:

"Each regional or club team for whom one or more riders take part in an event on the international calendar must, at the start of the year, notify the details of their clothing to their national federation specifying in detail the colours and their arrangement and the main sponsors.

"The name of the region and/or club may appear, in full or in abbreviated form, on the jersey."

It's hard to see in that any onus on the national federation or team to make sure that kit photographs well if photographed in unflattering lighting conditions, but it could be argued that the UCI had to do something, having dug itself into a hole with this tweet from president Brian Cookson after the fuss about IDRD-Bogota Humana's kit erupted on twitter:

Cookson was responding to the initial furore about the team's kit, most of which arose before all the facts had emerged - much of that initial reaction amusement rather than outrage.

One of the most influential people criticising the kit was Wiggle-Honda rider Kathryn Bertine. Bertine was one of the three riders who last year called for a women's Tour de France, a campaign that eventually resulted in a women's race on the Champs Elysees on the final day of this year's Tour.

Bertine tweeted:

Another prominent rider, Nicole Cooke, also joined the chorus of disapproval that appears to have spurred Cookson into action:

But many people pointed out that the kit had been designed by a team rider and looked perfectly sensible in real life.

Even the UK's cycling charity CTC got involved, with this tweet earning them an angry email from Cookson:

While its intentions were no doubt sound UCI appears to have reacted on the basis of needing to be seen to do something quickly especially on social media to respond to comments about the team and possibly doing so before they had the full facts at their disposal. Cookson's tweet in particular fuelled much mainstream media comment, including the Guardian fashion section asking if the kit had been inspired by "an unwanted, half-dressed Barbie doll, hanging out of a bin".

Given her grace under pressure throughout this kerfuffle and her Actual Qualifications™ in the field, if the UCI does need any help in handling tough media situations they could do a lot worse than offer the job to Angie Tatiana Rojas.

John has been writing about bikes and cycling for over 30 years since discovering that people were mug enough to pay him for it rather than expecting him to do an honest day's work.

He was heavily involved in the mountain bike boom of the late 1980s as a racer, team manager and race promoter, and that led to writing for Mountain Biking UK magazine shortly after its inception. He got the gig by phoning up the editor and telling him the magazine was rubbish and he could do better. Rather than telling him to get lost, MBUK editor Tym Manley called John’s bluff and the rest is history.

Since then he has worked on MTB Pro magazine and was editor of Maximum Mountain Bike and Australian Mountain Bike magazines, before switching to the web in 2000 to work for CyclingNews.com. Along with road.cc founder Tony Farrelly, John was on the launch team for BikeRadar.com and subsequently became editor in chief of Future Publishing’s group of cycling magazines and websites, including Cycling Plus, MBUK, What Mountain Bike and Procycling.

John has also written for Cyclist magazine, edited the BikeMagic website and was founding editor of TotalWomensCycling.com before handing over to someone far more representative of the site's main audience.

He joined road.cc in 2013. He lives in Cambridge where the lack of hills is more than made up for by the headwinds.

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8 comments

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cyclingdave70 | 10 years ago
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To be fair, the original photo didn't even look gold. It looked more skin toned, so let's move on.

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andyp | 10 years ago
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Quite apart from anything else, whoever labelled this 'vagina-like' has no idea of anatomy.

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drfabulous0 | 10 years ago
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To anyone who had actually seen the kit it was obvious it was just a poor photo. When I first saw the pic I thought it was pretty funny but obviously not indecent, the whole thing has got way out of hand.

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Beaufort | 10 years ago
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All this over what turns out to be a badly taken photograph. I guess the twittering classes need to engage brain before offering their expert opinions.

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truffy | 10 years ago
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It's not even flesh tone, it's gold!

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Xrecymech | 10 years ago
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I am actually quite amazed at the fuss over this. Does it degrade women, no, does it degrade women's cycling, no. Why are people getting so giddy over flesh coloured kit, it may LOOK like they have their midriff showing but the fact is they don't, and we all know they don't so why the outrage? We don't do it for flesh coloured dresses etc worn by dancers or ice-dancers etc or is it because the people involved in those circles don't have such Victorian attitudes? There are bigger issues in the world and indeed cycling to deal with than getting anal over an unfortunate choice of colour in team kit, would this have come about if all the women in that team were all black? Some people need to get off the PC bandwagon and chill the f*** out

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farrell | 10 years ago
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Slow hand clap for Nicole Cooke and Kathryn Bertine.

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zanf | 10 years ago
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Quote:

Rojas has a degree in communications and journalism

So no real design training then?

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