Women will receive the same prize money as men from this year’s Tour Down Under, the South Australian government said Sunday in what it believes is a world first for a stage race.The Women’s Tour Down Under is held the week before the men’s event and this year was elevated to a UCI 2.1 classification, one level below Women’s World Tour status.
The men’s TDU, in its final stage Sunday, is the opening race on the men’s UCI World Tour calendar and is a state government-owned event.Bignell said the prize pool across all classifications for the women’s race would be more than Aus$100,000 (US$79,900), compared with the initial pool of Aus$15,000.
