If she now one of the emblematic faces of French cycling, Marion Rousse has faced great financial difficulties when she was running, forcing her to put an end to her career prematurely.
All the lights are green for female cycling. This is evidenced by the television audiences of the Printemps classics or the popular success of the Tour de France women, relaunched in 2022 with his head Marion Rousse. The former champion of France can only congratulate himself on the new dimension taken by female cycling and in particular wages now perceived by the runners. Because if the northerner decided in 2015 to hang up her bike, it is for financial reasons.
“I was at the time in one of the best world teams and yet I was not paid,
had she told last year in the columns ofThe platform. Only five girls were paid. It is as if today we put five professionals in the Tour peloton today and that the others were amateurs. This injustice annoyed me a lot, especially since I already had a long career behind me. »»
Questioned at the microphone of RTL Sports, the French Télévisions star consultant returned to her financial difficulties.
“I became a professional cyclist, but I had to go to work to earn money because we were not remunerated at that time in female cycling”, she explained.
Marion Rousse also worked part-time in a town hall
These money problems have all the more prompted her to put an end to her career that she had become for two years consultant on Eurosport after a first successful experience on the Vuelta 2013. “I was very happy, because people quickly understood that I had struggled enough on a bike to be able to talk about both male and female cycling. My career has been launched ”, she added.
“I saw that it was complicated to do everything at the same time, so that I devoted myself only to my consultant career, where I could finally earn money and continue to talk about my passion”continued the one who also worked part-time at the mayor of Etampes.
“At Futuroscope, I have never been paid. And at Lotto, so after my title, 300 euros per month. Then, I had a professional integration agreement, between the French team and the town hall of Etampes. I was paid for a minimum wage to work part-time, had she explained on this subject to
Pedal before the 2022 round. It was not a fictitious job, I really worked. And I was going to train in the evening. When there was the third job with Eurosport which arrived there, I couldn’t see the light of day. Especially in the alongside, there were still four or five who lived or lived on it, but let’s say that they could go 100%bike. »»
