Kathryn Bertine
Kathryn Bertine (born 11 May 1975) is a Saint Kitts and Nevis racing cyclist, author, activist, film-maker and former professional figure skater and professional triathlete. She turned professional in road cycling in 2012 and raced on World Tour teams until 2017. Bertine competed in eight UCI Road World Championships, won three Caribbean Championship titles and six Saint Kitts and Nevis National Championship titles. She is best known for her activism in petitioning the organisers of the Tour de France, the Amaury Sport Organisation, to launch a women's Tour de France. Biography Bertine was born in Bronxville, New York. After a sporting childhood, she became a professional figure skater aged 23, appearing in ice skating shows including the Ice Capades and Holiday on Ice. She undertook her undergraduate education at Colgate University, where she competed in cross country running and rowing alongside skating. After graduating she took a year out to travel and pursue her skating career, before returning to education to study for a Master of Fine Arts degree at the University of Arizona. Whilst in Arizona she took up competing in triathlon, eventually spending three years as a professional in the sport. Her first book was published in 2003, a memoir of her sporting childhood and professional figure skating career. By 2005, Bertine was a professional triathlete, however this was not financially sustainable. In 2006, she began working with ESPN on a project to take her to the Olympics. The idea was to see if she, "a decently talented but by no means gifted athlete", could make it to the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing. After attempting multiple sports including handball, open water swimming and modern pentathlon, she chose road cycling. In January 2007, she took up Saint Kitts and Nevis citizenship to improve her chances of selection for the Olympics, after failing to make the United States team. Bertine did not make the selection for the Olympics, but continued to compete as a cyclist for Saint Kitts and Nevis, winning the national road race and time trial championships three times between 2009 and 2011. After experiencing the gender inequities in sport, Bertin became an activist for women's cycling. Frustrated why there was no official 'Women's Tour de France', Bertine wrote to the organisers of the race—Amaury Sport Organisation (ASO)—with a business plan on how such a race could be created. No response was received. Her cycling career continued, with her first professional contract with Team Colavita in 2012. She also began work on a documentary film about women's cycling, interviewing key members of the peloton, asking them about the inequalities of women's cycling. Bertine subsequently explained that her activism was ignored by the governing body, and that teams asked her to keep quiet about the issue. In 2013, Bertine and Dutch rider Marianne Vos, English rider Emma Pooley and triathlete Chrissie Wellington formed an activist group called Le Tour Entier (“the whole tour”), to petition ASO to launch a women's Tour de France. A manifesto was published, and