Cyclist
The people behind a WorldTour team #6: The communicator
Success at a Grand Tour is a mixed blessing. Yes, it injects confidence into a team while directing the cycling world’s gaze to sponsor-saturated apparel. And yes, victory equals opportunity. But that opportunity comes at a cost, namely insufficient hours in the digital day.
‘There’s a definite need to have tech breaks,’ says Julia Dowd, social media co-ordinator at EF Education-EasyPost. ‘There are so many different platforms, so many different outlets, and they can be all-consuming. But that’s the job – engage the audience and drive awareness.’
Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, TikTok… It’s all fair game for a social media co-ordinator. Increase your reach, grow the fanbase, lure in potential commercial partners to fund a team where the business model means over 90% of income is through sponsorship. It’s a job made easier if the team is successful.
‘At the 2023 Giro, for instance, we enjoyed two stage victories [through Ben Healy on Stage 8 and Magnus Cort on Stage 10],’ says Dowd. ‘Understandably, posts around those victories drew the highest figures with thousands of likes; in fact, we’re often up there with the highest-ranked social media teams.’
Right up there. As an Instagram snapshot – the most popular platform for pro cycling teams, says Dowd – Ineos Grenadiers top the rankings with more than one million followers, followed by Visma Lease-a-Bike at 800,000, Movistar at 733,000 and Soudal QuickStep at 600,000. You then have the likes of UAE Team Emirates, Bora-Hansgrohe and EF hovering around the 500,000 mark.
Interestingly, albeit similar to other sports, these figures are dwarfed by those of individual riders, with Colombia and EF’s cycling demi-god Rigoberto Urán racking up more than three million Insta disciples. That popularity saw national TV company RCN produce a series, Rigo, that has just aired in Urán’s homeland and ran for an incredible 98 episodes. Tadej Pogačar, Wout van Aert and Mathieu van der Poel form a small chasing group behind at one million plus.
The fact that fans tend to follow riders rather than teams highlights the need to be creative. This takes many forms, from the squeamish – ‘Astana Rap’, anyone? – to the parodic – Chris Froome’s clever/disconcerting recreation of the Bentley ASMR advert – to the ‘changeout’.
‘The changeout is when a team changes kit for a specific race,’ says Dowd. At last year’s Giro, EF swapped their Rapha pink kit for a multi-coloured outfit that didn’t clash with the race leader’s jersey.
‘That was a huge social media project. I’d coordinate with our photographer and we’d prepare everything for all the social channels for the world to see. From my point of view, that dominated the first couple of days of racing. It was busy, but it always is at a race.’
Get up, get posting
At a Grand Tour, the communication job starts first thing, especially in the case of last year’s Giro where Dowd was acting as press officer too.
‘I was the main point of contact for any journalists and TV outlets that wanted to speak with our riders. The interviewer would drop me a text first thing in the morning and I’d co-ordinate with the rider about ensuring they spoke to the press in the mixed zone at the stage start. Understandably, the more successful a rider is, the greater in demand they are.’
At last year’s Giro it was all about Ben Healy. After a cracking start to the season that saw him finish second at Amstel Gold and fourth at Liège-Bastogne-Liège, the interest ramped up after victory on Stage 8 into Fossombrone. The Irishman is a generous interviewee but, we ask Dowd, does this geniality continue into the third week of a Grand Tour when a rider has more than 2,000km in their legs and fatigue is kicking in?
‘We want to answer all interview requests if we can and riders do know it’s part of their job but you need to gauge the situation. With Ben doing so well and the fact that this was his first Grand Tour, it meant we had many enquires for his time. He was great but he’s also a human being racing 21 stages. That drains you physically and mentally, so it was my role to ensure we struck a balance between accessibility and protecting the rider.’
And fuelling them. While doubling as press officer, Dowd would also hook up with a soigneur and drive ahead of the riders to the feed zones, assisting in offloading bottles and musettes before heading to the finish line. The stage result would dictate what happened next.
‘When Healy and Cort won, the soigneur would clean them up a little bit before the podium stuff then I’d take them through the mixed zones for interviews. Everyone wants a bit of them so it’s your job that things roll smoothly from one interview to the next. It would then be anti-doping for sample-taking before you get back on the bus and head to the next hotel.’
During transit Dowd and her team would set to work on the social posts.
‘We’d usually post three or four times in that period, and then more when images come in from photographers on the ground. We’d also do some video edits and I’d handle some of that. Occasionally we’d have sponsors reach out for something specific, while some of the most popular hits were our daily stage stories where we’d curate the photos of the day to tell the story through images.’
Relating the tale of a three-week tour can be an exhausting business so will Dowd be posting till her thumbs bleed at the 2024 Giro? This year she’s decided to give it a miss and instead put her communications skills to good use elsewhere – in Italy teaching English as a second language. Although she will be sure to have one eye on her Insta feed at the end of every stage.
• This article originally appeared in issue 153 of Cyclist magazine. Click here to subscribe
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