The UAE Tour Women has taken an unexpected turn for Amanda Spratt. While many anticipated a farewell tour filled with first-time experiences as she announced her retirement at the start of the year, the Australian veteran finds herself embarking on a genuinely new adventure: her first-ever participation in the race.
The contrast between the modern landscape of the United Arab Emirates – all glittering skyscrapers and congested traffic – and the throwback feel of the relatively young UAE Tour Women, now in its fourth edition, isn’t lost on Spratt. It’s a scene that evokes memories of her early days in Europe, a world away from the current level of professionalization in women’s cycling.
Spratt recalls arriving in Europe with the Australian national team in 2006, a time when team buses were a luxury. Riders changed in minibuses, shielded by towels for privacy. While the UAE Tour Women might offer changing rooms, the team briefings still take place in the car park, a familiar echo of those early European races.
“A huge amount has changed,” Spratt told Cyclingnews after a Lidl-Trek team briefing on Saturday. “I’ve been in Europe since 2006, it’s almost like a different sport now. We would never catch an aeroplane to a race; we would have just the one van and we would drive up and down from Italy to Belgium for the races. One soigneur, one mechanic, one director and maybe in the year you got one or two sets of kit. Everything has become just so much better.”
Spratt’s longevity in the sport is a testament to her passion. “I do this sport because I love it,” she said, “and I think anyone that’s still doing it at my age or who went through that period, you can genuinely believe they’re doing it because they love it, because we certainly weren’t making money back then to support ourselves. So it’s been like also really special to see the way it’s grown and to see what it is now and what it’s going to become in the future.”
The evolution of the sport has been significant and Spratt highlights key advancements. “I think mostly everything is for the better, for example having the maternity leave, I think that was a huge step forward. I particularly think the Tour de France is a big one in convincing the sponsors that it’s a sport they want to invest in and we’ve really seen teams and sponsors come on board through that.”
However, Spratt also identifies an area that still requires attention: the development pipeline beneath the WorldTour and ProTour levels. “The only area that still needs work is that level underneath the WorldTour, ProTour level, the Continental teams. The concern is finding a way that You can continue having a good calendar there. Ensuring there’s that calendar there, because I’m a classic example of someone who took many, many years to develop. I went through juniors with Marianne Vos and Ellen van Dijk, they were good immediately, but for me it took years before I was there, if I was coming through these days I’d probably just be a talent that that didn’t succeed, that went back to Australia.”
Spratt’s career, spanning two decades, has been marked by consistent excellence. She’s a three-time Australian National Road Race Champion (2012, 2016, and 2020) and enjoyed a dominant run at the Women’s Tour Down Under, winning the general classification three consecutive times from 2017 to 2019. She also secured a stage win at the Giro d’Italia in both 2018 and 2019, and earned silver at the 2018 UCI Road World Championships.
However, when asked to pinpoint her greatest achievement, Spratt emphasized her sustained presence in the sport. “For sure my longevity in the sport. I think there’s not that many riders that have raced for so many years and across the top teams, I’m really proud of that and the way I’ve come had several roles,” she said. “I’ve been that young rider who doesn’t know anything to a domestique helping the leader, to leader and now supporting the younger riders, that’s an achievement in itself. Results wise 2018 and 2019 were my biggest year, they’re some of my proudest results.”
The decision to retire wasn’t a difficult one. “It just felt like the right time, it’s not that I’m not liking it anymore, I just felt like it’s a nice point in my career to stop, I still love the sport, I still love racing, for sure I want to stay in the sport moving forward,” Spratt explained. “There are these amazing young riders coming through and it’s getting harder and harder and I just feel like it’s my time to take a step back. I really like the idea of finishing when I want to finish, on my own terms and when I’m still going well, all of those factors made the decision kind of easy and I’m really happy that I could announce it at the beginning of the season and enjoy the Australian races with many of my fans, and family.”
While her future plans remain open, Spratt has completed the UCI’s sports director’s course, hinting at a potential path forward. For now, her focus remains on the immediate task at hand: Sunday’s final stage of the UAE Tour Women, a challenging climb up Jebel Hafeet, where she hopes to leverage her experience to support her Lidl-Trek teammate, Niamh Fisher-Black.
