Charline Jones interview: ‘Women have to be cuter, more ingenious’

From the sprint through Cupar to the climb across the Cleish Hills and down into her home town of Dunfermline, Charline Jones can’t wait for Friday and the opening stage of the Women’s Tour of Scotland.

Charline Jones, nee Joiner, a Commonwealth Games medallist for Scotland in 2010. Picture: Tony Nicoletti

The first cycle race of its kind here, it is a stand-alone event and not one where the route signs and crash-barriers have been left up after the men have departed. Equal status and equal prize-money, too. A big boost for women’s sport generally. And to think, she says, that there used to be a fairly prevalent view that girls on bikes were dull.

“We have waited a long time for an event like this,” insists Jones, who raced as Charline Joiner, part of a Scottish sporting dynasty which includes rugby internationalist Craig. Indeed, the tour has taken so long to come round that this Commonwealth Games silver medalist has since retired. She isn’t envious of the competitors in the inaugural tour, though, just pleased it’s here at last and might inspire others to take to two wheels.

Nor, when was she racing, was Jones envious of the men and their higher profile. “I wouldn’t use that word, it’s kind of toxic,” says the 31-year-old. “I’d prefer to say that we women looked at the men and were inspired by them. I think we all wondered: ‘How can we get women’s cycling to that level?’”

She pays tribute to the cycling sisterhood who helped in that aim including Laura Kenny, Lizzie Armitstead and Hannah Barnes from England plus our own Katie Archibald and fellow Dunfermline-ite Eileen Roe who will co-commentate with Jones on the tour’s first stage. Talent has prevailed, but recognition for women’s cycling hasn’t been as easy as riding a bike.

Jones notes: “At one time there was a lot of discussion about women’s racing being boring. In my experience, when women anywhere are disparaged like that they react. We were all training as hard as the men, in many cases working harder, because we needed to take part, or full-time jobs to finance our careers.

“I think we all thought: ‘Right, we’re going to prove our critics wrong. We’re going to make the races as exciting as they can be.’ That’s what happened. We were attracting sponsors and then the TV commentators went crazy, saying we were more exciting than the men. Our sport just went: boom!

“The races are not as long as the men’s ones and so much can happen during them. Because there’s less distance the women can’t hang about; they need to get on with it.

“Personally I think the men’s races go on too long,” adds Jones, refraining from using a word like “boring”. “Men’s races can be won by the guy with the greatest stamina. Women have to be cuter, more ingenious. They have to use lots of tactics. There’s a helluva lot of stuff going on in women’s races and hopefully the tour will showcase this.”

Jones is incredibly loyal to cycling, this despite it leaving her with a broken back in 2014 following a crash in Girona, Spain. “I was really lucky; it could have been a lot worse. My first thought – well, right after wondering if I’d be able to walk again – was: ‘I’m going to miss Glasgow’s Commonwealth Games’.” Though unable to go for a medal herself, she recovered sufficiently to play her part in a support role in Katie Archibald’s success.

The end of her career four years later was unhappy and she admits: “I lost my flair, my motivation.” She could say more about this and does, but off the record, not wanting to discourage newbies, preferring to accentuate the positive, remembering the good times, uppermost being the 2010 Commonwealths in Delhi.

“They were amazing. Everyone suffered ‘Delhi belly’ – there was only so much the Games Village plumbing system could take, I guess – but I was young and happy and so proud to be representing my country.” Her silver came in the team sprint and the Village was also where she met future rugby-playing husband Lee Jones, currently of Glasgow Warriors and back then representing Scotland in the sevens.

It was only three years before that she rode a racing bike for the first time, and then only because she was bored from an injury sidelining her from hockey. “My dad took me down to Meadowbank Stadium. I didn’t even know there was a velodrome there. I loved cycling right away.”

Dad Mike represented Scotland in the triathlon and sister Kerry competed for her country at hockey, while at Murrayfield and elsewhere Craig won 25 caps on the wing. “Craig was my hero when I was at school, not least when he turned up at assembly as the guest speaker,” adds Jones. “Dad, right from when I was a baby, was always on a bike, sweat dripping from his nose. I’d look at him and think ‘Wow’ but never reckoned I’d be able to do anything remotely like that.”

Jones’ mum Virginie comes from a family of French artists but there’s another member of the sporting clan who hides his light under not so much a bushel as the sea. “We think my little brother Jason is the most physically gifted of all of us but he’s decided to make the money and he’s a commercial diver.

“We’re always asking each other: ‘What could have been Jason’s sport?’ In the gym he could set up the jump boxes to head height and, both feet on the ground, clear them. Dad would say, ‘Jason, jump over me’, and he would. He had this explosive power, like Craig. I had a bit although these two were just ridiculous.

“But we’re all really competitive. Christmas at home when we play games is insane. For Dad’s 70th he wanted to do Total Warrior, which is a 10k mud race in the Lake District but he insisted that the four kids did it as well. The race was through ice water and over fire. We all got round but the birthday boy absolutely smashed it.”