SportWomen

Podium girls for Tour Down Under and grid girls at Adelaide 500 kissed off by the state government in 2016

Podium girls for Tour Down Under and grid girls at Adelaide 500 kissed off by the state government in 2016
Podium girls kiss winner Rohan Dennis of the UniSA team during the 2012 Tour Down Under event and, inset, one of the grid girls at the Adelaide 500 motor race. 
Main image by Tim de Waele/TDWSport.com

The South Australian government in 2016 replaced winners’ podium girls for its sponsored Tour Down Under professional cycling event and its funding for grid girls at Adelaide 500 V8 motor car race.

The Tour Down Under podium girls, who kissed the race stage and jersey winners, were replaced with state junior cycling champions.

South Australian sports minister Leon Bignell said the decision to stop using models at the Tour Down Under and the Adelaide 500 was part of a drive to improve body image. Bignell said it was “not a good spend of taxpayers’ money when we’re putting money in one area of government to help young women (with body image problems) and in another area we’re paying for other young women to dress up in skimpy outfits.”

Bignell said that “what we actually want to do is inspire girls and young women who come to the motor racing to be car drivers or to be mechanics or to be engineers.”

A model agency director called the South Australia government decision sad but South Australian Unions secretary Joe Szakacs said that it would not limit employment options for models: “There's certainly no lack of opportunity for women to participate in modelling and fashion. What I think this does is make a very clear statement that there is a much more constructive, productive and influential role that women can and should play in delivering these events.”

Past and present grid girls have told The Advertiser in Adelaide they’ve never felt “objectified or sexualised” and their ambassadorial roles have helped many of them into careers beyond the race.Veteran grid girl Jeska, who has worked at the event for more than 10 years, said she felt comfortable wearing their outfits which had become “much more corporate” over the last five years: “We’re wearing more clothes than half the people walking around (Rundle) Mall today.”  

In 2020, the Tour de France cycling race administrators decided to no longer use two podium girls to assist – and kiss – stage winners and jersey winners after each stage of the race. Instead,  one female and one male host would take part in the podium protocols. The practice of using grid girls in Formula 1 motor racing was also stopped in 2018.

Other related ADELAIDE AZ articles

South Australia's racing industry joined unions in resisting the sale of the state government-owned TAB to the TAB Queensland in 2002. Image by Sharon Lee Chapman, courtesy Racing SA, of the Group 1 UBet Classic 1200 metres at Adelaide's Morphettville racecourse in 2018.
Sport >
Sale of South Australian TAB to Queensland by government in 2002 rated unsatisfactory by state auditor general
READ MORE+
Adelaide pioneering female newspaper jounalist Helen Caterer on her 100th birthday. Caterer reignited the winter blanket appeal and promoted other social welfare cause through her Sunday Mail column.
Women >
Helen Caterer breaks through as Adelaide's high-profile female journalist from 1960s but only given a C Grade
READ MORE+
Kate Fitzpatrick in one of her film roles, the musical comedy The Return of Captain Invincible (1983), and exercising her love of cricket in a charity match, with Australian prime minister Bob Hawke at first slip.
Television >
Kate Fitzpatrick, from Adelaide's nurturing, a theatre, film, TV actress and world's first female cricket commentator
READ MORE+
Hindley Street, viewed from King William Street, in about 1846. It quickly became a focus for prostitution. Image by the George French Angas, courtesy State Library of South Australia
X Rated >
South Australia colony founders fail to stop prostitution ‘out of all proportion' on the early streets of Adelaide
READ MORE+
A very formal (perhaps Proclamation Day) day at Glenelg beach in 1913. Inset: Girls bathing in 1920, when councils were still opposed to the one-piece bathing costume. A group in 1922 enjoying the relaxed mixed bathing rule, although male bathers still still could not be topless. Images courtesy State Library of South Australia
X Rated >
Mixed bathing allowed on Adelaide beaches from 1910 but councils enforce neck-to-knee for women into 1930s
READ MORE+
Members of Kapunda croquet club formed in 1868. Inset: A group of croquet players in a paddock at Angaston on New Year’s Day 1867. Images courtesy South Australian Croquet Association
Class >
Wealthy bring croquet to South Australia to continue an English lifestyle; Angaston and Kapunda first clubs
READ MORE+

 

 
©2025 Adelaide AZ | Privacy | Terms & Disclaimer | PWA 1.1.58