The Praties Cycling Team is an institution. For more than 25 years, Andrew Christie-Johnston ran the most successful men’s team in Australian road cycling, helping many riders to the top of the sport; riders like Richie Porte, Chris Harper, Ben O’Connor, and many others. While the men’s team closed at the end of 2024, the women’s team – founded in 2023 – continued into 2025 and dominated at the local level. In the ProVelo Super League, Australia’s new top-level domestic road racing series, Praties was the team to beat, winning the series overall with Sophie Marr, with several other riders sharing in the success throughout the year.
But despite that success, the future of the Praties women’s team is very much under threat. A long and exhaustive search for a sponsor for the 2026 season has so far proven unsuccessful and the team has now turned to crowdfunding to help raise any money to race on in 2026. With only four weeks remaining to raise roughly $90,000 this could well be the end of an era.
This isn’t the first time the team has used crowdfunding to help shore up its future. In late 2022, on the eve of its debut season, the team asked the cycling community to help get the team off the ground. The response was positive, but it was through an anonymous donation of $100,000 that the team’s future was secured. Now, the team’s managers – Christie-Johnston and Pat Shaw – are hoping for something similar, otherwise one of Australia’s most important pathways for emerging road racing talents could be done.
Escape spoke with Pat Shaw earlier this week to learn more about the current status of the crowdfunding efforts and what’s required from here.
Matt de Neef: So what’s the latest with the team? Where are things up to with the crowdfunding campaign?
Pat Shaw: Well, essentially we've really been fighting pretty hard for the last three years, to be honest. We even came to the point where we wound up the men's program. It's been a real tough last three years for sure. I mean, I hate to sound like a broken record, but the reality is that travel is an imperative item to being successful in the sport of cycling, and the cost of everything has gone up, whether it be vehicles, whether it be repairs of vehicles, whether it be petrol, whether it be accommodation, whether it be flights, baggage, everything. So all that stuff's gone up.
I must say, though, the one thing that hasn't probably changed all that much over the period of the last three or four or five years is the support from our sponsors, particularly our hardware sponsors – bikes and components and helmets, all that sort of stuff. The support's always been very fantastic – we couldn't really ask for better support. Fantastic brands, but also just how much they've supported us has been amazing, and they should really be commended in the way that they've nurtured Australia's talent, as much as anyone else.
But financial backing is really the hardest part. It's always been the hardest part to find, particularly for a niche sport. Although in Europe it has corporate sponsorship which flows in for given reasons – obviously, the Tour de France being one of the major ones – but certainly we just don't have those outlets or avenues to sell sponsorship to the big corporates.
The hard part about it is that you've got to consistently get multiple sponsors of different values and then trying to manage those as well when, you know, we [team management] effectively are volunteers. And that makes it really quite a difficult challenge on every level.
We've really tried everything this year. We've scraped every left-hand, right-hand side we can find to get a sponsor that could drive us into 2026 and beyond, hopefully. But we've dried up our resources. We've even dried up some externals where people have been able to – and, you know, thanks to them for trying – but they've tried to help us find a sponsor as well and just to no fortune, unfortunately.
The last resort was to do crowdfunding. We did it three years ago. We were lucky that we had a major contributor involved as well, but it also raised the profile of what we were doing and what we have done.
And for us, it's more importantly about not just throwing the towel in like others have in the past. And that's not derogatory towards the people that have stopped in the past, but I just think that you've got to really try everything you can. In some regards, it'd be nice not to care, because it'd be easy just to walk away, but for whatever reason, we really are invested. We always have been, and you're going to be hard-pressed to find a more motivated group.
MdN: So when you're talking to potential sponsors, what are they saying to you at the moment? Is it harder this year than normal to find sponsors?
PS: I mean, it's not as much what they say; it's probably more about what they don't say. Because you see that there's still major deals being done across the board in multiple sports, different sports, and even more niche sports. I mean, netball was able to secure a major, major funding boost in the past 24 months, and they were on their absolute knees.
I think what differentiates us a bit is that we have a national body which has a national team which represents our country, but outside of that, all development is done by everyone else. External to the track program, essentially, the national body does very little, if anything, for the sport of cycling. And if we go back through and have a look at the riders that have championed the sport, 10-15, years ago, yes, they did come through an institute, but not since. And so all of that's fallen on teams; domestic teams, essentially, and mums and dads.
Up until this point, we've done a very good job, and when I say 'we', I mean us as an organism, as a group of volunteers. And, yeah, some have come through institutes with various different backing but I think we are almost at doomsday, mate.
Talia Appleton is the ray of sunshine we needed, to be honest, to really remind us of what we do and why we do it. To see her podium at Tour de l'Avenir – I don't think really enough's been said about that either. That is an extraordinary result against extraordinary competition; competition that's raced WorldTour races all year, and she's been able to compete with them all the way up. That's another confirmation of what we've done. But where's our next one coming from?
For the last three years, top 20 on GC is our best result – 25th [Neve Bradbury in 2023 – ed.] and 22nd [Ella Simpson in 2024 – ed.] at Tour de l'Avenir Femmes in the previous two editions. And to be honest, again, no disrespect, we were so far out of our depth it wasn't even funny in the last two years, particularly the first year. The first year was disgusting. It really was. But this year, Talia third, [Mackenzie] Coupland, top 10, Felicity [Wilson-Haffenden] our third best rider – an ex rider of ours as well – and top 20 on GC.
That's big, but they've come through what I see as potentially the last real feeder out of domestic Australia, if things don't change. Where's our next one coming from? I don't know. There's some pretty solid talent coming through, but there's some big gaps.
MdN: I think for a lot of people, when you look at how Praties is going, and how dominant you guys were at the domestic level this year – if you guys are struggling to get funding together for next year, what does that say about the future of domestic racing here in Australia?
Well, it says a few things. I think the most important thing is that just because it's difficult for us, I don't think that means that it's difficult for everyone. I think everyone has different connections and different relationships, and they work in different fields and things like that. So I think there's certainly still plenty of people out there with money. I'm not telling them what they should do with it. I don't discourage the possibilities of new faces coming in to help.
We don't really speak about it in-house, but you know, we've been running this marathon for years, and to be honest, the majority of it's been into a headwind and it's been uphill as well. Again, I reiterate, people wouldn't do what Andrew Christie-Johnston's done and what I’ve done over the years for nothing. They just wouldn't do what we do for free. [Getting paid] is not what it's about, but it's just to say that our legs are getting tired as well because we’re always fighting. Every step of the way it's a fight in the background. We don't let that reflect on the riders, and nor should we, because that goes against everything that we're doing it for.
I think what Meridian Blue have been able to do has been really great. I think it's fantastic what ARA have done with an under-19 program. I think that's actually a really big positive. It's a negative against the greater scope of opportunities for the older riders, but certainly, I really think that's another positive. You can look at it glass half-full, glass half-empty, and I think that's definitely half-full. And if they can continue, that's an imperative program, but it needs to be accompanied with something for that next level too.
Because, as we've seen again – refer back to Talia Appleton: someone that's been on the simmer for a few years and really crescendoed in this last sort of three, four months. Gravel in Australia*, and then to go overseas and do what she's done, albeit not be selected for the World Championships. I think it's another example that the under-19 support's important, but certainly there has to be that next element of support as well.
[*Appleton was second at the Aussie Gravel Championships in April, behind Tiff Cromwell, then won the Devil’s Cardigan Gravel World Series Race in Tasmania in May, and took third in the Seven Gravel World Series Race in Western Australia the following week. – ed.]
MdN: So how much do you guys need to make the team viable for next year?
PS: $100,000 is what is needed. The other thing that's got to be understood as well is that this year, with our budget, we weren't able to support the athletes to the national titles. Because that's $45,000 on its own. So although [AusCycling] would feel very proud [about having Nationals in Perth – ed.], and I'm sure Perth and WA do as well, again, to be able to do anything like that [as a team from the eastern seaboard – ed.] is just out of control. It's just destroyed all possibilities of supporting a team to go to the Nationals, that's for sure.
That budget [$100,000] would allow us to essentially do what we have done in the past for the ProVelo series, and would allow us also to run a couple of gravel/mountain bike category riders as well. But short of that, it would really be silly to even entertain the idea, because we would just be turning up to race. We're not trying to develop these riders for the future, and we're not trying to have them do the steps which Felicity has done, Emily Watts, Talia Appleton …
MdN: You were telling me before you’ve got until the end of September to reach the $100,000 target. How confident are you of reaching that target?
PS: As each day goes I get less confident, obviously. That's the sad reality. I'm not a dreamer. To put it in perspective, three years ago: we were crowdfunded. And we were crowdfunded because a team in Australian cycling decided to fold, really without any notice to anyone, overnight. Just folded. I'd already seen what cycling had done for me and the opportunities it had given me, and then I'd seen the eyes of riders, whether it be in teams I worked with during that season, or from other teams, of that hope and that potential that, you know, “I've got a chance”, and I didn't want to see it die.
So I tried something, and it worked. But even then, we never really, truly knew it was going to happen, and then woke up one morning with that extra funding [the $100,000 donation – ed.], and that changed everything.
Is there someone out there that can do that? I hope so. But we need someone special to step up again.
MdN: So what's the pitch? Why should people donate to the crowdfunding campaign?
PS: Oh, same reason as always, because they could possibly be helping our next Olympic gold medalist, like Grace Brown. They could be helping the first-ever Australian Tour de France Femmes winner ... although Sarah Gigante might be the first Aussie, very soon to do that.
So that's why they do it. They want to see Aussie girls succeeding at the Olympics, the World Championships, and the likes. And we know we can do that, because we have been the only ones developing those riders for the last three years.
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