A Belgian cyclist says she was denied a management job with a men’s cycling team after she appeared in Playboy. Tara Gins, 30, posed for the magazine last year and also posed for a nude calendar.
“In May last year, I did a photoshoot for Playboy, and then two months later I did another photoshoot for a calendar for a Belgian company,” Gins told Cycling News. Gins rode professionally from 2016 to 2020 for cycling teams in Belgium and worked as director for a high profile women’s race.
“I had a verbal agreement to start working for a team as a sports director this year. A men’s team, where I would work with the young athletes and the elites,” Gins wrote on Instagram. “That was something that I was really looking forward to because that is the direction that I want to go in.
“[The team boss] started the conversation by saying that he was breaking off the commitment that we had because someone on the team, a staff member came across pictures of me,” Gins claimed. She continued:
That person sent the pictures in a group chat to the other staff members. Apparently, it was a chat that I was not included in. Someone must have threatened the manager to send those pictures to one of the sponsors because that person has I don’t know what kind of relationship with the sponsor.
“Apparently these are now too inappropriate to work with riders. Apparently, a photo is more important than capabilities or experience,” she added.
Gins is no stranger to posing for risqué photos. Her Instagram page features the cyclist revealing her sporty figure in several photos wearing her team uniform and posing with her bike.