Apparel brand Katusha Sports announced Friday that it will be co-title sponsor of the existing women's professional cycling team in 2020. A representative of the company told Cycling News that after 10 years of sponsoring men's cycling, it was time to invest in women's cycling and develop equality within the sport.

"The fact that the percentage of women working for Katusha Sport is over 50% says 'yes' to gender equality," a spokesperson for Katusha Sport told Cycling News.

"Obviously, for many and most cycling companies, men's cycling is seen as the strongest thing to aim for because it has more coverage and viewers. The truth is that women's cycling will never grow unless we start investing in it.

"Katusha Sports felt it was time to invest in women's cycling in some way. We needed to put our money where our mouth is, so to speak."

"We felt it was time to invest in women's cycling.

Katusha Sports has financially supported men's cycling at the World Tour level for a decade. The company took over the title sponsorship of Tinkoff Credit Systems, a former team owned by Russian billionaire Oleg Tinkoff; in 2008, Tinkoff, together with Katusha Sport and German shampoo manufacturer Alpecin, created the organization and structure transferred to Igor Makarov and his company Areti International Group.

However, the future of the Katusha-Alpecin team has been in doubt since the summer, when Alpecin and bike sponsor Canyon announced that they were ending their support. It was recently announced that Katusha and its current pro-continental team, the Israel Cycling Academy (ICA), will sign a three-year contract.

According to the announcement, ICA will run the team, which will include most of the riders and staff currently under contract to Team Katusha-Alpecin. Katusha will remain a partner and provide clothing to the professional riders, as it has done for the past three years. Katusha Sport will also co-title the women's program.

A spokesperson for Katusha Sports told Cycling News that plans to partner with a women's team began last winter and an agreement was reached with an existing team in June.

Katusha Sports will announce the partnership as early as next week.

Rather than buying the women's program, Katusha Sports will co-title the teams and provide additional financial support and assistance throughout the season. The team, along with equipment and other sponsors, will remain in its current structure.

"There were so many unknowns in Katusha-Alpecin this year that starting our own women's team was not something we considered at this point. We are very excited about this," a spokesperson told CyclingNews.

"We are the headline sponsor. It will be separate from the men's team. Katusha Sports will sponsor two teams. As for our involvement with the teams, we will support them 100% as much as we can. Katusha Sports will create content about the teams, reach out to the media, and raise awareness, as any good sponsor would.

"There will also be a financial contribution. We will increase the team's budget."

"We will increase the team's budget.

Katusha Sports sees its partnership with the women's team as an opportunity to continue developing its clothing. According to a press release, Katusha Sports will use the professional team as a research and development venue, allowing the company to offer cutting-edge technology, features, and styles to both the men's and women's markets.

"We are very excited. We have more women working at Katusha Sports than men. We wanted to bring equality to this sport. It is difficult to develop a product for women.

"We have an ongoing commitment to this sport.