So "podium boys" will be handing out bouquets and offering synchronised kisses to the winners at La Course - the inaugural women's cycle race taking place in the Champs-Élysées on July 27, the same day the men's Tour de France finishes there. Ooh la la.

Of course this knowing subversion of the convention attached to male road racing is aiming at publicity for an event that will involve 13 laps of the Champs-Élysées (90km) and will also feature women motorbike riders, policewomen from the Paris Police Prefecture and a 100 per cent female jury.

The announcement put me in mind of Peter Kay's one-liner:  "My dad used to say 'always fight fire with fire' - which is probably why he got thrown out of the fire brigade."

British comedian Peter Kay has a one-liner which, in a funny kind of way, relates to the forthcoming La Course women's cycling race ©AFP/Getty Images

It has been suggested - humorously, of course - that Marianne Vos, the Netherlands' multiple world and Olympic road race champion, could fully even the scores for her sex by pinching the bottom of one of the attending males on the podium, thus mirroring the action of Slovakia's Peter Sagan after last year's Tour of Flanders, where he finished runner-up to Fabian Cancellara and earned widespread condemnation for his unwanted attentions to one of the two hostesses feting the winner.

But the thing is, even if Vos temporarily lost her mind and did such a thing, it would not be amusing. Just as the La Course subversion of a wearisome and outdated piece of sexism is not amusing.

Of one thing you can be sure - the "podium girls" idea was a male one. It is in the same milieu as bikini-clad beauties parading the round numbers in the ring at boxing matches. The novelty reversal at La Course appears to be challenging, but in fact it is patronising. Whose idea was it? Male or female, it doesn't matter. It was a bad one.

Slovakian rider Peter Sagan (left) lowers the tone at the end of last year's Tour of Flanders, which was won by Fabian Cancellara (right) ©Getty Images

And yet the desire to be picked as a podium hostess on the men's Tour is clearly huge. Tour de France organisers normally have to reduce a potential entry of 500 applicants down to the required 50.

You could argue that such a conjunction seeks to heighten the glamour of elite sport. But it offers no more than a facile notion of glamour. And I don't imagine Vos, or indeed her now retired predecessor as Olympic road race champion, Britain's Nicole Cooke, would find much jollity in the novel podium twist at La Course when there are other fundamentally more important innovations required in order to offer women cyclists what you might term "a fair turn of the wheel" in the sport.

The first "La Course by le Tour de France", to give the event its full title, is part of the International Cycling Union's (UCI) elite women's calendar and it will mean women racing "alongside" men at the most famous finish in cycling for the first time since 1989.

The former women's version of the Tour de France - La Grande Boucle - ailed throughout the early years of the new millennium because of organisational difficulties and lack of funding, The UCI downgraded it in the ratings. It was discontinued in 2009.

The grand days of the Grand Boucle - Germany's Petra Rossner celebrates winning the 11th stage of the women's 'Tour de France' race, which was discontinued in 2009 ©AFP/Getty Images

Last year an online campaign was launched to establish a three-week women's tour to run alongside the men's version, generating more than 95,000 signatures. That ambition has not been met - but the single day's racing in such a high profile setting is seen as a significant precursor to that ultimate aim.

"We must be given a stage and it is great that ASO [Amaury Sport Organisation, the organisers of the Tour de France] has taken the initiative," said Vos at the official launch of La Course.

"They have opened their powerful doors, providing one of the most important stages in the world on one of the most important days on the calendar. The world will be watching. We are catching up, and catching up fast." She added: "I have no doubt it is the start of a new era for women's cycling."

Multiple world and Olympic road race champion Marianne Vos promoting the inaugural La Course race in Paris ©Getty Images

The development was also described as a "game-changer for women's cycling" by Britain's four-time Ironman triathlon champion Chrissie Wellington, who has been part of the campaign.

One factor which is far more significant than the nonsense surrounding the presentations at La Course is the hard fact that the winner will winner will receive €22,500 (£18,247/$30,781), equal to the total on offer for the men's stage finish later in the day.

In conjunction with the inaugural Women's Tour of Britain, a five-day race won by Vos earlier this month, La Course looks as if it truly might be a harbinger of serious renewal in women's road racing.

But as Cooke's valedictory speech, marking her retirement after the London 2012 Games, indicated, there is a long way to go:

"There are so many ways in which the UCI could support the sport for women, but instead they have acted, regardless of their intent, in a way that has caused the sport to lose events. Gone are the women's Milan San Remo, the Amstel Gold Race, Tour de L'Aude, Tour Midi Pyrenees, and Tour Castel de Leon. No HP tour in America," Cooke said in January of last year.

"No Tours in Australia, New Zealand or Canada. Instead of a two-week Tour de France we have nothing. Today, in January, the major race in the women's calendar this year, the one from which I have the pink T-shirt, has no organiser and no route.

Britain's Nicole Cooke, pictured with her Olympic gold medal from the 2008 Beijing Games road race, offered an honest and challenging view of her sport when she retired in 2013 ©AFP/Getty Images

"With sponsors and support lost, the riders in the sport are exposed and vulnerable in so many ways. Many riders receive just token reward or rewards paid out in a capricious and unfair way. Some receive nothing."

Meanwhile there are other ideas circulating on making the podium experience less of a shallow one. Writing on peletoncafe.com.au, Caelli Greenbank asks:

"Is there really any particular meaning to a model hired for a two-hour stint of wearing high heels and a tight dress who probably can't tell Jens Voigt from Fabian Cancellara? Is this supposed to represent cycling somehow?"

She goes on to suggest that the honour of presenting elite cyclists with their prizes should go to other more deserving, and more importantly, more representative individuals:

"What about the woman who started the juniors program at the local cycling club, or maybe the guy who won the last club race, or the local girl who rode all around Australia to raise money for cancer? What about the man who kept cycling once he survived cancer?  As they zip up the winner's jersey and shake their hand, or kiss their cheek, or bear-hug them, the commentators on the live coverage can add a short byline to explain the special circumstances that merited their choice as the podium people. It'll make a great little human interest story to market each race around the world."

Sounds good to me.

Mike Rowbottom, one of Britain's most talented sportswriters, covered the London 2012 Olympics and Paralympics as chief feature writer for insidethegames, having covered the previous five summer Games, and four winter Games, for The Independent. He has worked for the Daily Mail, The Times, The Observer, The Sunday Correspondent and The Guardian. His latest book Foul Play – the Dark Arts of Cheating in Sport (Bloomsbury £12.99) is available at the insidethegames.biz shop. To follow him on Twitter click here.