We had to pinch ourselves to just to make sure we hadn’t gone back in time tonight when the EWS head honcho Chris Ball brought to our attention this promotional post from the Losinj World Cup.

The post, regrammed by the official Losinj World Cup page, shows a scantily clad woman washing a bike with the caption: “Girls are getting excited”.

Edit: The post has now been removed.

Given that some of the greatest ever women downhill racers in history will be heading to the Croatian town in just nine weeks time, you can’t help but feel they’ve royally missed the mark on this one.

Mountain biking should have moved past things like this long ago and this only reminds us of other monumental marketing fuck ups of recent years such as #sockgate and the Playboy e-bike. Now, let’s be clear, this is no attack on the woman in question who can take whatever photos she wants but surely the organisers should know better than to regram her photo as official promotional material?

Chris Ball said: “In the same month [the World Enduro Series] announce a ban on podium girls in their 2018 rule book, the first DH World Cup of the year post this. How do we expect to get female participation to increase in our sport with this nonsense at the top level? Sort it out.”

We’ve reached out to try and get an answer back from the Losinj team and will let you know when we do.