Online petition for a women’s Tour de France

[Riley Casey]

There are all sorts of issues of the social efficiency inherent in gender inclusion, fairness, innumerable benefits too profound to belabor but we don’t need to go there do we TdF organizers? Lets get to the really important stuff. Add a large group of extremely well toned young women in colorful tight lycra to your camera shots and watch those ratings and advertising dollars ( Euros ) go thru the roof!

[TwoWheelsDC]

What bothers me about this whole debate is that the detractors usually say something like “women’s cycling is boring…I’d watch if they were actually fast.” While I’d guess that the average women’s peleton moves slightly slower than the men’s, can you really tell the difference between 31 and 28mph while watching on TV? Or an ascent up Alpe d’Huez at 10mph rather than 13? Um, no. Cycling is all about the strategy, the breaks, the sprint finishes, all of which you’d see in a women’s race. I vote yes.

And I can’t help but think any performance differences between the men and the women would shrink as women gained access to the same resources as the men, and training was more integrated. I think culture is a bigger factor in performance here than any fundamental physiological differences between men and women.

[Steve]

I just hope if they do it that they call it the WTF.

Agree with TwoWheels that unlike some other sports where size/strength/speed differences are more apparent, the difference in cycling (marginal speed) really isn’t something you can see while watching it on TV. You almost never know how fast they are going, and whether it be men or women, they are going quite a bit faster than I ever could. All you have to do it watch the Olympics or watching Wellington blow by people in Kona like they are standing still to know that it’d be fun to watch.

[PotomacCyclist]

Over 70,000 people have signed the petition already.

During last week’s broadcasts, the commentators mentioned the recent history of the Tour and compared it to the Olympics. They said that the Tour was dying in the early 1970s before the French government realized what an asset the race was, and allowed the Tour to finish on the Champs-Elysees for the first time. The TdF has an international audience and an international group of competitors and teams, similar to the Olympics.

But a key difference is that the modern Olympics prominently feature women’s competitions and female athletes. Many of the key Olympic events are in the women’s competitions, such as gymnastics, Alpine skiing, swimming, track and field, and soccer. That certainly hasn’t hurt the popularity of the Olympics. It is one of the major reasons for the popularity of the Olympics.

This is also a good time for a major change with the Tour, especially after the Lance Armstrong admission. Not that he was the only doper over the last 20 years, but he is the most prominent. Adding some sort of women’s Tour can help to mark a new era in the history of the TdF and in pro cycling in general.

UCI rules are different for women’s competitions, with shorter limits on distances and on the number of days. I don’t know all the details and whether or not it would be wise to alter the rules for a women’s TdF. Other people can work that out. But I think it would be great even if they started out with a shorter race at first. Maybe an 8-day event, perhaps during the week before the men’s Tour. I’m not so sure about having the women’s race at the same time as the men. It’s already difficult enough for most people to watch 2-3 hrs. or more of television coverage each day. Very few people would watch two multi-hour sports programs on the same day, day after day.

There is also a scheduling problem with the Giro Rosa, currently the only Grand Tour in women’s pro cycling. That race takes place in late June/early July. One of the petition sponsors suggested that the Giro Rosa could move to a different time of the year. That might be difficult for the organizers, but maybe all the interested parties can work something out.

[ShawnoftheDread]

@TwoWheelsDC 59073 wrote:

And I can’t help but think any performance differences between the men and the women would shrink as women gained access to the same resources as the men, and training was more integrated. I think culture is a bigger factor in performance here than any fundamental physiological differences between men and women.

Assuming this is true, a big assumption, it seems to me an argument in favor of women joining the current tour, not the creation of a women’s tour.

[TwoWheelsDC]

@ShawnoftheDread 59123 wrote:

Assuming this is true, a big assumption, it seems to me an argument in favor of women joining the current tour, not the creation of a women’s tour.

Right…and I think the petition argues for something closer to a co-ed tour than a totally separate tour (“We seek not to race against the men, but to have our own professional field running in conjunction with the men’s event, at the same time, over the same distances, on the same days, with modifications in start/finish times so neither gender’s race interferes with the other.”) I think what would happen is that the teams would eventually unify, so you’d have, for example, a Sky team with both men and women on it, who’d all have access to the same pool of team resources (trainers, sponsors, etc…) which ultimately would increase performance parity. I’ll admit that I know very little about amateur bike racing, but my understanding is that women’s teams largely are treated as their own entities, and there are very few, if any, teams made up of men and women that have the same team management, sponsors, funding streams, etc…

After that, who knows…maybe there could be a mechanism where women are brought in to compete directly against the men…either on an individual basis, or a team basis. Look at NASCAR…lots of people thought that a woman couldn’t drive at the same level as the men, but whaddya know, that isn’t the case. Really, it was just a matter of giving women a shot at it. I think cycling can do the same…give women a shot to compete with the men (and not just a one-time race or a single season, it’s going to take time) and I think they’ll do extremely well.

[ShawnoftheDread]

@TwoWheelsDC 59130 wrote:

Look at NASCAR…lots of people thought that a woman couldn’t drive at the same level as the men, but whaddya know, that isn’t the case.

As far as I know, this has yet to be proven either way. Yes, women are driving in the same field but I think there has yet to be a cup contender. Unless you count Jeff Gordon.

[KelOnWheels]

France is just skurred that Vos would beat all the menfolks

(There was going to be a question here about why women are slower than men, but I figured it out )

[PotomacCyclist]

In some ultramarathons, the top women do beat all the men. I don’t know how often this occurs, but it’s not a rare occasion these days. I think I read somewhere that once you get to the ultra-endurance levels, women become more competitive, and in at least a few cases, start to surpass men.

I don’t know how this applies to stage road racing. Since there have never been 21-stage women’s races, no one really knows the answer to this. Ultramarathons are often hilly, just like the Tour de France is, so muscular endurance comes into play in both events. But daily recovery over the course of a 3-week event would be new territory for women’s cycling.

I think it’s worth experimenting, to see how everything works out, but maybe start off with less than a 3-week race at first. Not just because of the physical challenges for the racers, but also in terms of the logistics for the race organizers.

[Greenbelt]

+1 for this. I think it would be awesome to have women’s teams in all the stage races. Same courses, same dates, same approx start time. My idea would be to just let the women start further up the road and see if the men’s peloton could catch them before the finish! Would open up lots of tactical possibilities for both the men’s and women’s teams!

[DismalScientist]

@PotomacCyclist 59185 wrote:

In some ultramarathons, the top women do beat all the men. I don’t know how often this occurs, but it’s not a rare occasion these days. I think I read somewhere that once you get to the ultra-endurance levels, women become more competitive, and in at least a few cases, start to surpass men.

In the Race Across America, there are both solo men and women riders. The men have maintained a distinct advantage.

[Author]

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