Ryan Cousineau wrote:
In article , "GIGANews"
wrote:
Beryl Burton in her prime arguably rode as an equal with most men in
her time trial categories, but that isn't the same as on the track or
in a mass start race. She also arguably was the greatest female
cyclist in history (a lot of Brits would strike the 'arguably').
The reason that you will not see a woman in the Tour de France in our
lifetime is that any woman at that athletic level could make a larger
fortune dominating a woman's sport with money than being a domestique
on the Tour. To pretend otherwise is to put political correctness
above reality.
That's one way to put it. Another way is that the world has probably not
yet seen a woman at the athletic level to compete in the TdF.
This isn't meant as a knock on the numerous excellent female cyclists:
the best of them might be able to trail along somewhere near the back
of the pack for several stages, which is far more than most male
cyclists could do. But the Tour's demands for huge endurance to survive
the event, massive power to do well in the TTs, and more massive power
combined with minimum weight to do well in the mountains does not
favour women.
Among male cyclists, the Tour only takes 200, and it's a fair bet that
even the worst domestique on FDJeux is one of the 1000 best riders in
the world, and probably more like top 300. All of the great GC riders in
the world are at the tour (Cipo is good, but he's no GC rider, and I
don't see giving a tour spot to a guy who has repeatedly ridden the tour
only until it pointed uphill), and even so most of them don't have a
hope of winning this event, and of the rest, 2 (Lance and your pick of
the others) have a straight chance of victory, and probably 3 others
will have a shot if the favourites falter.
Venus and Serena Williams once made a foolhardy boast about being better
than any tennis player outside of the top 200 men. A guy ranked about
211 in the world then went out and demolished them one after the other
in a pair of exhibition sets. I think the final scores were about 6-1
and 6-3 or so, and he flaunted the fact that he had taken a fairly
relaxed approach to the event. This rule of thumb seems to hold in most
sports: you can generally expect the best women to be about as good as
the 200th-best men, better in finesse sports, worse in physical sports.
--
Ryan Cousineau,
http://www.sfu.ca/~rcousinehttp://www.sfu.ca/~rcousine President,
Fabrizio Mazzoleni Fan Club

Women compete in marathons, triathlons, duathlons, and ironman
distances... I suppose the Tour has just always been reserved as a man's
sporting event. If more women were to show interest, a women's version
of the Tour would be resurrected, I'm sure. If a woman were able to take
part in the 'tour, and not be left in the dust, would they disallow her
to take part in it?




--
You can't be good, unless you love it!

You can't be good, unless you love it!

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