In article ,
Seecyd wrote:

Ryan Cousineau wrote:

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.

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?

Women compete in all these events, and they routinely are slower than
men. There is a Tour for women, the Tour de Feminin. If a woman was fast
enough to take part in the tour, they would probably allow it (I'm
pretty sure the rules don't specify the sex of riders), but I'm also
pretty sure that barring a Tammy Thomas-style sex change fiasco, there
will be no competitive women in the Tour in my lifetime. And I'm still
pretty young.

--
Ryan Cousineau, http://www.sfu.ca/~rcousine
President, Fabrizio Mazzoleni Fan Club