# Olympic BMX question...



## coffeejo (8 Aug 2012)

I watched a bit of the BMX seeding time trial this afternoon and have been trying to find out why the track is different for the women's race and the men's, but the internet is coming with zero suggestions.

Anyone?


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## srw (9 Aug 2012)

Because the poor weak girls can't possibly race as far as the big strong men.

Or something like that. It mystifies me, too - the experience of athletics has been that women's races can be just as competitive and entertaining as men's races over the same distances. So why cycling persists with discrimination by race length is beyond me. Give them the distance and they'll come and race.


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## asterix (9 Aug 2012)

Watched the last women's TdFrance, sat at the top of the Col du Tourmalet. It was pure chance, I just happened to be riding the other way at the right time and they closed the road for the race just as got there. No weak and feeble women in that field! And hardly any spectators, either, let alone a caravane. Shame they packed it in.


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## 400bhp (9 Aug 2012)

srw said:


> Because the poor weak girls can't possibly race as far as the big strong men.
> 
> Or something like that. It mystifies me, too - the experience of athletics has been that women's races can be just as competitive and entertaining as men's races over the same distances. So why cycling persists with discrimination by race length is beyond me. Give them the distance and they'll come and race.


 
Completely agree - perhaps the men's RR should have been the same length (shorter) as per the women's. Might have been much more attacking.


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## VamP (9 Aug 2012)

It's not the distance that's the issue, but the power that's required to ''safely'' complete some of the tougher bi-cross style jumps. Same reason why ski-cross and board-cross races are held on different tracks for men and women. 

It really has nothing to do with traditional gender roles, as these are all very young sports which have evolved this way due to physiological gender differences.


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## asterix (9 Aug 2012)

[QUOTE 1975179, member: 45"]I do know that they had to redesign the Olympic bmx track because during its first use they discovered it to be far too dangerous.[/quote]

I wonder what sort of expertise produced the first effort? BMX track design must be fairly well understood by BMX people.


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## MontyVeda (9 Aug 2012)

why can't we all just play nicely together?


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## oldroadman (9 Aug 2012)

asterix said:


> I wonder what sort of expertise produced the first effort? *BMX track design must be fairly well understood by BMX people*.


 
Quite. The first design was perhaps not by someone who was that clued up with what was required, rumour that the designer was more used to snow sports. An excellent choice!


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## asterix (9 Aug 2012)

MontyVeda said:


> why can't we all just play nicely together?


 
Dunno. How does it work?


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## MontyVeda (9 Aug 2012)

asterix said:


> Dunno. How does it work?


 
well, boys and girls all play together, competing as equals on the same playing field. Then you end up with fastest overall, fastest boy and fastest girl. Fastest fatty, fastest ginner, fastest in the 25-35 age bracket, how ever many way you want to categorise it can be done just from one single race instead of umpteen different groups run over several different courses.


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## asterix (9 Aug 2012)

I think I'd have been much better at sports if they'd thought of that sooner..


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## Rob3rt (9 Aug 2012)

MontyVeda said:


> well, boys and girls all play together, competing as equals on the same playing field. Then you end up with fastest overall, fastest boy and fastest girl. Fastest fatty, fastest ginner, fastest in the 25-35 age bracket, how ever many way you want to categorise it can be done just from one single race instead of umpteen different groups run over several different courses.


 
Look at the stat's you will soon see why the women and men are separated in many event's, it's not because women are perceived as lesser, the women and men's events are separate to give all athlete's the opportunity to shine.

Quick example of where dividing men and women is a good thing, seeding a match sprint event via a qualifying flying 200m TT, at this level you would essentially have a result sheet consisting of two blocks of competitors, men and women with a clear divide (baring the occasional exception), according to times posted (women are typically about 0.5 to 1 second down on the men's times). This would then have all of the 1st stage matches being a man vs a woman (slowest vs fastest, second slowest vs second fastest etc etc) and you basically see all females eliminated from the competition in the 1st stage proper, leaving the women to be rated based on flying laps rather than actual match sprint ability. Similarly in other events.

The argument for varying distances between men and women's events etc varies from event to event. It could depend on physiological differences or it could be as simple as something like there being more men involved in the sport than women, thus it being easier to find a team of certain size with men or vice versa (bare in mind many nations don't have such a large pool of athlete's so you would end up excluding certain nations in some cases by forcing equal distances). The team pursuit for example, men ride with 4 riders, over 4 km, women, 3 riders over 3km. 1km per rider on the front (if you divide workload equally which isn't really the case but never mind). Plus there is the money side of things, why combine events and get it over with quicker, when you can drag it out and make more money from tickets?


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## MontyVeda (9 Aug 2012)

well they do OK having just one London marathon.


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## Rob3rt (9 Aug 2012)

MontyVeda said:


> well they OK having just one London marathon.


 
The elite men and women still start at different times to each other so are essentially running seperate races!


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## VamP (9 Aug 2012)

MontyVeda said:


> well, boys and girls all play together, competing as equals on the same playing field. Then you end up with fastest overall, fastest boy and fastest girl. Fastest fatty, fastest ginner, fastest in the 25-35 age bracket, how ever many way you want to categorise it can be done just from one single race instead of umpteen different groups run over several different courses.


 

The short answer is that every sport is different.

The long answer is that while endurance sports are moslty compatible with this format, power sports simply are not. For obvious reasons. In outright power sports competitors are further categorized by weight classes. Imagine the carnage if all weightlifters had to lift the same weight.


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## MontyVeda (9 Aug 2012)

Do you reckon it was a man or a woman that decided the 'girls' should have shorter courses? I get the weight lifting analogy... but the BMX course and many other sports I find it more than a little patronising.

As far as recall, the men and women competed on the same snowboarding course a couple of years ago... unless they started further down the hill.


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## Ajay (9 Aug 2012)

There are no "men only" sports at these Olympics, yet there are two just for women. Equality still has some way to go.
I'm just off to the pool with my partner for our synchronised swimming session.


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## VamP (9 Aug 2012)

MontyVeda said:


> Do you reckon it was a man or a woman that decided the 'girls' should have shorter courses? I get the weight lifting analogy... but the BMX course and many other sports I find it more than a little patronising.
> 
> As far as recall, the men and women competed on the same snowboarding course a couple of years ago... unless they started further down the hill.


 

I think both the male and female competitors are happy to have the courses they have.


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## PpPete (9 Aug 2012)

I like the way the women's course pops up out of that tunnel under the men's course.
Good TV too - lots of slo-mos of riders against blue sky today.


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## rich p (10 Aug 2012)

I haven't actually seen any but am I to gather that adults riding childrens' bikes is an Olympic sport?


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## theclaud (10 Aug 2012)

rich p said:


> I haven't actually seen any but am I to gather that adults riding childrens' bikes is an Olympic sport?


 
You catch on quick, grandad. Time for your cocoa now.


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## lordloveaduck (10 Aug 2012)

I would love to do BMX. But i can't justify getting a bike that can't do the shoping on 
Still watching it and loving it.


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## byegad (10 Aug 2012)

I thought the question was going to be:- 'Are they all mad?'

The pile ups you see look positively dangerous, even compared to close quarter sprint stages of the big road races. Yesterday
they were talking about one of the competitors having had his spleen removed 2 months ago!

Great spectacle! I'll be watching from behind the sofa today.


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## fimm (10 Aug 2012)

I think the differences between what men and women do vary from sport to sport, are sometimes historical and sometimes a result of the differences in strength/power etc between men and women. BMX is a relatively "young" sport as far as I know, and I am happy to accept the explanation upthread that jumps that will really challenge the men are too big for women to negociate safely. (I'll bet that the riders are very safety focussed precisely because of the risks involved.) Another random example I was reading about the other day is that the women throw a much lighter hammer than men do.

On the other hand, it used to be that women were thought incapable of running further than 3km. Not any more. And I do wonder about the differences in some of the track events - is there a good reason that the women's pursuit is 3km and the men's 4km? (I'm going from memory, so I apologise if I have got the distances or races wrong.) I think the UCI is somewhat conservative in this area...


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## VamP (10 Aug 2012)

byegad said:


> I thought the question was going to be:- 'Are they all mad?'
> 
> The pile ups you see look positively dangerous, even compared to close quarter sprint stages of the big road races. Yesterday
> they were talking about one of the competitors having had his spleen removed 2 months ago!
> ...


 

It's proper hardcore crazy-assed madness, isn't it?


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## Rob3rt (10 Aug 2012)

fimm said:


> I think the differences between what men and women do vary from sport to sport, are sometimes historical and sometimes a result of the differences in strength/power etc between men and women. BMX is a relatively "young" sport as far as I know, and I am happy to accept the explanation upthread that jumps that will really challenge the men are too big for women to negociate safely. (I'll bet that the riders are very safety focussed precisely because of the risks involved.) Another random example I was reading about the other day is that the women throw a much lighter hammer than men do.
> 
> On the other hand, it used to be that women were thought incapable of running further than 3km. Not any more. *And I do wonder about the differences in some of the track events - is there a good reason that the women's pursuit is 3km and the men's 4km?* (I'm going from memory, so I apologise if I have got the distances or races wrong.) I think the UCI is somewhat conservative in this area...


 
It possibly comes from tradition, forged in past years. They will always match the distance of the female individual and team pursuit, but in past years due to the general population of people involved with the sport, with most being male, some nations may not be able to find 4 world class female riders due to the general distribution of male to females involved in the sport. They could probably find someone, but maybe not in the same league. So they have essentially assigned 1km per rider, ending up at 3km, then just said, individuals ride the same distance as the teams.

That may or may not be the reason, but to me it doesn't sound too far fetched.


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## Boris Bajic (10 Aug 2012)

rich p said:


> I haven't actually seen any but am I to gather that adults riding childrens' bikes is an Olympic sport?


 
The NASCAR phenomenon was born of the need for moonshiners to outrun the law in hopped-up cars.

In a similar way, the UK crack cocaine and heroin industries developed a cash-and-commodities delivery system that relied on innocent-looking youngsters riding with speed and agility on BMX bikes to evade the rozzers.

I do not want to complete what might seem like an inappropriate analogy.

In fact, I didn't even start to see a connection there.


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## lordloveaduck (10 Aug 2012)

Boris Bajic said:


> The NASCAR phenomenon was born of the need for moonshiners to outrun the law in hopped-up cars.
> 
> In a similar way, the UK crack cocaine and heroin industries developed a cash-and-commodities delivery system that relied on innocent-looking youngsters riding with speed and agility on BMX bikes to evade the rozzers.
> 
> ...


 
They were just the bikes that were the latest craze at the time (i blame ET and BMX BANDITS)
The BMX craze had started long before all of this.


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## Boris Bajic (10 Aug 2012)

lordloveaduck said:


> They were just the bikes that were the latest craze at the time (i blame ET and BMX BANDITS)
> The BMX craze had started long before all of this.


 
Sorry, I was being a bad troll.

You are right.


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