Could women riders catch the TDF men?

[Pro Tour Punditry]

Ohhh you've all gone and done it now, this place will be full of womenfolk on a rant; no longer the safe male bastion of slagging off dopers and worshipping people of the Sky, it'll be feminax and mooncups.

 

[deptfordmarmoset]

I for one am not interested in token gestures by letting women compete against men to the detriment of womens sport....''

The trouble is that that detriment already exists, generalised and pervasive. Here's a recent, possibly still current, advertising poster for Clark's shoes. The CEO refused to withdraw them because, I suppose from his point of view they reflected the segregation that a large part of the blue v pink market already expects.

The girl who strays into the active blue side of shoe wearing becomes a tomboy, and thereby manages to lose her gender. And the narrow stereotyped version of femininity prevails, untarnished by reality. And then companies won't come forward and sponsor women's cycling racing, presumably because their market audience has gone shoe shopping.

 

[deptfordmarmoset]

but this is surely the wider question of the detriment of women in society, the question was can they compete againist men in the TDF....

The degree to which women are restricted to a falsely narrow idea of femininity (which precedes the point at which girls are likely to get into competitive sports) means there's a far smaller base of riders to pick from and compete against. When we get being sporty included into common ideas of femininity we'll be able to look at the purely physiological aspects of male versus female performance. Until then I believe we still have to take these notions into account.

Personally, I don't think there's any need to merge women's and men's cycling. Sure, there will be times when there are direct challenges and a Vos will take up the Billy Jean King role. Incidentally, Laura Trott was talking about women's cycling on Radio 4 this morning and it sounded like she'd been reading @Flying_Monkey 's thread over on Pro Cycling. And that's why I want you all to be watching La Course on Sunday!

 

[Joshua Plumtree]

.

So what exactly does this say about boys who love comfort and style?

 

[Dogtrousers]

Women have done well in the Iditarod sled dog race. Aliy Zirkle has been second for the last two years. Susan Butcher ruled the roost for several years in the 80s. Deedee Jonrowe has placed well a couple of times and won the half way prize (a bag of nuggets at Cripple - I kid you not) a few years back.

FWIW here's an interview with Aliy Zirkle on the subject of being a woman athlete. She doesn't say anything really amazing but interesting-ish.

View: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-KaliqsrH94

 

[srw]

Golf is a power sport. Cricket is a power and speed and strength sport. (Ok not all aspects of golf and cricket). I am 5'6" and used to play golf a fair bit and was a low single figure handicap. I had good hand speed and strong arms but with shorter levers I could not generate the club head speed to match taller men in distance.

Golf is not a driving competition. Cricket is not a speed bowling competition.

In golf, it's not the person who drives the furthest (which is the only power aspect) who wins - it's the person who gets the ball in the hole in the fewest shots. In cricket, it's only batting and fast bowling which are out-and-out power aspects. David Gower was one of the most successful batsman of his day without being desperately powerful. THe top three wicket-takers in test cricket of all time (Murali, Warne, Kumble) were all spinners.

 

[fimm]

A question from a different angle:
Watching Marianne Vos win on Sunday, she's obviously a good sprinter. She can also win GC races. This is not usual in the men's peloton, as male sprinters can't climb fast enough to keep up with the lighter climbing specialists due to power-to-weight ratio stuff. In the past I think there were men who could do both - Merckx I think is an example - but these days men train specifically to do one thing or the other.

However women don't build muscle to the same extent that men do; so I was wondering if there will always be women who can do both, can be all rounders in a way that men can't?

Does that question make sense? I know what I am trying to say, and have tried to be clear without writing a very long essay.