Tour de France: No Women Ever?

In article m,
Zippy the Pinhead writes:
On Fri, 11 Jul 2003 00:59:19 -0700, Ryan Cousineau
wrote:

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.

I prayed about this, and learned that it won't happen in God's
lifetime, either.

It might be closer than you think. Michelle Dumaresq:
http://www.peak.sfu.ca/the-peak/2003...-xrossing.html


cheers,
Tom

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In article ,
(Tom Keats) wrote:

In article m,
Zippy the Pinhead writes:
On Fri, 11 Jul 2003 00:59:19 -0700, Ryan Cousineau
wrote:

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.

I prayed about this, and learned that it won't happen in God's
lifetime, either.

It might be closer than you think. Michelle Dumaresq:
http://www.peak.sfu.ca/the-peak/2003...-xrossing.html

Aw crap. The problem with tranny pros is that it just isn't fair.
Michelle or Michael, s/he has a man's physique trapped in a transvestite
body. It's pretty unfair competition for all those women who started
life as women.

I think that at the International level Michelle is not welcome in the
women's races. You want to race, fine, go race in the men's race, just
don't go playing stupid games like being a pro-quality "female" racer.
It belies the whole purpose of a women's race.

The nightmare scenario is of course that day when transsexual "women"
are allowed universally, and start to routinely dominate women's racing.
What then, three classes of racing?

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

In a word: Biology.

Elisa Francesca Roselli wrote:

Watching all those gorgeous hunks on the TV a few nights ago for the
Centennary Start-Off of the Tour de France, I was bemused by the
realization that I had never heard of a female participant in this
famous race.

Is it true that the race has never included women? and if so, does
anyone have any idea why? I would have thought that cycling was a
particularly gender-egalitarian sport: there's nothing about it that's
visibly macho, either iconographically or anatomically. And ambitious
sportswomen have made a point of infiltrating all the "bastion sports"
to compete with men - one thinks of some of those sinewy tennis-women or
those America Cup captainesses. On a media-and-advertizing level, I
recently heard that women's events, or events including women, draw as
well as the all-male events these days, producing sexy, marketable
championesses. And I would have thought that the Tour was most
assimilable to a Marathon Run, where female participants start off with
the men and where you often have a first male and a first female
finisher.

My mind flashes back to a feature I saw in last month's WIRED magazine,
about cool new products. There was a vignette on a racing-bike that had
only just been issued in a version designed for women. The author
reflected on a vicious circle whereby there was no "market" for women's
competitive cycling and so no bicycles were being made for female
contestants. Could that be all?

Not that I'm getting any smarmy ideas.... %°

Elisa Roselli
Paris, France

--


Tp

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Freedom is not free; Free men are not equal; Equal men are not free.

No one here is doubting that there are great women athletes. The OP's question
was have there been any female riders in the TdF and if not, why not. The
undeniable fact is that the best female riders in the world would not be
competitive *in that race*. That's not sexist. It's simply an acknowledgement
of certain biological facts.

Regards,
Bob Hunt

Ryan Cousineau wrote:
: and virtually anyone in this group who managed to
: start the Tour would be dropped and time-barred after the first stage.

fabrizio, ryan. it took 2 or 3.
--
david reuteler

Hunrobe wrote:

That's why there
are tests for steroids. They aren't looking for abnormally high levels of
estrogen. ;-)


Heh, good point.

Elisa Roselli
Paris, France

Hmm, transexuals would rather skew the game. What an interesting
consideration!

Wouldn't a transexual fail a steroid test? They must take quantities of
hormones to keep the sex change in place, no? And female hormones are steroids
just like male ones.

I suppose legislation and rules would have to evlove to keep up with these new
cases.

Elisa Roselli
Paris, France

Ryan Cousineau wrote:

IAw crap. The problem with tranny pros is that it just isn't fair.
Michelle or Michael, s/he has a man's physique trapped in a transvestite
body. It's pretty unfair competition for all those women who started
life as women.

I think that at the International level Michelle is not welcome in the
women's races. You want to race, fine, go race in the men's race, just
don't go playing stupid games like being a pro-quality "female" racer.
It belies the whole purpose of a women's race.

The nightmare scenario is of course that day when transsexual "women"
are allowed universally, and start to routinely dominate women's racing.
What then, three classes of racing?

In article ,
says...
Hmm, transexuals would rather skew the game. What an interesting
consideration!

Wouldn't a transexual fail a steroid test? They must take quantities of
hormones to keep the sex change in place, no? And female hormones are steroids
just like male ones.

Not as the term is usually used. Anabolic steriods used for performance
enhancement are mostly chemically related to testosterone, not estrogen.
I don't think estrogen would ever be classified as a performance
enhancing drug (at least not in athletic events Grin).

.....

--
David Kerber
An optimist says "Good morning, Lord." While a pessimist says "Good
Lord, it's morning".

Remove the ns_ from the address before e-mailing.

The fierce levels of sustained aerobic exertion are what make elite
cycling inaccessible to virtually any women.

Physiologically, isn't it an issue of mussle strength rather than
sustained aerobic exertion?

Physiologically, isn't it an issue of mussle strength rather than
sustained aerobic exertion?


Not really.

Muscle strength is directly proportional to muscle size. Men develop much
larger muscles then women especially in the upper body because of naturally
occuring anabolic steroids that men have.

But men also have higher hemoglobin concentrations in their blood then women by
about 10%-20% and larger hearts. Larger hearts pump more blood. More blood
delivers more oxygen to the muscles. More oxygen to the muscles means a
greater sustained aerobic exertion. Simple.

Of course, the greatest long distance swimmer ever was a woman. She had a
surprisingly high body fat for an athelete - it was like she was a seal with a
layer of blubber. This women, I forget her name, swam the Bering Strait
without a wet suit. That water is cold enough to kill a normal human pretty
quickly. Amazing.