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#11
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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 -- -- Powered by FreeBSD Above address is just a spam midden. I'm really at: tkeats [curlicue] vcn [point] bc [point] ca |
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#13
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Tour de France: No Women Ever?
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 -------- __o ----- -\. ------ __o --- ( ) / ( ) ---- -\. ----------------- ( ) / ( ) --------------------------------------------- Freedom is not free; Free men are not equal; Equal men are not free. |
#14
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Tour de France: No Women Ever?
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 |
#15
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Tour de France: No Women Ever?
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#16
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Tour de France: No Women Ever?
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 |
#17
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Tour de France: No Women Ever?
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? |
#18
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Tour de France: No Women Ever?
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#19
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Tour de France: No Women Ever?
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? |
#20
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Tour de France: No Women Ever?
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. |
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