Wednesday, July 08, 2009

Ridiculous

No wonder the jackass wanted to remain "anonymous."

"Which Jackass are you referring to GeWilli?"

The promoter here in the CX Mag's story.

I dunno, but the Pro Women I've run across train equally as hard, sacrifice more, and put on a race just as (or more) exciting than the Pro Men do. Esp in CX.

So yeah the Giro Donne has maybe 50 less riders than the TdF, but are they racing as hard? Um. Yeah.

To be honest I have to agree with CX Mag's summation of the perspective. The guy is promoting a race. Putting his effort into it, making it work. He can do what he wants. I don't think Masters need the same prize list as a Pro Women's field. But then if you don't have a Pro race and only have an elite race, or just one women's field and no Pro Women showing up to your little race, well you have a different point of view. But the promoter didn't really choose to make that argument. He chose to be a douche bag, a nice chauvinistic douche. Maybe he's not. Don't know much about this guy other than his comments there. Probably a good thing he made those comments anonymously, then there won't be a big push to boycott his race(s).

Oh well. At least we have promoters like Myles around.

Heddwch
G
written (if you can call it that) by before

6 comments:

solobreak said...

Yeah the guy comes off as pretty ignorant for ignoring gender-based physical differences.

But the bigger the sport, the more difficult it is to get to the top, and the more rewarding it should be when you get there, right? Now look at the top graph here.

Sure you can try to argue that the lack of rewards for women is partly responsible for the disparities in the number of competitors, but the value of that argument is quite limited.

Women and womens' clubs are also free to promote races too.

10:57 AM
Colin R said...

I think the winning woman should be paid the same as the winning man, but women's prizes should drop off faster to reflect the lack of depth in the field. Beating 100% of the other women should be as significant as beating 100% of the men.

The difference is that the 2nd place man beat 99.75% of the other men in attendance (assuming 400 men at an event), while the 2nd place woman beat 99% of the other women (assuming 100 women). Thus 2nd place in the men's field should get paid more.

In other words, I mostly agree with solo.

11:06 AM
gewilli said...

Starting with the same $ for the winners of each is fine and a huge step in the right direction.

Agreed with Colin that depth is a big factor in pay outs. If you only have 20 women and 100 men you shouldn't have the same payout depth. Pay out as a % is far more fair than what is seen most places providing you start with the same amount.

I realize cycling is a male dominated sport. Just the way it is. Most Pro Sports are that way, Some even worse than Cycling.

Baseball? Football? Soccer? Title nine was a looooong time ago and didn't do much to help women get into male dominated sports.

I'm actually surprised that the number is as high as it is there Solo. That's not so bad all things considered.

Here's the other thing. Stack the Domestic PRO women against the world's best Pros, and then do the same for the Men. Just based on nothing more than unconfirmed data, it seems that (at least in most cycling disciplines) USA women are more dominant than USA men. No?

The reality is, well, many or most races don't have equal winning prize money for Pro men as Pro women. Non-pro fields I can understand a difference. Participation is important.

so in other words - i really basically agree with colin and solo - i think

11:30 AM
Colin R said...

Just based on nothing more than unconfirmed data, it seems that (at least in most cycling disciplines) USA women are more dominant than USA men. No?

Correct, because cycling has been a male sport in Europe for centuries, so the women there are less likely to do it. Whereas here cycling has become a real sport in the last few decades, when women were more likely to participate in sport.

The USA does better internationally in many women's sports because of our progressive attitude toward girls doing sports. We're a long way from being equal, but we're still ahead of most countries, and our athletes reflect that.

1:07 PM
solobreak said...

Colin, you should try to make it to the TT tomorrow. Not only is Rehoboth a shorter drive than Canada, but you'll actually get to ride your bike, not push it through the mud. And the prizes are perfectly equitable, $zero for both male and female.

2:48 PM
gewilli said...

there is also a chance you might win a six pack of beer or some bike product (sunscreen, embro, gels)... bob always draws a few names out of the hat before/after results...

and yeah - it is a good course... you could probably beat me without much problem.

2:53 PM

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