Female Cyclist goes TOO FAST in breakaway, almost catches MEN'S GROUP, so... Organizers 'neutralized' her event?

So she got extra rest, and kept her gap on the restart? Sounds like she needs some teammates. Breakaways never work

Would've made more sense to cancel the too-slow male event?

That's messed up. Move the cars out of the way and say that she can't draft off the men's group as she passes them.

zcxvcxzv wrote:

That's messed up. Move the cars out of the way and say that she can't draft off the men's group as she passes them.

Would never happen. I say kick the men's racers out if they're getting passed by the women.

Sit and kick wrote:

So she got extra rest, and kept her gap on the restart? Sounds like she needs some teammates. Breakaways never work

They work sometimes. Maybe someone bridges up to her from the main group. But yeah it's not surprising that the group caught her pretty quickly on fresh legs.

Sit and kick wrote:

So she got extra rest, and kept her gap on the restart? Sounds like she needs some teammates. Breakaways never work

Unless you get to draft off of the men’s peloton because of it...

Another argument to only have one category. Let women compete fairly against men. May the better human win

Why not just have the men and women together in one race? This woman was already riding faster than the men so she could easily have held her own and maybe even won the whole thing as her lighter body weight would have given her a huge advantage on the climbs.

harmonize the racing wrote:

Why not just have the men and women together in one race? This woman was already riding faster than the men so she could easily have held her own and maybe even won the whole thing as her lighter body weight would have given her a huge advantage on the climbs.

Bahahahahahahah

Sounds like a female cyclist who didn't understand her limits (going out way too fast given her eventual placing) nearly screwed with the way the organizers intended to have the race run by almost catching the slowest of the men's group. Think she'll learn someday about even pacing and maybe place better?

Poster #123 wrote:

Sounds like a female cyclist who didn't understand her limits (going out way too fast given her eventual placing) nearly screwed with the way the organizers intended to have the race run by almost catching the slowest of the men's group. Think she'll learn someday about even pacing and maybe place better?

Sounds like you've never watched a pro cycling race in your life.

It's more like the gap between the races was too short and circumstances led to them coming together.

If I'm reading correctly, she had a nearly 2 minute lead by 7km in the race and faded to 70th.

You're absolutely correct, I've never seen one of these in my life. Is this common? Is it a good strategy? Relating it to my experiences as a runner I can only come to the conclusion that she's not bright.

Poster #123 wrote:

If I'm reading correctly, she had a nearly 2 minute lead by 7km in the race and faded to 70th.

You're absolutely correct, I've never seen one of these in my life. Is this common? Is it a good strategy? Relating it to my experiences as a runner I can only come to the conclusion that she's not bright.

There's an early breakaway in nearly all races, and only very rarely will they make it to the finish in front, even less likely in a one day race such as this.

Trying for the win is only one of several reasons (and probably not the main one) for a rider to go ahead of the bunch this early.

The reason why they caught the men's race was because their early breakaway got decided very early on in the race (often it takes up to 30-40km for the teams to be happy with the composition and they ride hard until then) so they were in the phase of the race where they essentially let the breakaway build their lead, so were riding fairly slow.

Given you know nothing about the sport, none of this will make any sense to you.

................>>+= wrote:

Would've made more sense to cancel the too-slow male event?

No, neither should have been cancelled. The race organizers should have just considered the men's race to be part of the 'terrain' for the women's race and let the woman breakaway rider draft off of the men. Then they could change start times in future race editions accordingly.

Conclusion: A fluke circumstance led to a single woman almost temporarily catching the stragglers of a slow starting male race.

This article is worded to make it seem like ladies could win a male cycling race but the patriarchy is preventing them from doing so.

kokoro wrote:

................>>+= wrote:

Would've made more sense to cancel the too-slow male event?

No, neither should have been cancelled. The race organizers should have just considered the men's race to be part of the 'terrain' for the women's race and let the woman breakaway rider draft off of the men. Then they could change start times in future race editions accordingly.

Have you any idea just how much traffic there is for a big World Tour classic like this? If you let two separate races merge like this there would be absolute chaos.

Tom Bonein wrote:

Conclusion: A fluke circumstance led to a single woman almost temporarily catching the stragglers of a slow starting male race.

This article is worded to make it seem like ladies could win a male cycling race but the patriarchy is preventing them from doing so.

Basically, but it wasn't the stragglers, it was the entire peleton.

What was the original gap between the two groups?

The problem seems to be that overcoming that deficit and then drafting of the men would be no different from breaking away and drafting off a vehicle. Technically the men would just be vehicles.

The chaos would be secondary to that.

This all makes pretty good sense to me actually. Especially the part where you say the person who makes the early break rarely wins, thus confirming my assertion that she made a bad decision. Maybe she should think more strategically next race. Think of the bigger picture and not let her emotions take control, ultimately having a negative impact on her race.