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

championship racing at it's best wrote:

Runners jog for 3/4 mile and sprint the last 1/4 mile

Cyclists "jog" for 90 miles and "sprint" the last 1/4 mile/

If you're a sprinter that's what you're hoping for, and tends to be true for many very flat stages.

Stages heavy on climbing, with high winds (especially crosswind), and stages with many punchy hills or unique terrain features tend to be quite different. You can't do quite the same volume running, but a typically hilly stage might look like:

30' jog

5' surging averaging 10k pace

30' HM pace

20' stand with a few sprints (descent)

60' slightly easier than MP

15' stand with a few sprints

45' MP

15' with sprints

5' averaging 5k pace with surges

30' All Out

Something like that.

Harder flat stages when you get into a breakaway or cause a selection (breakaway is basically where the peleton legitmately "lets" you go, selection is more like stronger guys genuinely drop all or part of the peleton) look like:

2 hours light jog with occasional surges and sprints

3' mile effort

30' half marathon pace avg, with consistent surges to 5k pace or faster for 20s-60s or so every couple minutes

2 hours slightly less than MP average pace, with consistent sustained surges at or above HMP, with possible short durations of sprints and attacks

Full gas finale with all kinds of attacks, what the finale consists of depends on the race.

The junior edition of Kuurne-Brussel-Kuurne on Sunday had to be stopped for 20 minutes soon after the start following a crash caused by the race director's car braking suddenly.

Several riders hit the ground during the race's neutral start when the car stopped, but they were all able to remount and the race went on its way again after the short break.

You’ll notice the crossover started out ahead of the bikes, with one of the organizers for the junior edition of Kuurne-Brussel-Kuurne waving a flag while standing out of the sunroof. As the vehicle gained speed, the car suddenly stopped, causing a bunch of riders to crash into the back of it.

If you look at the video closer, it actually looks like the guy waving the flag put his arm in front of the rear-view mirror, where the Renault Koleos has a front-facing sensor for the active emergency braking system. You can see the placement and a description of its function on Renault’s website.

All of this is to say, if you want to stand out of the sunroof of your car, as any natural, warm-blooded person desires, make sure you’re aware of the vehicle’s safety sensor placement.

https://jalopnik.com/you-cant-even-hang-out-of-a-cars-sunroof-without-safety-1833039441

Here's the full text if you don't want to visit my blog and get triathlete cooties:

Shoddy Journalism Leads to Sensational and Misleading Headlines

You've probably seen the headlines - 'Female Cyclist Forced to Halt Race After She—Gasp!—Caught up With the Men" or "Female cyclist halted in Belgium race after capturing massive lead, catching up to men". Problem with these headlines is they aren't factual, are all based on shoddy journalism, and after a little more examination the actual story is less than what it seems. Does sexism and misogyny exist in professional cycling? Yes, but the situation in this particular race was not the blatant sexism that the headlines and reporting would have you believe!

There were two races taking place the "Omloop Het Nieuwsblad" Elite Men's and Elite Women's race. The men's race was 200km and left a little under 10 minutes ahead of the women's race which was 123km. Both the men's and women's race were following the same route through the first section of cobbles, the Haaghoek cobbles that start around the 38km mark. Here is a "recon video" of these cobbles:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9R5jwf61ewA&t=119s

In the men's race, a breakaway of 4 men reached this first section of cobbles with a 14 minute lead on the main body of the men's peloton. The women's race was "neutralized" or forced to wait around the 35km mark or 3km before the start of the first cobble section. Nicole Hanselmann had a 43 second gap over a group of three other cyclists. At this time, the back of the "caravan" following the men's race was in view and Nicole was about to become part of this string of vehicles.

Have you ever watched a bike race on cobbles? Take two and a half minutes to watch this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_WWbI9mQ5I

The race was paused because the lead woman cyclist was about to become part of the trailing vehicle caravan, but she had not yet caught any male cyclists. The main body of males were going slower than the organizers expected. However, the decision to stop the women was strictly a safety issue, you can't have two groups of riders that are competing in separate races with all accompanying support vehicles and officiating crews passing and intermixing on the narrow cobble roads! It must also be remembered that the men's race and women's race diverged at a later point. Had the races become intermixed attempting to separate the riders into their proper routes could have been disastrous!

The question is raised, why force the women to pause, why not force the men to pause since they were caught? Because the men were not "caught". There were four riders 14 minutes ahead and well onto the cobbles so the lead men had actually extended their lead over the lead women at this point. Plus, if you watched the video above you would realize there is no room to pause a race once they are all out racing on cobbles! The women however were still on well paved roads in a place suitable to pause and allow a safe gap to open back up.

The men's race of 200km would finish at an average speed of 25.4 mph and the women's race of 123km at an average speed of 22.8. The early 14 minute gap by 4 riders in the men's race would be erased and the race would be won by Zdenek Stybar who was not in the early breakaway. On the women's side, the early leader Nicole Hanselmann would be allowed to start first following the pause and given the same lead she had prior to the neutralization, but would start the cobbles with only a 15 second gap and would end up 74th on the day, just under 13 minutes back of the winner, Chantal Blaak.

As I stated before, sexism does exist in cycling. Why is the women's race shorter? Why is their TV and other race coverage much less than the men's? These are all issues that should be addressed, but I would suggest that miss-characterizing what happened this past weekend at Omloop Het Nieuwsblad 2019 is not the best way forward, especially in this era with daily claims of "fake news".

Most of the race details I've stated can be found at the following two links:

http://www.cyclingnews.com/races/omloop-het-nieuwsblad-elite-men-2019/results/

http://www.cyclingnews.com/races/omloop-het-nieuwsblad-elite-women-2019/results/

the women's race can be viewed here:

https://www.facebook.com/ProximusSports/videos/381060175811537/

Why didn't they just use paved roads, instead of the cobblestone route? Europe is still living in 19th century it seems.

Modern solution wrote:

Why didn't they just use paved roads, instead of the cobblestone route? Europe is still living in 19th century it seems.

It's traditional specialist racing that mostly takes place in the Winter/Spring early season. Poor weather and slippery cobbles satisfy the sadistic nature of the cycling fanatics and whet the appetite for the Summer. Naturally, winning a cobbled Classic carries considerable kudos in the cycling world and history labels you as the ultimate badass.

moanswers wrote:

I've watched a lot of amateur races with multiple categories. They tend to start the open cat 1, 2, 3 races earlier and then the masters races. But many times, the masters racers are more cohesive and the peloton goes faster and catches the young guys who haven't been racing with each other for 10+ years.

But they neutralize the race getting caught until the racers in the break have cleared the front of that race.

A break goes out in every race either solo or in a group. The women were obviously racing faster than the men and they should have been neutralized. Not her.

Yeah, but think about the practicalities. The organisers are going to struggle to find somewhere to put 200 riders + 2 team cars per team (circa 50 cars) + officials cars + medical + media cars + TV motorbikes etc to let the women's race by.

Neutralising the womens race (and maybe leaving a bigger gap in future) is the only solution.

And, the chances of the lone female breakaway winning the race are minimal - long range breaks work occasionally in big tours where the peloton fancies an easy day. They almost never work in one-day classics - fresh and motivated riders and teams just don't let it happen.

Christopher G wrote:

Cycling has a lot of silly rules.

The organizers should be boycotted (girlcotted?).

what a bunch of absolute killjoys.

"woman approaching back of men's peloton, shut it down fast before we lose all our viewers cuz ppl are scared of women on bicycles and we'd lose all our viewers"

ffs they should have left her alone unless she tried drafting in which case they'd have needed to tell her "no drafting"

at which point if she didn't heed their warning they'd be better off disqualifying her than making everyone stop.

"oops she was doing race too much, better call the whole thing off"

You've never watched a bike race, have you?

when I coached HS XC, the girls preached "fair and equal" treatment. I gave it to them. Same number of pushups as the boys. Not on their knees, but real pushups. Same speed workouts. After two days, it got really quiet. No more demands.

This is such a classic example of media sensationalizing a non-story in pursuit of a relentless narrative of white men doing terrible things to every other demographic.

The races were a little bit too close together and she caught the caravan which stretches out well behind the peloton. As the above poster mentioned, look at the average speeds of the races. And the men's race was particularly slow for a classic.

You seem pretty desperate to prove women couldn't catch a men's group, but your proof is flawed, because you're focusing on the male leaders, whom she was not catching, instead of the male stragglers (or even the male peloton at the time), whom she might have caught if you could have continued and gotten past all the vehicles straggling behind the male stragglers.

Recall that she was going considerably faster than the female average for the entire race in her breakaway (22.5 mph, so she was going maybe 24 or more), while the male peloton was going slower than its average, because it was dawdling and only later picked it up hard. So, it sounds as if she was in fact catching up to the male peloton, but wasn't there and couldn't get there with all the vehicles--and she wasn't that close to the male peloton, so it would've taken quite a while to get there and she might not have. But she was, apparently, going faster than them at the time.

Let me give you a similar story in runner terms to show that it makes entire sense that a woman could have been making up the distance on the male peloton. There are numerous cases in which the men in a track race go out slower than the women. I think that that might have even been true in Centro's 2016 Olympic victory. Overall, the time was very close to the women's world record, at 3:50, but there was a 50.5 or 50.6 second close to get there. They were only at 3:00 at 1100m. Centro had already picked up the pace a lot to get to 1100m. They were at 48.9 at 300m. 66.83 for 400m. "This is absolutely pedestrian by the standard of the men. Camera goes away but they were about 2 flat at 700m, or about a 71! lap.

They were 69.77 to 800m in 2:16.59. They start to pick it up as Sulaiman tries to take the lead for the first time around 900m (2:31.7 or 2:31.8). That was just over 60 second 400m pace still. They hit the bell at 2:59.1 with about a 27.4 200m. Makh Daddy cost himself the win by dawdling near the back to 900m, forcing him to run probably mid to high 26 in that 200m to get into the picture, in 5th place but out in lane 3 several meters back at the bell. They get to 1200m in 3:12.00 after a 55.41. They close in a quick 38 flat, last 400m in 50.62.

So, they just ran a very fast 600m, about 1:18.2 or 1:18.3.

Are you telling me that the women wouldn't have been well ahead through 900m before being crushed in the last 600m?

The women could even have held on to the lead to 1200m (3:12+45 (60 second lap pace)=3:57, not even the greatest women's time).

zxcvvzxc wrote:

Are you telling me that the women wouldn't have been well ahead through 900m before being crushed in the last 600m?

The women could even have held on to the lead to 1200m (3:12+45 (60 second lap pace)=3:57, not even the greatest women's time).

I think my post is quite clear. I am not arguing that the women weren't possibly making up time on the peloton. They might have been, they might not have been. That is irrelevant. What is relevant, there were 4 men with a 14 minute break over the men's peloton when the women were neutralized. The lead female had gained no time on these four men, rather she had lost time on them. They were approaching cobbles and the men's race was spread out over a distance of well over 6 miles. Plus, don't forget that the women's race follows a different course and at a point in the future would be deviating from the guys course.

I had to laugh when I saw this story as it reminded me of a thread running on here a few weeks ago re what sport had the fittest athletes.

A few cyclists popped up claiming the number of hours spend, consecutive stage days, etc pointed towards cycling. The runners' counter argument that that stuff was irrelevant as they spend most of the time performing way below peak performance. This story pretty much proves that.