Lance Armstrong becomes reality TV villain after clashing with Modern Family star over trans athletes; Tadej Pogačar: “The Tour de France is definitely not over”; Tour heads to its ‘roof’ for Alpine monster + more on the live blog
SUMMARY
“The Tour de France is definitely not over,” says Tadej Pogačar
Good news for anyone – including the riders and staff at UAE Team Emirates – reeling from Jonas Vingegaard’s savage pillaging of the Tour de France yesterday afternoon… Because Tadej Pogačar believes that the battle for the yellow jersey is far from over – and that’s he’s going to come out swinging today.
After a race of fine margins and incremental momentum swings, the two-time Tour winner shipped an astonishing 1.38 to the flying Dane on yesterday’s hilly 22.4km time trial course – despite finishing second himself, far ahead of the rest – on what was one of the most bewildering days in the race’s recent history.
(Zac Williams/SWpix.com)
But, just as the obituaries for this year’s GC race were being sent to the papers, one man, and an important man at that, believes that the 2023 Tour de France is far from over.
“It’s definitely not over, especially if it is raining tomorrow and then I can promise you it’s going to be interesting,” Pogačar said after yesterday’s stage, pointing to today’s four mountain monster to Courchevel, which includes the ‘roof’ of this year’s Tour, the Col de la Loze.
“There are two more really hard stages to come, I think the two hardest of this year’s tour. Anything can happen, anyone can have a bad day, and like I said, I hope tomorrow is my day.
“We will try to make a plan. It’s not easy to gain two minutes, a little bit less, but we’ll try.”
(Alex Whitehead/SWpix.com)
To be fair, if there’s anyone in professional cycling who could turn the tables following yesterday’s brutal defeat, it’s Tadej Pogačar.
Just when you thought it was all over, we could be in for a treat…
What was that Tadej said about rain and bad weather?
Looks like UAE Team Emirates’ rain dance paid off last night. That’s Pogačar weather, that is…
Our teams in France waking up to this today… 🤔 Remember what Tadej said about hoping for bad weather? pic.twitter.com/noNbmiGWrD
— Orla Chennaoui (@SportsOrla) July 19, 2023
Cancel your meetings, get your earphones on, and stash the popcorn at your desk – the Tour de France may not be over after all…
So, what’s on the menu today at the Tour?
If UAE Team Emirates and Tadej Pogačar really do decide to rip the race to shreds from the gun this morning – which, let’s face it, is what all us neutrals want to see – they couldn’t have picked a better day to do it.
Because today’s route – 166km Alpine kilometres, featuring a cat two mountain, two cat ones, and a ridiculously high HC monster – is an absolute brute.
After 17 up and down kilometres, the riders will take on the classic combination of the Col des Saisies and Cormet de Roseland, where we could see UAE’s first ramping up of the pace.
After a bit of valley and the shorter, but still taxing, Côte de Longefoy, the riders will descend to the foot of the Col de la Loze, which at a whopping 2,304m is the ‘roof’ of this year’s Tour.
Pogačar suffering on the Col de la Loze back in 2020 (Alex Whitehead/SWpix.com)
The Col de la Loze, you may recall, was the scene of Pogačar’s brief wobble at the 2020 Tour, when he was put under pressure by a Jumbo-Visma rider who seemed destined to end up in yellow in Paris, only for it to be yanked from him on the final Saturday in the Vosges (not that I’m saying history will repeat itself, or anything…).
This time, however, the riders will tackle the climb from a different approach, through Courchevel before reaching the ski resort of Méribel via a side road.
Officially, the Col de la Loze is a fear-inducing 28.1km, with an average gradient of six percent. However, it’s the final six kilometres – which average 10 percent and includes pitches of 24 percent – which will really worry the GC contenders (as well as any sprinters struggling to make the time limit. Just ask Bryan Coquard, last on this stage in 2020, who struggled so much he believed he was actually climbing up the sheer face of the mountain. “I wondered what I was doing there,” the Frenchman said.)
The pain won’t be over after the summit, however, as a rapid descent leads to the final, leg-breaking 18 percent climb to the finish at Courchevel altiport. Lovely.
It promises to be a brutal day, especially if this bad weather keeps up. And, unless the white jersey waves the white flag (UAE did make some noises after yesterday’s drubbing about targeting a Schleck-style 2-3 on the lower slopes of the podium with Pog and Adam Yates, though that could all be a ruse), we could be in for a cracker.
POLL: Is the Tour de France over?
I have form for asking this question just as the Tour gets turned on its head, but I feel it’s worth a poll this morning, especially following Vingegaard’s utter annihilation of everyone yesterday (and the almost universal acceptance that that was that), and less than an hour before Pogačar gets his chance at some rapid-fire redemption…
“I cycle over this every day. It achieves nothing”: Is this the most useless bike marking in Britain?
As the riders amble through the neutralised zone, we’re turning our attentions away from the Tour for a bit, and back to some of the UK’s pointless cycling ‘infra’, with this fading, pitiful bike marking in Worcester certainly up there in the ‘uselessness’ GC…
I cycle over this everyday. It achieves nothing.
If we collectively agree we have major environmental, health and societal issues, and we also agree more walking and cycling (less driving) will contribute to solutions, we have to make it happen.
Enable and encourage. Now. pic.twitter.com/tJgUKU7NJI
— SHIFT (@goSHIFTscheme) July 19, 2023
Now that’s what I call multi-tasking: Josh Reid finishes first at 1,400 mile Pan-Celtic Race… all while filming an epic video
Come on Jonas, it’s all well and good winning the Tour de France again, but it would be even more impressive if you filmed yourself while time trialling everyone else into oblivion, wouldn’t it?
Well, that’s exactly what Josh Reid – he of riding home from China fame – managed to pull off earlier this month, all while finishing first at the Pan-Celtic Race, the 1,425 mile self-supported ride through the Celtic heartlands of Britain, Ireland, and France, this year taking riders from the Breton port of St Malo to the finish in Llandudno.
Very cool. Now come on Vingegaard, here’s your chance to really impress us…
> Taming Mount Teide: Josh Reid travels to Tenerife for a bit of volcano bashing
Not like that, Tadej: Pogačar crashes on first climb of the day
Oops. Tadej Pogačar’s attempt to mount a Lazarus (or Landis) style comeback on today’s Tour de France stage hasn’t got off to the best start, as the Slovenian crashed – uphill – on the Col des Saisies, the first big climb of the day, a classic lapse of concentration and touch of the wheels sending the white jersey to the deck.
🚴🇫🇷 | Er zijn nu ook beelden van de valpartij van Tadej Pogacar. Hopelijk valt het mee! 👑⛰️ #TDF2023
📺 Koers kijk je op discovery+ pic.twitter.com/aft4w6OBlR
— Eurosport Nederland (@Eurosport_NL) July 19, 2023
Fortunately for the race, Pog is back up at the front now and seems fine (except for a bloodied left knee), as Jumbo-Visma’s Dylan van Baarle continues to keep the pace high in the ever dwindling main bunch, with top ten contenders Simon Yates and Felix Gall currently just up the road in a super strong breakaway.
I told you it was going to be interesting…
The race is in bits!
It was pure madness on the Col des Saisies just now, as Jumbo-Visma completely ripped the race to shreds on the first climb of the day (either to prevent Pogačar bridging across to teammate Rafał Majka in the break, to move Sepp Kuss up the GC, or just to kill off the race once and for all – take your pick).
Their brutal acceleration on the upper slopes of the Saisies put the Ineos Grenadiers and fourth-placed Carlos Rodríguez into scramble mode, and has left riders scattered all over the Alps.
💛The @MaillotjauneLCL has joined the breakaway, with @TamauPogi
💛Le @MaillotjauneLCL a rejoint l’échappée, avec @TamauPogi #TDF2023 pic.twitter.com/MjddOM5eZa
— Tour de France™ (@LeTour) July 19, 2023
Polka dot-clad Giulio Ciccone, Julian Alaphilippe, and the impressive Krists Neilands have descended like demons to put a 20 second gap into the peloton, but the race shows no signs of settling down for the moment.
Madness, pure madness.
Odd cycling graphs: Newcastle named second-most bike friendly city in the UK… a year after being named the second-most dangerous city for cycling by another survey
Here at road.cc, we often get emails from insurance companies telling us about their latest study into the best or worst places to ride your bike in the UK, ostensibly as a means of convincing you to get a quote (presumably because you’re now frightened for your life after reading their ‘stats’).
This latest email, from Kent-based insurance firm Saga, promised to explore the UK’s “most cycle-friendly cities” – and let’s just say that the results, and the methods of achieving them, are interesting…
According to Saga’s research – which was based (rather mysteriously) on ‘external data’ and compiled using an odd and obscure algorithm based on a city’s cycling infra, rate of bike thefts and shops, cycling safety, bike sharing schemes, and the weather – Norwich came out on top as the UK’s most cycle-friendly city (just don’t tell them about the new Aldi or the shortcut-frequenting motorists in the city centre, eh?).
Meanwhile, despite scoring a 10 for cyclists’ safety – a pretty important metric, I’d reckon – London finished bottom of the pile, with a score of zero, for some reason.
(Can anyone work out that table? Because I can’t, although my brain may be addled by trying to keep up with this Tour de France stage…)
To add to the confusion, Belfast – the brunt of so many jokes on this live blog for its horrendous approach to cycling infra – popped up in third place on Saga’s poll, with a score of 9.28.
And just to cap it all off, according to Saga, Newcastle is the second-most bike friendly city in the UK – just over a year after another insurance firm named the city the second-most dangerous place to ride your bike in Britain.
Please someone, make it make sense…
Weird, wonderful (and just plain wrong) bikes and kit of the Tour de France
As today’s Queen Stage finally enters a (relatively) calm period, you now have a bit of time to check out all the interesting, innovative, and downright strange equipment choices and setups we’ve spotted at cycling’s biggest race over the years:
> Weird, wonderful (and just plain wrong) bikes and kit of the Tour de France
Tom Dumoulin says Jonas Vingegaard’s “time trial porn” was best TT in cycling history
Retired Giro d’Italia winner and world time trial champion Tom Dumoulin – one of the finest TT riders of his generation – knows a thing or two about racing against the clock.
So it says a lot that the Dutchman was so impressed by former Jumbo-Visma teammate Jonas Vingegaard’s Tour-destroying 22km yesterday afternoon, that he described it to Sporza’s cycling programme Vive le Vélo as the greatest time trial in the sport’s history.
“We witnessed the best time trial ever in cycling,” Dumoulin said yesterday evening after watching an effort so impressive that the yellow jersey admitted he thought his bike computer was broken, so high were the numbers being displayed on his screen.
“First of all, because of the lead that Vingegaard takes over the rest. But I also watched his descent and his flat parts and that was real time trial porn. It was fantastic to see. He took a lot of time uphill – his power must have been incredibly high. But also, his descents and his cornering were just sublime.
“The time trial is of course a completely different discipline than what we have seen in the past two weeks. Crazy things often happen there. But no-one could have imagined that it would be a hammer blow of more than a minute and a half. Not Vingegaard, and also not Pogačar. Everyone was amazed.”
You and me both, Tom.
(Zac Williams/SWpix.com)
Dumoulin then questioned Pogačar’s decision to swap bikes towards the end of the stage, though he believes that the Slovenian wasn’t on the type of time trial form that saw him usurp the Dutchman’s teammate Primož Roglič on La Planche des Belles Filles.
The former Tour podium finisher also believes that the technical expertise of his old Jumbo-Visma squad played a part in yesterday’s result, though it certainly wasn’t the deciding factor in one of the most dominant time trial wins in the sport’s history.
“Right now, Jumbo-Visma is the best team in the world in everything. They do everything so structured and prepare everything so well, especially on such a time trial day – Vingegaard and Van Aert’s bicycles are even made without paint in order to save 150 grams,” he said.
“I have the feeling that at UAE they are just a little less close to that perfection. All added up, that makes a difference. But to be clear, not a minute and a half. Those were mainly Vingegaard’s legs.”
Is the Tour over? Nobody knows…
Woah. As the riders head to the foot of the mammoth Col de la Loze, I thought I’d check in on this morning’s poll, to see whether you lot reckon this year’s Tour is still up for grabs.
And – in a rarity for the road.cc live blog poll – the votes are almost evenly split…
Mind you, those numbers might be very different in 40km…
Victor Lafay: The Human Bowling Pin
The winner of stage two at this year’s Tour has just signed a new, salary-enhanced contract at Cofidis – I wonder if his video editing skills were part of the negotiations?
Jumbo-Visma and UAE Team Emirates undergo extra blood tests on team bus before Tour de France queen stage
Ah, tests… it says tests! Having followed cycling for as long as I have, your mind can play tricks on you reading that type of headline…
And that’s all she wrote: Pogačar dropped by GC group halfway up Col de la Loze
It’s done. With 14km left to the finish, and over seven of the hardest kilometres of the Col de la Loze still to go, Tadej Pogačar has cracked, wilting in the heat, his yellow jersey hopes now definitively eviscerated.
The Tour de France is over, Pogačar dropped. #TDF2023 pic.twitter.com/8xAz9qPvDA
— Benji Naesen (@BenjiNaesen) July 19, 2023
Well, at least we know the answer for our morning poll now… (For the record, I said it was over before today. No, it’s true, I did!)
“I don’t know what happened, I came to the bottom of the climb really empty, all the food that I eat today didn’t go to my legs. A super big disappointment”
Pogačar waiting for his white jersey protocol TV interview. “I don’t know what happened, I came to the bottom of the climb really empty, all the food that I eat today didn’t go to my legs. A super big disappointment.” he tells FranceTV pic.twitter.com/z7zc5FO6lM
— the Inner Ring (@inrng) July 19, 2023
The expression and words of a defeated man…
“Sur une autre planète”: What exactly are you getting at, Tour de France social media admin?
First L’Équipe this morning…
L’Equipe today: “From another planet.” 👽💛#TDF2023 pic.twitter.com/NpyqMFqazY
— Mihai Simion (@faustocoppi60) July 19, 2023
…Now the Tour’s own Twitter feed:
💛On an other planet.
💛Sur une autre planète. #TDF2023 pic.twitter.com/lIsCgKIofZ
— Tour de France™ (@LeTour) July 19, 2023
Surely that very specific metaphor – a Tour classic – couldn’t be an allusion to a certain current reality TV contestant? Surely not…
They think it’s all over: Jonas Vingegaard overcomes a stalled motorbike blocking his way to seal second Tour de France win, as Felix Gall takes epic breakthrough stage victory in Alps
“I’m gone. I’m dead.”
Those were the matter of fact, if slightly haunting words that drifted over the radio as Tadej Pogačar’s hopes of winning the 2023 Tour de France ended not with a bang, but with a whimper on the Col de la Loze this afternoon.
For 15 days the Slovenian ensured that this year’s Tour continued to hang in the balance, a game of fine margins and tensions.
“I’m gone. I’m dead.”
Tadej Pogacar’s words to the team car after being dropped on the Col de la Loze 😢#TdF2023 | @TeamEmiratesUAE pic.twitter.com/vm2XIFFsfv
— Eurosport (@eurosport) July 19, 2023
But, after yesterday’s shocking hammer blow in the time trial, the Slovenian – who openly voiced his hopes for horrible weather today – wilted in the stifling heat of the Alps, his eyes vacant, the lack of racing in his legs following his wrist-breaking crash at Liège–Bastogne–Liège, and perhaps the aftershocks of his crash on the Col des Saisies at the start of the day, now starkly evident as the pressures of a grand tour third week mounted.
Like Merckx, Indurain, and Riis before him, Pogačar’s yellow jersey-losing crack, before the Col de la Loze had even reached its steepest, cruellest slopes, was seismic. He will probably, barring another blow-up in the Vosges on Saturday, still finish second on GC – but the six minutes that separated him and winner-elect Jonas Vingegaard by the top of that savage runway in Courchevel may as well have been an eternity.
(A.S.O./Pauline Ballet)
While Pogačar’s crack now appears like it was inevitable, it was also the result of some aggressive, almost Playstation cycling from Jumbo-Visma in the first half of today’s stage. The Slovenian, shirt flapping open, may have capitulated to the pressure exerted by an ambitious Ineos Grenadiers team on the final climb, but it was the constant probing, the relentless pace from the men in yellow and black that hammered the initial, crucial blows.
Absolute chaos!
💛🇩🇰Vingegaard is forced around the race director’s car as it’s blocked by a stalled moto 🏍️#TDF2023 #ITVCycling pic.twitter.com/SJMPuvJHwM
— ITV Cycling (@itvcycling) July 19, 2023
Vingegaard’s eventual move may also have been unsuccessful in terms of the stage win – not helped by a stalled car and motorbike on a corner blocking his progress as he began to eat into stage leader Felix Gall’s lead – but it at least confirmed that the Dane, even in cruise control, is a level above the competition, even his former shadow.
On a day when Vingegaard’s now incredibly snug yellow jersey feels like a confirmation, Felix Gall’s stage win marked the Austrian climber’s arrival on the big stage.
🏆🇦🇹 Felix Gall flies to victory on the @courchevel Altiport!
🏆🇦🇹 Felix Gall s’envole vers la victoire à l’Altiport de @courchevel !#TDF2023 pic.twitter.com/EHNBXkfb8V
— Tour de France™ (@LeTour) July 19, 2023
Just a month after his breakthrough stage win at the Tour de Suisse, the AG2R rider – catapulted into the French team’s leadership role following Ben O’Connor’s underwhelming start to the Tour – comfortably held off (after some sterling work by O’Connor on the final climb) breakaway colleague Simon Yates for an emotional win on the race’s Queen Stage, effectively sealing his top ten on GC as a bonus.
“It’s incredible. I don’t know what to say. This whole year has been incredible and now to do so well in the Tour de France and to win the Queen Stage, it’s incredible,” the 25-year-old said after the stage in an emotional interview.
The yellow jersey race may be characterised by a sense of finality this afternoon – but for Gall, today’s stage may prove just the beginning.
Lance Armstrong becomes reality TV villain – and threatens to leave show – after clashing with Modern Family star over trans athletes
So, it turns out Big Tex just wasn’t content with his long-held status as pro cycling’s pantomime villain – he’s carving out another niche as the bad guy of reality television these days, too.
As you may remember (despite the attempts to expunge it from your mind), everyone’s favourite seven-time Tour de France winner is spending this particular July on a simulated version of Mars, as part of Fox’s new celebrity competition show, where famous people – like actual famous people, like Ronda Rousey and McLovin from Superbad – pretend to be astronauts on the Red Planet, completing tasks to win a speedboat, or something (I may be getting my TV programmes mixed up).
Anyway, Big Tex is living up to his divisive reputation on the show it seems. On this week’s episode – and this is a sentence I never thought I’d write – Armstrong threatened to leave the show altogether after tensions escalated between the disgraced former world champion and Alex from Modern Family, Ariel Winter, due to a row over trans athletes.
So far, so very Armstrong.
The animosity emerged when Mellow Johnny plugged (sorry, I mean casually mentioned) his new trans people in sport-focused special of his The Forward podcast series – which we first mentioned last month on the live blog – to Rousey.
According to Vanity Fair, Armstrong (despite his claim that he only wanted to ask questions about the debate on his pod) told Rousey that a separate category for trans athletes is needed.
““Listen, this is real simple: You want to transition, let’s do it. You have your own category. We’re gonna have a whole new division. We’ll celebrate you just like we celebrate everybody else. Let’s go. What’s unfair about that?” he asked the UFC fighter.
> British Cycling updates transgender policy, introduces new “Open” category
However, LA’s take wasn’t greeted with much enthusiasm from his fellow contestants, with singer Tinashe (no, me neither) arguing that excluding trans people “from the same spaces and places that everyone else uses” is “not good for their mental health”.
“Actually, no, we’re not excluding anybody,” Armstrong jumped back in. “And, by the way, I sound like a right-wing lunatic. I’m not. I’m the most liberal person, but from a sporting perspective…”
Actress Winter then remarked that the banned rider was “ostracising the people who don’t fit in the categories”, while Olympic figure skater said Armstrong’s stance was “disheartening” and that the debate around trans participation in sport was “way more nuanced” than the Texan was making out.
Rippon also admitted that Armstrong’s remarks “have completely shifted the energy and have completely shifted the focus, and I will not ever forget them.”
Well, you don’t get this kind of debate on the Apprentice…
The next day, Armstrong – giving everyone an insight into what it must have been like sharing a team bus with him during his racing days – said he was leaving the show because he couldn’t work with Winter anymore, despite the actress trying to assure him that “we don’t see eye to eye on a human rights issue, that’s it.”
“Ariel, let me make this really simple: I don’t need the drama. I busted my ass for nine days, I’m gonna bust my ass on the 10th day, and I’m going to auto-select myself to leave,” Armstrong said, inadvertently mimicking the script of his now embarrassing Nike advert from back in the day.
‘I’m on Mars, busting my ass alongside C-list celebrities ten hours a day. What are you on?’
Ehhh, I’m on the live blog Lance, calm down.
Apparently there were no zipped lips gestures or comparing people to chairs, however, so at least he didn’t go the ‘full Armstrong’ of yore.
Anyway, after sleeping on it – and presumably after a quick call from Bill Stapleton, or whoever’s doing that job these days – Armstrong decided to get along with everyone, for once.
““Ariel and I just have very different styles,” he said. “I did want to leave, but, you know, maybe I’m not giving people enough credit. I mean, everybody’s different. Some people hold grudges, but I’ll stick it out.”
Almost as much drama as a day in the mountains at the Tour. Speaking of which…
19 July 2023, 08:32
19 July 2023, 08:32
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Latest Comments
Correct. The Guardian is not a source of scientific data. It is a newspaper that REPORTS on the findings of scientists. And scientists are almost unanimous that anthropocentric global warming is real and represents a thereat to humanity. Anyway, this article isn't from the Guardian, so I don't know why you're wanging on about it.
Have the people complaining actually tried the ChatGPT for Komoot app? It doesn't sound like it to me. Because if they had, they would have much more specific complaints about how crap it is. (I'm going to confess I'm a bit of a hypocrite - I haven't tried it myself, as I don't have a ChatGPT account (I do have a Komoot account). But plenty of examples on the internet of people trying it and getting routes that have seemingly little relationship to the prompt supplied).
“planning the race for the morning hours and avoiding the afternoons could substantially increase rider and spectator safety” but it would reduce the appeal to sponsors and TV broadcasters, who pay the bills and so are far more important than the riders and spectators. It's therefore not going to happen. Even making a last-minute switch in extreme situations probably won't work because of the amount of logistics and people involved - the TdF is SO much bigger than the Tour Down Under.
Ah, the scientific rigour of the climate-change-denying right, a blank assertion with no evidence offered coupled with an insult. Pathetic.
Or, in higher temperatures, use ice jackets and ice bundles which can be replenished from the support car.
A cooling sleeve cools you down for maybe 30 minutes and then it becomes a hassle, it also prevents heat leaving the body as an "empty" sleeve now becomes an extra layer. It does make some sense for a time, but in the long run it's just problematic to use. It's just much easier to just pour water over your body.
This kind of journalism makes me laugh. As climate change brings ecological breakdown and migration on a biblical scale and international food security puts the price of food out of most people's pockets then there isn't going to be any bike racing in the morning or any other time. Get an allotment and learn how to protect it. Good luck everyone.
I often wonder why they don't wear cooling arm sleeves and cooling hats under their helmets. At a guess it's probably something to do with 'the rules', as this is road racing. Headsweats caps and similar make a big difference to how hot you get and you avoid getting your head sunburnt through the gaps in your helmet.
It's good going to keep the Vanquish price at £485, especially if you can still get a discount through Cycling UK or British Cycling, or maybe a cashback site (I've seen 10% via Complete Savings before). Shame Halfords didn't change the cassette as road.cc suggested in their review last year though.
Plenty of distinguishing features to identify the place including "Dubai, UAE" right at the top of that Insta post. And using a mobile phone while driving is illegal in Dubai and across the UAE.
68 thoughts on “Lance Armstrong becomes reality TV villain after clashing with Modern Family star over trans athletes; Tadej Pogačar: “The Tour de France is definitely not over”; Tour heads to its ‘roof’ for Alpine monster + more on the live blog”
Oh goodie. Armstrong and the
Oh goodie. Armstrong and the trans debate. This comment section is going to be an enjoyable place to be in a few hours…
Just need helmets. Possibly
Just need helmets. Possibly also a contentious was-it-or-wasn’t-it-a-close pass video. Filmed by CyclingMikey.
the little onion wrote:
There’s another disc vs rim brake debate with potential to go off on the Giant TT bike feature.
Why not, just imagine a race
Why not, just imagine a race where Lance Armstrong riding a 1999 Trek rim brakes rear ends a trans athlete riding a super modern aero bike with disks after he fails to outbrake disks, but the trans wasn’t wearing helmet, has amnesia hiting the head a pothole formed from a Nokia 3310 that Jeremy Clarkson deliverably dropped while talking and driving to prevent from getting filmed by CyclingMikey and asks why I am dressed like that and wants to change back racing category.
Don’t worry, the contrarians
Don’t worry, the contrarians are currently on holiday! Oh, wait…
Forgive me father..
Forgive me father..
the article wrote:
Keep up…
“Well, you don’t get this
“Well, you don’t get this kind of debate on the Apprentice…”
#NoDebate. (Speaking of plugs.)
I wonder how many races with
I wonder how many races with a trans category would have more than 1 entrant?
{armstrong}
{armstrong}
And here’s a cyclist jumping a shark. (Actually not fair to Armstrong – he’s just continuing on in the same manner as before.)
Fuck off Lance!
Fuck off Lance!
It seems that the anti-trans
It seems that the anti-trans position is that there are physiological differences between people that confer an ‘unfair’ disadvantage, and forcing people to compete against someone with an advantage is ‘insulting’ or ‘hateful’, so we should be segregating people based on physiology.
So should we take this idea further and segregate based on any statistically advantageous physiological differences?
Statistically dark skinned people do better at running and light skinned people do better at swimming, would racial segregation in sports be fairer? /s
Is forcing light skinned runners to compete against dark skinned runners insulting or hateful? /s
Car Delenda Est wrote:
Is that a contender for most stupid comment of the day?
Instead of reaching straight
Instead of reaching straight for the ad hominem you could just say “I have no counter argument”, the end result is all the same anyway though.
Car Delenda Est wrote:
I just thought that we as a society had moved on from segregation based on the colour of someone’s skin. You could have chosen a different trait such as height or weight (which also have the benefit of being easy to measure and assign numbers to) to make your argument, but instead you went for the most insensitive characteristic possible. That’s why it’s a stupid comment.
(By the way, ad hominem would be if I attacked you, but I instead attacked your comment which is not ad hominem at all)
I’m glad you raised that
I’m glad you raised that point.
I went for that example for a very good reason: there are many applicable parallels and ignoring them would be an injustice and erasure.
Of course there is no running ability conferred by skin colour, just as there is no ability conferred by indentified gender, the difference comes from other characteristics such as height that statistically, but not universally, correlate with skin colour: just as there are advantages that statistically, but not universally, correlate with sex chromosomes.
Furthermore trans people have been out-grouped, demonised (see: trans people in public toilets debate) and dehumanised in a way that we used to do to people with different skin colour, by drawing that parallel I hope to draw people’s attention to this cognitive dissonance.
Lastly why do we choose to segregate based on characteristics that have an indirect correlation with sports ability? Surely if we must segregate for fairness it should be based on characteristics that have a more direct impact such as height, metabolic rate, BMI etc?
The truth is the current segregation has nothing to do with fairness in sports and everything to do with reinforcing ideological identity politics.
What part of my comment did you attack?
If you don’t actually engage with the comment and merely declare it stupid (i.e. a view held by the stupid) that is an ad hominem.
I’m not going to discuss
I’m not going to discuss segregation based on skin colour for obvious reasons.
Please reframe your comment to something less offensive.
I was attacking the entire comment as being stupid due to its racist nature – I’m sure that’s fairly obvious to most people, but now you know too.
If you thought it was racist
If you thought it was racist you should definitely try reading it again..
I used the racism analogue to discuss parallels between it and the trans debate, you’ve used it as a cheap trick to ‘win’ an argument without making any actual points: time for you to take a look in the mirror maybe?
Not ad hominem.
Not ad hominem.
The post was about your comment.
If it were about my comment
If it were about my comment it would have been focused on the points made in my comment.
What they wrote translates to “that’s a view held by stupid people and I won’t explain why”: ad hominem.
I think you might be
I think you might be projecting a little.
elaborate?
elaborate?
hawkinspeter wrote:
Is that a contender for most stupid comment of the day?— Car Delenda Est
A straight up winner, I’d say.
the little onion wrote:
Me too – the “case” for differentiating humans into various classes which are then awarded or denied rights, access and so forth is fundamentally based on the notion that these various classes of humans are somehow natural rather than cultural contructs.And that their attributes make them more or less worthy.
Of course, it’s easy to derive endless classes of human based on all sorts of features, from gender to height to skin colour to nose-shape to head-bump configuration to so-called IQ to [insert your own vast list of human differentiators]. Some differentiations can be useful for some limited purposes but, being human, we do love to attribute a vast list of madee-up attributes to these classes in addition to the one or three that are representative of the small differences that actually matter for this or that purpose.
But in considering a sporting competition (or any other kind of competition) there’s only one significant attribute that matters: who is the best at the sporting event in question? All the bollox about differentiating people into various classes means little or nothing since all that matters in the end is: who wins because they’re the best at it?
Moreover, if the classifiers want to differentiate “the best ten year old girl with blonde hair, green eyes, less than 4ft 10ins high and with a certain shape of head” there’s nothing to stop them finding the highest placed such person in the race and giving them a prize.
In short, any and all sporting events should be “open”.
There can still be a hierarchy of would-be competitors to enable sporting events to be size-limited, based on point-accumulation (as in old-fashioned cycle road racing) where some events are only open to those with a certain number of points accumulated from good placings as they create their personal history of competing. If you have N points, you can enter this event – no matter what gender, skin colour, age or head bump configuration you have.
Why aren’t all sporting events like this? The answer to that rhetorical question is: because various mini-adolfs love to arrange hierarchies of worth for other humans based on their mad little prejudices, intolerances, dislikes and need to punish or abuse someone/everyone because of their own fundamental lack of self-esteem, ability or worth.
Agree 100%, well put.
Agree 100%, well put.
Cugel wrote:
As much as I agree with your general point, I don’t think boxing would lend itself well to being “open”.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyBEiDXM79U
Cugel wrote:
because not all sports are based on the individual. For example, cycling – the “winner” only crosses the line first with the help of all the others in the team.
So whereas the open model described does work, for example the Sierre-Zinal race, it can’t work in events like team cycling.
Sports where participants compete head to head, like tennis, would be problematic.
In any case, as a solution it is much like replacing men’s and women’s toilets with unisex facilities. Instead of advancing the cause of trans-women to be equivalent to real women, you are simply doing the converse – reducing the scope of real women until it is restricted to the scope of trans-women. That’s fair, in the same way lose-lose is fair.
Sriracha wrote:
In recognition of the fact that it can be quite difficult for we humans to imagine scenarios outside of our cultural norms, with all their long-established prejudices and predelictions, it can be useful to do two things: mental experiments imagining different and radical social arrangements; an examination of the history of our own and other cultures to see how radically beliefs & practices can & do actually change.
For example, imagine any gender, age, skin colour or physical condition was no artifical culturally-made bar to entering various competitions, including the team sports you mention. Selection for the team is purely dependent on previous perfomances, not gender, age, colour, nationality or “disablement”. If you’re good enough for the team’s required performance, you can be selcted.
In such a scenario, would it always be the case that young, old, male, female, tall, short, pink, brown or any other condition would always see an exclusion based purely on ability? Put another way, could a Tour de France team include a capable woman or two, for example?
The current culturally-dominant answer will be: of course not! Women are weaker!! Etc.. Another answer might be that, given the time, training and opportunity, some women might well bring additional strengths to a Tour de France team. Maybe it would be tactical gnouse; stamina; a superb power-to-weight index …. or even “strength” of the cycling kinds?
**********
Not that long ago, women, “coloured people” and sufferers of various genetic conditions were regarded as inherently unable to have more than a low intelligence; the physical strength to perform certain tasks; or the emotional control to overcome certain sorts of difficulty. All bollox, and well-proven as such for some decades now. Do you think other assumptions that excude various kinds of people from various kinds of activities/roles “because they couldn’t do it” might prove to be false assumptions?
Some folk have a queer mental block that makes them assume that “now” is the moment when “we know everything, unlike them olden folk. History has ended and there can be no better arrangements than those we have today“. It ain’t necessarily so.
Cugel wrote:
Well… for “natural kinds” that’s yes and no! Yes in that our culture in the UK disapproves of several cases of this kind of “sorting” (-ism) for reasons the majority feel are sound (we do more or less… it really depends on where you’re sitting).
No in that “nature vs. culture” is going nowhere. Where are the “unnatural” humans – we would seem to be a part of “nature” and if not, why and how not? Alternatively (as Nietzche pointed out IIRC) if you’re trying to invoke nature as a source of morality you’ll find yourself on a really slippery slope – possibly to a
Sarlaccant-lion pit!That sounds a bit like the Platonic ideal of sport. And could it be for more than one purpose?
Sport certainly has historical and cultural baggage (throwing javelins?). Not to say political and commercial (see UCI bottom bracket height rule). Yes there are arbitrary rules – unfair to some, sometimes. However others are attempts to allow wider competition by balancing the variation which nature serves up to give a more even chance of people winning and/or to limit injury. That involves sub-groups and handicaps.
If you want a more “open” contest you can always declare your own, make rules (or none) and invite participants. If you feel that best serves the purpose you have in mind (to find “the best at it”? Though I’m betting almost any squirrel will beat me in a tree-climbing contest. Now what?). In fact at other than elite level even existing organised sports can be more “laissez faire”.
chrisonatrike wrote:
You could probably beat this one, too, but the contest could be made more fair if you had eight pints first.
andystow wrote:
Possibly this one, too
And there was me thinking
And there was me thinking they were looking in the long grass for lost nuts!
No, we should be separating
No, we should be separating racing categories based on sex and not gender identity.
How someone wants to live their life is their business and as long as they are in a happy place then all is good but their XY blueprint hasn’t changed no matter how loudly the blue hair brigade shout.
No, we should be separating
Why?
…just so I’m getting this
…just so I’m getting this right.
You’re arguing Transwomen should be able to compete in the women’s category, but at the same time questioning the need for a women’s category?
I think the premise of having women’s categories is that because of physical differences between males and females, females can not realistically expect to compete with males on an equal footing.
Are you arguing that this is an unreasonable premise?
Just how much do you hate women?
Quote:
Yes, if the category is ‘women’ let it be all women. If you want to change the category to something directly relevant to sporting ability then feel free to argue so.
Yes I am, these physical differences are not universal to all women regardless of chromosome.
Thank you for illustrating my point. What does hating women have to do with this?
If you were transported 100 years back in time and heard someone say “You think black and white people should compete in the same sports? That’s ignorant of racial theory, how much do you hate white people?” I’d hope you’d have the sense to realise they were just a racist.
Jimmy Ray Will wrote:
“Hate women”? Is this some half-ersed attempt to claim a feminism because women are currently confined to various sporting ghettoes; and some have even been encouraged to defend the ghetto?
Now, don’t get me wrong, ole Ray of sunshine, I’m all for allowing groups of women, men, pink people or folk with certain head bumps to organise their own private events, so as to “be with my own kind”. Private clubs are something of a tradition in Blighty albeit some of them tend to degenerate into, well, degeneracy!
But when it comes to public events, roles and the like that have no alternative, equality of opportunity seems like a good underpinning.
Can we also consider your “realistically” derived opinion that women’s physical differences make them unable to compete with men and expect success? This is not an opinion derived from “realism” about physical sporting abilities but one derived from a current culturally-arranged and enforced exlusionary principle, that there must be mens’ races seprated from womens. An arrangement that is a self-fulfilling prophecy because it never actually tests your assertion about inherent physical differences producing an inability for women to beat men.
However, I know many sporty women who are just as good as many men. I know; some who are a lot better. Perhaps some women will be better than ALL the men!? We’ll never know unless we test it by allowing them to compete together, inclusive of enough years so that the training and other factors then available equally can have their effects.
Car Delenda Est wrote:
So to follow this line of reasoning, we should progressively eliminate all the boundaries and distinctions between men and women, until there is no demarcation. At that point there will be no observable difference between men and women, there will be total homogeneity.
What then will it mean to transition? And how will anyone, including oneself, know you transitioned?
So your only argument for
So your only argument for gender segregation in sports is to affirm gender norms?
What exactly does that have to do with fairness in sports?
Because as a society we have
Because as a society we have decided that if we have sporting contests, we would like women to have a chance of winning some events and they almost never would if they had to compete against men. (They never would in events where the best men competed against the best women).
That decision isn’t set in stone, it’s been made by humans and can be undone by them. But it’s reasonable to suspect that even fewer girls and women would participate in sport if they know from the outset that they can never win because many competitors are bigger/stronger/faster simply because of significant physiological advantages which were set before birth, enhanced at puberty and cannot be overcome by effort or training.
If you’re comfortable with that happening, be honest and say so. It’s a consistent position to hold, you just need to accept that you’re telling women that they just have to suck it up and stick to being also-rans.
I would argue the same if there were clearly-definable races, with minuscule amounts of overlap, where one race outperformed another for physiological reasons by similar margins to which men outperform women. But there aren’t, so I don’t.
But why is this treatment
But why is this treatment given to the category of women? By your logic it should be a category in the Paralympics. But why is this not also done for other statistically disadvantaged categories?
We have no separate categories for the short or slight..
The question of where you
The question of where you stop also arises. Should tall runners have hteir legs tied together to limit their stride length to that of the shortest?
Exactly, there are many
Exactly, there are many places you could draw the line, but transphobia has decided we draw that line down the middle of women.
Car Delenda Est wrote:
(Goes back and re-reads stuff on gender identity, gender self-determination, gender critical etc. and how those might interact with biological sex / sporting performance and comes out more muddled than before. Particularly since some of the new definitions appear to call their own basis into question…)
A bad example. Perhaps should
A bad example. Perhaps should short high jumpers have a different competition to tall high jumpers?
There is historically, and
There is historically, and today, an obvious physical differential between male and female than there may be (I’ve not seen any hard evidence for this) by race.
As an example, the best 100m sprint female time is not even close to the top 100 best male times wheras, in both categories there are more than one ethnical classifications.
The debate, form what I see, is whether a trans athlete should compete in their ‘new’ gender catagory and whether the authorities can satisfy themselves that any inherent physical advantage has been sufficiently ‘supressed.’
The full gamut of Armstrong
The full gamut of Armstrong related human emotions coming out in the Road.cc comments section.
Hey, everybody, so how’s the
Hey, everybody, so how’s the weather where you are?
Been miserable, but I think I
Been miserable, but I think I can see a rainbow….
Very nice thankyou, although
Very nice thankyou, although I think me and the met office are divided on the word ”breezy”
I’m not in the least bit
I’m not in the least bit surprised to see that Armstrong has apparently learnt nothing from the last 11 years and is still acting like a jumped up über-arsehole.
It seems that some things never change.
Presumably there is some
Presumably there is some logic to the scores in the Saga table but there’s really only one thing to say when you get to the end column:
That’s numberwang!!
muhasib wrote:
My assumption is that the last column is a relative score. So the best city was always going to score 10, and the worst 0, and then the others are on a scale between those.
Or, as you say, that’s numberwang.
I doubt the person running
I doubt the person running the TdF twitfeed account is even old enough to know who Lance Armstrong is properly, or what L’Equipes headline mirrors from 24 years ago…they probably just saw it and thought yeah thats a good phrase, seems to be popular for some reason, lets tag along with that.
I wonder what these
I wonder what these ‘Permanently outraged‘ would do without the likes of Lance Armstrong or for that matter Donald Trump or Nigel Farage ?
Fact is, these people need a Lance Armstrong, they need a crisis like Covid or ‘climate emergency’ etc. Without that reason to be outraged, or to signal their virtue, what do they do ? Whatever did they do back in the day when Pronouns didn’t matter ?
Oh well, off to ponder while on my ride I guess.
I wonder what these “sizzling
I wonder what these “sizzling gammons” would do without JSO, or BLM, or Pride?
Fact is, these people need people trying to make the world a better and more equal place. Without that reason to be outraged and spout their hate, what do they do? Whatever did they do back in the day when such matters weren’t aired and debated?
Ha, nice one.
Ha, nice one.
Have you seen BLM? Pretty sure those were massive scams, even the imported version here in Bristol the organiser is up on fraud charges. The main one in the USA allowed the Executive to leech USD$10m in donations (court case in California) and another one buy a USD$6m mansion.
Isn’t JSO funded by the heiress of JP Getty Oil billionaire ?
These are obvious scams, and anyway simply reactionary elements to the majority in the general community. But anyway the point is you need the likes of Lance Armstrong, or Trump. What else would ever you do?
This site needs them for clicks. Let’s see them go a couple of weeks without either of them?
Roulereo wrote:
‘s OK, think they said they
‘s OK, think they said they were going for a bike ride. Presumably after encountering the excellent conditions there and world-class infra they may change their mind on some of the cycling-related trigger issues…
It’s rather interesting that
It’s rather interesting that they said they were going for a bike ride, presumably “here in Bristol”, in a post timed around 1 am today. Rather an odd time for a ride, although one which would make perfect sense if the rider was, for example, in California, where it would be 5 pm and just nice for a ride after work.
New stage on Zwift?
New stage on Zwift?
You could both be right. 30
You could both be right. 30 odd places in United States that are named after Bristol.
There’s even a Preston in
There’s even a Preston in Essex, or the other way round. Or not.
Rendel Harris wrote:
Oh, Ok – I missed that. It kind of blew my mind, and I’d always assumed roulereo was in Idaho or Texas or somewhere like that…
Rendel Harris wrote:
Oh, Ok – I missed that. It kind of blew my mind, and I’d always assumed roulereo was in Idaho or Texas or somewhere like that…
(edited)
They said “even the imported version here in Bristol the organiser is up on fraud charges” and the BBC says “Bristol Black Lives Matter march organiser denies fraud” https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-bristol-64150722
I think my
was probably right the first time…
Don’t worry, it might just be
Don’t worry, it might just be another Nige persona. Essex is a long way away (and even further to a bicycle shop in NL IIRC…)
Farage and Trump are liars
Farage and Trump are liars and grifters. It’s evident. Yet for some reason there are people who still believe these super rich, privately educated, privileged people actually give a monkeys about the ‘working man’. Trump ‘cares’ because he makes money from his cult folllowers. Farage needs ignorance on a mass scale for his hate to get any traction.
I guess so, you’ve convinced
I guess so, you’ve convinced me the world’s so much better now these two aren’t in power.