Could Marianne Vos ride for a men ProTour team one day?

[TheEnoculator]

I'm just being realistic here. Vos wasn't the first woman to try competing with men, and she won't be the last one.

As I stated before, men and women are fundamentally different physiologically. That's why they separate men and women in ANY pro sport. I'm sure Vos can drop any of us like flies, but that's a moot point. She's at an elite level, she needs to be put in the elite category with other athletes. If she were to ride in the WorldTour, it's unrealistic to expect her to do well.

I'm a huge fan of Vos. I always root for her to win the worlds. But crossing into the men's world is a completely different game at the pro level. It needs to be considered carefully

 

[gregrowlerson]

Does anyone have a link to the women's Giro parcours that they could post? I am interested to check out the course. Personally I think that the women should do the same as the men. 3 weeks, same mountains. Women have just as good endurance; no harder for them to go up Zoncolan; they just do it a little slower.

 

[PCutter]

Maybe should try clocking up some wins on the Asia Tour, then AG2R could sign her.

 

[gregrowlerson]

http://www.cyclingfever.com/editie.html?detp=view&_ap=etappes&editie_idd=MjE2MDk=

10 stages and the longest 129kms for the 2011 women's Giro. Pathetic. I thought female sport had moved on from the days where the longest distance race (running) was 1,500 metres?

 

[rgmerk]

We don't know how Vos would react in a field of men who are vastly stronger than she is. If she can be unmotivated on her own, who said she couldn't be intimidated? Men's cycling is way more competitive at this point than women's.

Have you ever met any elite female cyclists?

They may not have the absolute physical capabilities of the elite men, but they are *very very tough characters*. I very much doubt intimidation would be a problem.

 

[Master50]

First thing.
Pat has no direct say as to whether she can race with men. Even he has rules to follow. I can think of a few places she is not allowed to ride with men in the rules now.
No championships or games.
She is restricted to distance. Maximum distance, average daily distance and distance in time trials are regulated for elite men, juniors, women, and U23 riders.
These rules are in the book now. The ones I have brought up don't necessarily mean there are no events she could not ride with men but I do suspect a number of people would work to prevent it too.
I have seen a few women that can ride with cat 1 and 2 men but pros?
I know of a Canadian female hockey player that played pro in Europe. I think she made a pretty respectable show of it but it was not NHL level either.
I would love to see how she handles it but she could face some regulatory hurdles to get a chance. I think if you can do the job then you should get a chance to prove it.

 

[craig1985]

This is like how Annika Sörenstam went and played in some PGA events and in her first event she failed to make the cut.

 

[Marcuccio]

yes if they'd ride in a goddamn kitchen

hahaha lol

 

[42x16ss]

When I was living in Townsville, Ruth Corset (former Aus champ with a couple of top 10's at worlds) used to race and train with us for large parts of the season and had no issues keeping up with us cat 1's on the flats and climbs.

The club had her in A grade where she certainly won her fair share of races. A few of the guys racing there at the time have gone on to race at NRS level as well.

 

[WillemS]

I don't think she'll make it in a ProTour-team. But I don't think that's the goal of her riding men's races.

The "Riding men's races" in the news article doesn't equal only the top-level. She might ride the continental circuit to start with and do quite well. She might not be a winner there, but I think that would be the main point of the exercise: Getting a better motivation by experiencing the inability to keep up with the top of the field.

It don't think they meant that she would quit the Woman's Circuit altogether. In an interview with the Dutch NOS (Popup
Vos wil graag tegen mannen rijden), Blijlevens stated that she could learn a lot from men's races and that he thought she would be "able to keep up" with the peloton. Nowhere I got the impression that riding men's races would be her main goal nor that she would be joining the top level of men's racing.

 

[Skip Madness]

Does anyone have a link to the women's Giro parcours that they could post? I am interested to check out the course. Personally I think that the women should do the same as the men. 3 weeks, same mountains. Women have just as good endurance; no harder for them to go up Zoncolan; they just do it a little slower.

Although it's a nice thought, given that women are generally lighter than men to start with there are issues about the effects on riders health in riding the same grand tour distances as men.

 

[L'arriviste]

When not racing, I used to do Saturday mornings in a bunch which often included Yvonne McGregor. I was terrified of her.

Anecdotes aside, if Vos were to join the men's bunch, that would happen contemporaneously with the ladies' season. In addition we are constantly being reminded how little money there is in women's cycling.

So if it is true that Vos wouldn't be able to do much in the men's peloton - and I wouldn't presume to know - I would have thought that she'd be better off in ladies' races at least for the prize money.

Sadly, the only reasoning in this argument is money, but I'm a big Vos fan and I wouldn't want to see her reduced to a tasteless sidebar in a race report.

 

[Arnout]

When not racing, I used to do Saturday mornings in a bunch which often included Yvonne McGregor. I was terrified of her.

Anecdotes aside, if Vos were to join the men's bunch, that would happen contemporaneously with the ladies' season. In addition we are constantly being reminded how little money there is in women's cycling.

So if it is true that Vos wouldn't be able to do much in the men's peloton - and I wouldn't presume to know - I would have thought that she'd be better off in ladies' races at least for the prize money.

Sadly, the only reasoning in this argument is money, but I'm a big Vos fan and I wouldn't want to see her reduced to a tasteless sidebar in a race report.

Don't worry about the salary of Vos. Reportedly it's well over 100,000 euros. She might be the only one though.

But I agree with someone in this thread, too lazy to look it up now, that if you want to improve women's cycling, this is not the way to go. Vos is arguably the only woman having any chance of success in just riding in men's races. If the best woman in the field leaves, what's left?

 

[Fester]

Anecdotally, there was an Italian woman way back that rode the Giro with the likes of Coppi and Bartalli... her name escapes me, but it's an amazing story.

 

[Michele]

Alfonsina Strada

 

[Cloxxki]

I'll offer this before I work through all the pages here.

When she was much younger, "just" a national and junior champ, Marianne would train with guys all the time. Winter forest rides, which are executed as 1.5-2 hour full-one races. A club plots a course through a forrest, and you ride like hell following the markers laid out.
She was able to hang on to male top-10 elite MTB championship riders and the like, who were very serious about trying to drop her.

When I was pre-riding Harderwijk, the CX season opening in like 2000, I think she was 14 or 15 at the time. She started behind he boys of the same age, and slaughtered them. Dutch 15y/o kids being world class, she did not catch them all. that said, Harderwijk was then a really, really fast grass track, riding it alone was a distinct disadvantage. When I was lapped by Nys there, I could sortof hang on. Doing it alone was obviously impossible, such relentless pace.

Marianne being such a tender frame, despite her amazing sprint capabilities, does make her weaker at high speeds. I can see why she doesn't dominate high-speed TT's for that reason. On a muddy course though, or anything ending up averaging 35kph or less, you'll need to be a LOT of man to dream of keeping up. She's the real deal, always was.
Note that she also did some serious high-level school while beating seniors as a girl. She is of a different level altogether, although at the end of a WC, yes she can be beaten in a spring for the line. A 1-minute muddy steep hill though, good luck to anyone.

 

[Cloxxki]

Yes, but Neuner also knows that she wouldn't be able to get in to a pursuit in mens biathlon, she knows her place, so should Vos.

She'd get close though, and definately stay clear of bottom 10 men in world cups. None of those are slouches.
In IBU cup, I think Neuner might make top 50-60 frequently, of course depending on shooting. We know that if she has a favorite discipline it's sprint though, so I could see her qualifying there.

In biathlon, the climbing is really steep, which I think makes it more of a strength sport than fitness. On average, top women's lap times differ by a good 10%, but that's including downhills whichever way that changes things.

I am glad Marianne seems to cope well with her successes thus far, although her motivation may be in part to not let down her very cycling minded family. She doesn't really seem to have great privacy or a personal life, although I don't knwo anything about it, nor would I have grounds to go and investigate.

Off-topic:
Neuner could just try and become XC Olympic champ, but seems to mostly just want a non-celebrity life. She's tried the celebrity scene but prefers to be at home, mending the garding, wearing traditional clothing, or whatever it is she likes to do. She's too humble to accept being an idol to millions.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

It wouldn't make a lick of sense for Vos to be on the Pro Team. She'd just be annihilated. If she gets dropped at the Paris-Tours, she'll need to be escorted to the finish line by a couple of teammates, which would be disastrous if the team has plans to win the race. In the WorldTour, every point matters.

Fine, let her try her legs at the men's world, but at the Continental Team. Regardless how impressive her numbers are, 50% of cycling is mental toughness. Can she handle the pressure to be part of a sprint train going at 63km/h to deliver Bos? Probably not.

But neither the article heading nor Jeroen Blijlevens ever said anything about putting Vos in the Pro Team (where she surely would be annihilated). Just about her racing in men's races. Being realistic about the Rabobank setup, this would mean Rabo Continental, not Rabobank. She has more chance of being able to hack it in elite amateur races or lower level Europe Tour races, no? Nobody said anything about including Marianne in sprint trains (notwithstanding if she couldn't hack the pace at Paris-Tours she'd just drop out or be left to her own devices, as nobody is expecting her to win here) either - just that she could ride in them. We don't know what her targets would be. Maybe just being able to stay in the péloton would be all that she's after.

Thinking that Blijlevens, Vos or Rabo management think Vos will be able to contend for wins at Europe Tour races or ride on Pro Team Rabobank credits them with little intelligence. They're a lot more realistic than the sensationalist title of this thread or comments in the article (which seemed to ignore the existence of Rabo Continental despite it being much, much more sensible).

At the most, she'd have been allowed to do a couple of UCI Europe Tour races as a stagiare. The WorldTour was never considered.

http://www.cyclingfever.com/editie.html?detp=view&_ap=etappes&editie_idd=MjE2MDk=

10 stages and the longest 129kms for the 2011 women's Giro. Pathetic. I thought female sport had moved on from the days where the longest distance race (running) was 1,500 metres?

None of that is the fault of the women though. The max 150km and 10 stage max are arbitrary UCI rules (and besides the other problem is of course money, making longer races hard to organise; several stage races have fallen by the wayside).

 

[Cloxxki]

UCi has the very irritating tendency to look at the world, and turn current reality into rule. There is no reason to let women ride shorter, from the rider's perspective. Neither is there to make men's races so boringly long, BTW.

 

[Arnout]

UCi has the very irritating tendency to look at the world, and turn current reality into rule. There is no reason to let women ride shorter, from the rider's perspective. Neither is there to make men's races so boringly long, BTW.

You can argue about the former, but the latter is simply necessary to make it the sport it is now. It's all about endurance. It's for a reason that monuments are often 250+ km and that there are some riders that simply cannot cope with that distance (Gilbert of 3 years ago as a prime example). It should be represented in the sport.

After all, there is no-one forcing you to watch for the first 190 km...

 

[ElChingon]

Why not?

Respect or lack of? Well what does everyone say about the Orange Carrots come Tour time?

I think it would be a good story for the woman and even UCI to promote cycling much like when they did it in Tennis, its all for the promotion of the sport right? This would gain some major headlines if even for one ProTour race.

I know back in maybe the late 90's or early 00's a woman racer joined in on some races for training, I forget who it was but she would just bail before the end of the race, there's pictures of her doing it somewhere her on the old CN site links, I'm sure it was an early season race.

Would she be competitive? Well I don't see the UCI pulling riders who are obviously non-competitive now so don't see why they shouldn't let her or some woman/women race the men's races if they wanted. It would be a spectacle if even for one race.

Come one where's the sporting in ya's!

 

[greenedge]

I agree that the most talented women should try ride in the mens' peleton ( to some degrees ). It's a sort of grey area with faults on both sides.

However the mens' peleton is much better than the Womens'. To compare that ( the U23 men in the Aussie Nats rode the same course/ length as the Women, yet the Winner ( Rohan Dennis ) beat ( Gillow ) by 3:30 minutes.

 

[El Pistolero]

You can argue about the former, but the latter is simply necessary to make it the sport it is now. It's all about endurance. It's for a reason that monuments are often 250+ km and that there are some riders that simply cannot cope with that distance (Gilbert of 3 years ago as a prime example). It should be represented in the sport.

After all, there is no-one forcing you to watch for the first 190 km...

Gilbert of 3 years ago won Paris-Tours for the second time in a row, was fourth in AGR(and first on the Cauberg sprint), was third in Flanders, fourth in Liège and won Il Lombardia.

Gilbert of 4 years ago won Paris-Tours which is a pretty long classic and got a podium in La Primavera. Gilbert of 5 and 6 years ago was already pretty active in said classic. While his endurance has greatly increased over the years, it's not true to say he couldn't cope with distance 3 years ago. Paris-Tours 2008 was a turning point for Gilbert and even before that he was active in the longest classic of the world. Him sucking at the other classics was because he always peaked too early, so he went in suicide breakaways instead of waiting in the peloton.

 

[Zoncolan]

No woman could ever compete with men in cycling. In another sport, where it's mostly about skill, maybe, but cycling is all about power and endurance.
Just look at the results the women achieve in ITTs, and you'll see they are about 15% slower than the men.
http://www.cyclingnews.com/races/uci-road-world-championships-2011/elite-women-time-trial/results
No woman out there could make even a half decent domestique. They would struggle to survive in the bunch.

 

[Fester]

No woman could ever compete with men in cycling. In another sport, where it's mostly about skill, maybe, but cycling is all about power and endurance.
Just look at the results the women achieve in ITTs, and you'll see they are about 15% slower than the men.
http://www.cyclingnews.com/races/uci-road-world-championships-2011/elite-women-time-trial/results
No woman out there could make even a half decent domestique. They would struggle to survive in the bunch.

Well, 6.6w/kg is 6.6w/kg regardless of sex, race, religion...

About 99.9% of men couldn't keep up in a pro tour peloton either. Also there is a lot more to cycling that strength and endurance.