This week’s cycling and triathlon news from the perspective of women athletes!
Exciting developments as the ASO announce a Tour de France for women will happen in 2022. In triathlon news, the women go head to head in Tokyo to qualify for Team USA.
And, in the land of nutrition, we’ve updated our latest resources for plant-based athletes and those who want to eat a little more ‘plant forward’.
TOUR DE FRANCE FOR WOMEN ANNOUNCED FOR 2022
It was announced that this year’s Tour de France would also feature a full-length women’s race that will take place after the men’s race has concluded. This was welcomed as a huge step forward in women’s cycling but also with some controversy when the director of the Tour de France, Christian Prudhomme, commented that women’s races lose money.
Ex-pro cyclist, documentarian, author AND key petitioner for a women’s Tour de France and the creation of La Course, had much to say on Prudhomme’s comments about women’s cycling not being profitable.
“First, women’s races do make money. The televised, streaming viewership stats prove the demand is there. I know, because we had access to the stats via Universal Sports in 2014, when I raced La Course. It was a huge success. The money was and is there,” she said.
“If ASO want to hide behind their inaccurate claim that ‘women’s events lose money’, they need to educate themselves. Fast. They’re the ones in charge of whether an event succeeds or fails. ASO must start promoting women’s events in the media equal to how they promote men. This isn’t rocket science.
“Imagine where cycling will be when ASO and UCI finally realize that women athletes are incredibly marketable. When done correctly, the entire sport of cycling will rise, thrive and be far more financially lucrative than it is now,” Bertine added.
“It isn’t the job of women cyclists to prove their worth – they already have. It is the job of ASO to invest in the athletes and races they create.
“The fact that we will have a 2022 women’s Tour de France is a game-changer. But Prudhomme’s archaic comments about women’s racing has a ‘set up to fail’ tone, and that doesn’t do much to prove ASO have evolved from their dinosaur views of women, sports and equality.”
Read the full article at Cycling News. We’re sure there will be much more to come on this story.
TRIATHLON NEWS: TAYLOR KNIBB IS GOING TO TOKYO WITH TEAM USA
Last weekend the 2021 World Triathlon Championship Series started off in Yokohama, Japan. This race also served as an automatic qualifying race for US athletes to move onto Team USA. In winning the race, Taylor Knibb secured the last women’s spot on Team USA and will be going back to Tokyo in July.
Laura Sidall wrote a spectacular race report over at Witsup covering the best of the race and how athletes warmed up pre-race in the pandemic-sensitive situation.
The qualification process is not as simple as it would seem. In Tokyo there will be a new element to triathlon competition with the addition of a mixed-team relay where each country will compete with two women and two men. This format will be female/male/female/male, and the distance for each athlete at the Olympics will be a 300m swim, an 8km bike, and a 2km run.
The skills for both of these types of races are different, so each country is challenged to come up with athletes who will be able to excel at both the individual and the relay. Liz Hichens at Triathlete Magazine took the time (thank you!) to fully explain the qualifying process.
Could this be harder than the training itself?
Whatever the decisions the governing bodies now have to make, as triathletes we are thrilled to see the enthusiasm and excitement and obvious preparation of everyone involved. Racing is back and that makes the world spin a little brighter.
RESOURCES FOR PLANT-BASED ATHLETES
Whole food, plant-based approach to nutrition is here too stay and the pandemic world afforded us all more time in our own kitchens than ever before.
To quote Masterchef, ‘you are only as good as your last dish’. We suppose this also applies to athletes looking for performance as well as Masterchef contestants!
We have updated our list of resources for athletes wanting to add more plant-based recipes to their repertoire. We’ve taken the guess work out of it by literally consuming numerous cookbooks, podcasts, documentaries and websites to find the most useful and time efficient of them all.
If you’re interested in exploring a more plant-based approach, check out our latest recommendations and power up with more plants.
