Ladies First: A Race Day Change
For Gravel Worlds 2022,
Elite Women will line up at the front for our main Gravel Worlds 150 race.
Please take time to read this blog to:
Understand why we are making this change,
What we hope this change will accomplish,
Why We Chose This Solution,
How this change will be executed.
We know this change doesn’t fix every issue in cycling, but we hope it is a step in the right direction to level the playing field in the elite women’s race.
Why Are We Making This Change?
In early October, the Gravel Worlds team sat in on a closed call with dozen of other race promoters and several dozen elite female gravel cyclists. The purpose of the call was to listen to some issues and concerns from many elite female athletes about the current state of female racing in gravel. In a very broad summary, there is a lot to celebrate and be proud of when it comes to women in gravel racing, BUT we as promoters can be doing things to make it better. Many elite female athletes on this call had concerns with there being unfair advantages inside many women’s races.
We’ve reached a point in gravel cycling that a win at Gravel Worlds or another major race can literally completely change a rider’s career. It’s important to us to make sure we do what we can to make our race fair and fun for all riders, including the elite.
Some things are out of the hands of race promoters, but other things are not. Based on this call here is a summary of how we interpreted what Gravel is doing well and what we as promoters can improve.
What Is Gravel Doing Right?
Everyone Rides Together!
Gravel has been unique from the beginning in that men and women ride the same course and have the same obstacle on course to overcome. IE There isn’t a shorter race for women. AND women and men line up together at the start. In too many other genres of sport (including cycling), women are handed a watered-down challenge and/or are separated from their male counterparts. Gravel has celebrated women’s achievements alongside men and has offered the same challenge to every single rider regardless of age, gender, or ability.
Mass Starts
Mass starts with all athletes isn’t necessarily unique to Gravel, but it is unique in how almost universal it is across all gravel events. From the general consensus, there is something empowering for every rider to line up on the start line as every other rider. Every rider is treated equally, every rider has the exact same challenges ahead, and every rider (from first to last) is lining up at the same spot at the same time. Not only is this inspiring to elite women who line up with elite men, but this is inspiring and very special for the everyday rider who gets to go home and say they started a race with their favorite gravel pro.
What Can Gravel Improve In The Elite Women’s Race?
The biggest concern was equality of opportunity. There were two main parts to this: One is already handled in the Gravel Worlds Self-Supported Rules, but the other was not.
Equality of Team Support for Elite Women
There was a frustration inside this call that seemed to focus on domestiques or team support that not all females have the same opportunity to. This has made headlines for years now in gravel cycling.
Gravel Worlds has been a self-supported race since day one in 2010 and has been an official rule since our inception. The use of domestiques or the use of teammates to get or carry supplies for another rider is prohibited by our rules and will result in instant disqualification. This rule would also prohibit a teammate whose only purpose is to aid in drafting for a portion or entirety of the race. This does also prohibit a male teammate from being a domestique for a female teammate in the preplanned purpose to draft for an entire race.
While we encourage the support of other riders in need, support can not be preplanned and is strictly against our rules. We won’t comment about the happenings of other races, but this has not been an issue at Gravel Worlds, so we were happy to know that (hopefully) this won’t be a concern for our event.
Equality of Starting Opportunity for Elite Women
The start of any race can be and usually is chaotic. Fighting for positions often starts even inside the “neutral” area of the race. Once the flag drops outside of any neutral roll-outs, moves start happening instantly and the chaos can last for several miles up the road. This chaos is often multiplied in the women’s races as they are also in the mix with all the men because of the mass start.
This issue is this: In regards to just the women’s race, the importance of starting position is multiplied because there are generally fewer females in the mix and it is easier to lose sight of, or even not even be aware of moves other elite women are making or following up the road.
One elite female on the call stated that too many times, a move or attack was made or caught by another female athlete that there was no possibility of catching simply because of starting position. Example: While starting in 30th place in the lineup sounds great, if another female athlete starts in 5th and is able to catch a move of elite men in the first miles the woman in 30th place simply never had the opportunity to catch/follow that move. Moves like this can be the difference in seconds or several minutes. The biggest frustration seemed to be that there was simply never a chance to follow a move their female competitor was able to make just because of starting position. Had nothing to do with ability, power, handling skills, etc, and had everything to do with lack of opportunity at the start line.
We left that call motivated to be a leader in making a difference in female racing. With our “1000 Women of Gravel Worlds” initiative, our goal for Gravel Worlds 2022 is to be a celebration of women in gravel and that includes our elite women athletes. If there is a way to make racing better for elite women, we wanted to be a part of the solution. We started discussing that night and would spend the next few weeks brainstorming several ideas to find a solution.
What We Want To Accomplish
Our number one concern and the concern that seemed to be expressed by many other race promoters on that call was we didn’t want to change the structure of the race to where it negatively affects the experience of the 99%. Especially at Gravel Worlds, an extreme majority of our race is made up of people who will never win. Those everyday individuals come with their own goals and challenges, and the last thing we wanted to do was negatively affect the experience of those athletes. Before we made any changes, we knew our number one priority had to stay with the everyday rider. We absolutely LOVE celebrating the accomplishments of world-class athletes, but the accomplishments and overcoming of personal adversity to every other rider has always been the priority of Gravel Worlds.
What we wanted to keep:
The experience to stay fun and exciting for all athletes, especially for those all the way to the back.
Mass Starts
All athletes regardless of gender or ability to ride and start together.
What we wanted to fix:
Equality of Opportunity in the Elite Women’s Race
Why We Chose This Solution
There were many ideas we came up with, but one solution seemed to cross off the most boxes. We met back up with the panel of elite female athletes on December 2nd with our idea and received overall very positive feedback. It was very important to us to go back to the elite women to make sure we were making a positive change. With their positive support and their feedback, we were able to tweak some minute details to make this change better.
So what are we going to do for Gravel Worlds 2022?
Allow any woman who would like to go for the victory (overall or age category) to start at the front of the race.
By designating the front of the starting gate for only women, letting women be the first to hit gravel, and letting women be at the front to catch any passing moves crosses off almost all the boxes.
Keep the race fun and essentially unchanged for the 99%. CHECK
Allow elite women to see and know their competitors at the start. CHECK
Allow elite women to see and react to any moves from other elite women. CHECK
Have subsequent opportunities to catch all other moves as they pass. CHECK
While we know this doesn’t fix all issues in gravel or women’s racing in gravel, we feel this is a great step in the right direction.
How This Will Be Executed
While it may sound like a simple change, we want to make sure we do this right.
Starting Area
The front of Gravel Worlds 150 starting block will be taped off for women only.
Who Can Come In?
Any woman can enter the designated starting block. Any woman who would like to go for a victory can enter this area. We believe this will self-regulate and we believe we should not be the judge and jury of who is and isn’t qualified to go for a victory. That being said, in the name of safety, we will HIGHLY encourage all riders in this area to have the abilities needed to ride at an elite level in both bike handling and overall skill.
We encourage all women to line up in their estimated finish time blocks that are marked at the starting area the same as all athletes. This is designed to keep all riders safe. A rider with a 13 hour finish time is a hazard to themselves and all others who have a 7-8 hour finish time when starting at the front of a race.
Physical Barrier Separation
There will be some form of physical barrier/separation between the elite women and rest of the pack for the first 2 miles of the race. This separation will either be a police cruiser or ATVs.
The purpose of this is to restrict the elite men from simply overtaking the elite women instantly and making this effort useless.
Women Hit The Gravel First
Because of the physical separation of a police cruiser or ATV, women WILL be the first to hit the gravel at Mile 1.
Women Get 1 Mile Of Uninterrupted Racing
Women can start racing once they hit the gravel at Mile 1.
The physical barrier will stay in place at a consistent speed for the next mile of Gravel. All male athletes MUST stay behind this barrier or will be disqualified.
The physical barrier will pull off at mile 2 and full racing commences.
The goal of this is to allow women to create a distance between the elite men in the first 2 miles and make safe moves inside their own group. This separation will allow women to catch any moves that come around them. From that point on the playing field will hopefully be leveled among the elite women and the woman with the best strength and ability will prevail.
Thank you!
To the self-organizing group of pro and elite women gravel riders, THANK YOU!! Thank you for letting us know how we can make our sport better. Thank you for taking the time to meet again with the Gravel Worlds crew. And thank you for helping mold and polish our idea to hopefully make gravel cycling better for our Elite Women. Our sport would not be what it is today and it certainly wouldn’t be as good as it can be tomorrow without you.
We are going to learn a lot in 2022. We will need to continue to make changes to our event to make it better for all our athletes, but we hope this change is a strong step in the right direction.
If you would like to be a part of Gravel Worlds 2022, please register here: https://www.bikereg.com/gravel-worlds-2022
