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(Photo: UCI)
The first Grand Tour of the year, the seven-day women's Vuelta (known as La Vuelta Femenina), kicked off this past weekend — but Stage 1 left a complicated mess, thanks to poor staffing from the UCI.
What happened?
The seven-day race kicks off with a team time trial on Day 1. In a team time trial, the athletes ride together in a tight formation and the finish time is typically taken after the fourth athlete crosses the line.
Before every time trial, riders must go through a UCI inspection to insure they comply with equipment regulations. At the women's Vuelta, UCI had just *one* inspector staffing the event.
After the Movistar team arrived late to their inspection, it forced the UNO-X and Visma Lease a Bike teams to wait.
In a team time trial, the clock starts at your assigned time — whether you are done with inspection or not. Because the teams had to wait, due to there being just one inspector, both the delayed teams were forced to start without all of their riders. This left riders having to chase down their own teams or teams having to wait for them to catch up. In a race where every second matters, this is a HUGE disadvantage to start out the race.
Would the men's Vuelta only have one inspector??
🥇 RESULTS: The legendary Marianne Vos followed up with a sprint win on Stage 2 but was outsprinted in a crash-ridden Stage 3
🚲 PREVIEW: Riders hit the big mountain stages — where the overall win will likely be decided — tomorrow and Thursday, with the ultimate toughest final day on Saturday
📺 WATCH: On TNT Sports in the UK, Flobikes in Canada, and Peacock in the U.S.
2. The Walter Cup: The PWHL Playoffs start 🏒
The Professional Women's Hockey League playoffs start tomorrow — with the first round as a best of five match-ups, followed by the finals. And with two new expansion teams announced for next year, the league is booming!
Who’s playing?
It all came down to a very stressful Saturday afternoon, but the Ottawa Charge and the Minnesota Frost booked their spots in the playoffs at the last minute. They join the Montréal Victoire and Toronto Sceptres, who had already clinched their spots.
The Montréal Victoire were the top team of the regular season so they got to pick their opponent in the first round (something unique to the PWHL). They chose their neighbors, the Ottawa Charge, who finished third in the standings.
Wednesday, May 7 @ 7 p.m. ET: Sceptres v. Frost
Thursday, May 8 @ 7 p.m. ET: Victoire v. Charge
Last year, both top seeds Toronto and Montréal ended up losing in the first round (!) — what will happen this year?
📺 WATCH: In Canada, the series are split between TSN and Amazon Prime; outside of Canada, watch on the PWHL Youtube.
3. Ironman rolls back women's-only championship race and equal spots for women
Last week, Ironman (the company, not the superhero) announced a return to a combined men’s and women’s Ironman World Championship race on the Big Island of Hawaii. And a return to the pre-COVID system of allocating championship spots based on participation rates.
Instead of simply awarding an equal number of spots to men and women, this system — known as “proportionality” within triathlon — takes a set number of total qualifying slots to the world championship and divides them up to men’s and women’s age groups via a black box algorithm based on how many people start a given qualifying race. When this system was last used it resulted in about 25-30% of the athletes at the Ironman World Championship being women.
😔 After three years of women having their own (amazing!) championship race — without men on course to interfere — and an equal number of slots to get there, this left a lot of women feeling frustrated with a sense of going backwards.
🤔 It's a complicated topic, but that's why we jumped on an "emergency" podcast episode to explain the problems.
READ: "An FAQ: The Problems with 'Proportional' Awards in Triathlon"
LISTEN: Ironman Goes Backwards: Special World Champs Episode |
