(Photo: Christoph Raithel/Challenge Family)
2. Don't forget about the women's Giro d'Italia 🚴♀️
Unfortunately scheduled *right* during the men's Tour de France (every damn year!), the Giro d'Italia Women can sometimes get overshadowed — but it's one of the two biggest races on the Women's World Tour calendar! And it's always exciting.
What to know
July 7-14
Eight stages
(1 individual time trial, very few pure sprinter stages, 2 massive climbing stages on the last two days)
That includes the penultimate Blockhaus climb that will be (kinda) climbed 2x and will be named this year for the amazing trailblazer Alfonsina Strada — the first and only woman to finish the men's Giro back in 1924.
Who could win?
Multiple time defending champ Annemiek van Vleuten retired, so there'll be a new winner this year.
- Stage 1: Elisa Longo Borghini won the opening time trial in and still sits in first overall (by just 13 seconds) going into stage 4 tomorrow
- Stage 2: Chiara Consonni outsprinted world champ Lotte Kopecky
- Stage 3: Niamh Fisher-Black just beat out Kopecky on the first major climb
BUT! Lotte Kopecky climbed well and sits in second overall as we head into the second half of the eight-stage race 🚴♀️🚴♀️🚴♀️
Will it ultimately be Kopecky or Longo Borghini or Juliette Labous (who is in third overall right now)?
READ: Full Giro d'Italia Women preview
WATCH: On FloBikes in the U.S., Canada & Australia and on EuroSport in Europe
3. The struggle of NFL cheerleaders
Be pretty, but don't look slutty. Be available to fans, but don't invite inappropriate behavior. Be an athlete but make it look easy, in makeup and tight outfits.
These are the tensions many viewers are seeing play out right now in the popular Netflix docuseries that follows the famous Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders through their 2023 season. From tryouts to game days, we're able to see so much of the dichotomy these women go through: They talk about their mental health struggles and eating disorders, but also how much they love being a part of this team and nothing else they do will ever compare. They talk about the beauty standards they're expected to maintain, and we spend huge amounts of the series watching
them get full make-up and hair ready for every practice and listening to the critiques they're given by team directors. They genuinely support and care about each other, but also struggle with the injuries they incur doing jumps that land them on the ground in the splits. Many of them have other full-time jobs and have spent years training as dancers, and then leave the "DCC" family to get married and be 'good Christian women.'
This is the tension at the heart of a job to be "America's Sweethearts" (as they're called) — a job that doesn't even pay that well, despite the time commitment and huge amounts of money made off of them.
How much do cheerleaders get paid?
Hard to say, because there is no public data and it varies by team.
A series of lawsuits were filed against nearly half the NFL teams over the last ten years, with the biggest suits coming in 2021. These argued that, for example, the Oakland Raiders paid a lump sum of just $1,250 at the end of the season, that wages for other teams worked out to $4/hour, and that cheerleaders were required to work charity events and practices for free + pay to maintain their nails, hair, spray tans, and uniforms.
Lawsuits also highlighted a number of rules cheerleaders must follow: no sweatpants in public, if a player enters a restaurant they must leave, etc.
After settlements:
- Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders now make about $500/game days + $15-20/hour
- On average, NFL cheerleaders are believed to make ~$22,500/yr
WATCH: 'America's Sweethearts: The Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders'
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