Parity is a nice concept, but this is ridiculous - 2005/09/30 19:54The 100K classic in Atlanta next weekend is part of a $66,000, 3 day omnium, with two races in Columbus, GA, and a circuit race in Marietta, finishing on the long downhill in front of the Whitewater Adventure water park. The race is held in conjunction with the 10K Classic foot race, one of the bigger running events in the country.
Get this: the P,1 men do 100K on the Monday cicuit race, racing for $10,000 over 35 places, plus serious Omnium cash.
The women get $10,000 over 35 places, and their distance is 10K. 1 lap. I shit thee not. Last year, 23 women showed up, according to a cat 2 female friend of mine. Beyond comprehension. This bizarre cash distribution will not keep me from racing, but it is remarkable (to say the least). If I can put drop bars on my wife's Schwinn hybrid and cajole her into taking a 6 mile road ride, one of us might make some $ this weekend.
www.gobike1.com considering a weekend of transvestite activity
re:Parity is a nice concept, but this is ridiculous - 2005/10/01 02:39Just from my own observations of racing in the Southeast this year...
Women don't show up to races. If they did, they would probably have a larger prize list. There was a race this year, where there was nothing else competing with it in the entire Southeast, and 5 women showed up for it. That's 5 total guys, Open class. Until they can produce the numbers for their races, they are going to get paid less. Just for reference, the same race 5 women showed up for, we had 130 starters in the Pro 1/2 race. We'll have parity I think, when more women start to show up.
re:Parity is a nice concept, but this is ridiculous - 2005/10/01 05:19The bike race is held in conjunction with the 10K classic foot race and shares the finish area. In that race, the women and men (obviously) race the same distance. The convention in running is that women go the same distance. They do marathons, ultras, etc, just like the men. Same thing in Triathlon, rowing, speed skating, swimming. Of all the endurance sports, cycling is the only one that limits the womens' distances (with the possible exception of in-line racing, but I am not sure about that). Why do we do that? Especially, why do we do it and demand prize list parity?
re:Parity is a nice concept, but this is ridiculous - 2005/10/01 09:50I'm all for the letting the free market decide the fees and prizes for bike races. If that means parity is achieved or if it means Masters races have more cash prizes than pros, well then that's just simply the way it is.
In Toronto though it was required that equal cash prizes were required for men's and women's races. This played a part in killing racing in the city for some time.
re:Parity is a nice concept, but this is ridiculous - 2005/10/01 18:00In general i am not for parity in prize money. For instance, in the tennis US Open the Men play 5 sets while the women only play 3 and then Mens matches last much longer. Most years people come to see the men anyway (although kournukova is about the only reason i would show up in flushing). In other tennis grand slam events the men get more even though the women threaten to protest. At the US open the women get paid the same for some unknown reason. In this case, it is stupid. The men should not bring in the revenue and work harder to subsidize the women. In the bike race of note, however, no one is producing any revenue for anyone. T mobile is basically being nice. This 20k investment from t mobile will not produce more than 1 K in returns. Obviously, there should not be a give away to anyone who enters, but I don;t see where anyone can complain given this example.
re:Parity is a nice concept, but this is ridiculous - 2005/10/01 18:39I agree: only 1 lap/10k for the women is "freaking ridiculous". There race should be just as long as the men's.
re:Parity is a nice concept, but this is ridiculous - 2005/10/01 22:59I completely agree - there are a lot of promoters who do it for the sport, but from the sounds of things down south, it's just happening that way to make it as logistically simple as possible, for the largest promoter gain.
re:Parity is a nice concept, but this is ridiculous - 2005/10/02 02:02and J.D. Bilodeau here it's a commitment to women's racing. I can't speak for them but I've heard this discussed often enough here in Northampton. Bill C
re:Parity is a nice concept, but this is ridiculous - 2005/10/02 08:42Not that I disagree with John specifically but maybe the question shouldn't be about Parity and "if women deserve 10k to race 10k" but rather is 10k in prizes for a dinky crit the best way to spend 10k in terms of the development of womens cycling in the US?
re:Parity is a nice concept, but this is ridiculous - 2005/10/02 10:13From the promoter's viewpoint - shorter race means more money in pocket. If there is a corp sponsor willing to pay for the prize list, then the shorter the race, the less money that needs to be spent on things like Police, road closures, signage, etc. I'm I'm a promoter trying to make a living - I'd love to have racers line up and draw straws for the prize money: no out of pocket expenses.
Obviously though, the men won't stand for a short race and they would probably raise a stink so they can get what they want. The women less likely to complain since the money's larger than usual so who cares. This "short women's race" is the best for the promoter since that means more money from entry fees to him for less out of pocket costs.
re:Parity is a nice concept, but this is ridiculous - 2005/10/03 03:58I don't understand the logic of this. The women get less racing and you also want to have them get less money? That's a double whammy.
Longer racing is good -- if they're going to get less of that "service" then don't work against then on prizes too.
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