Well, What Did You Expect?

 In Case You Missed It: 

The UCI held its Men's and Women's Gravel World Championships over the weekend. The racing world was quite busy over the weekend as not only were these gravel races being contested, but various Pro road races and cyclo cross events, not to mention a MTB World Cup event, were all run as well. So, if you missed the gravel coverage, it wouldn't be very surprising. 

But if you caught any of the goings on, you already know that the UCI stubbed its toe - again - by not broadcasting the Women's event and by having full coverage of the Men's event the following day. But what you may have missed is that all the men's and women's age category events were run on the same course, on the same day, with slightly varying start times, as the women's event. That's very telling, and I have some thoughts about that as it concerns why the result made many people upset. 

From the UCI Gravel World Series social media.

So, there was no broadcast of the women's elite event, and maybe the reason why was because the field of elite women ended up getting mixed up with all the men's and women's age group categories during the event. The course was done in a loop fashion so that the riders came back through the start/finish area and went out into the country again. This allowed the fields to intermingle and so it would have been nigh unto impossible to properly showcase just the elite women's field. 

It is reminiscent of one of the hotly debated topics within the Life Time Grand Prix series of events. That being that the Women's Pro field was not separated from men's groups and that the Pro women found it difficult to know who they were actually racing. Furthermore; it was said that several women were using men as drafting partners, which was seemingly a big issue at Unbound in 2022. Unbound then tried to separate the women and men's fields by having staggered start times, but due to conditions on course this year that met with middling success. 

At the World Gravel Championships the clips shown of the women's elite field clearly show the top women racers mixed in with and drafting off of their larger male counterparts in the event, which according to many US women gravel racers is an unfair racing tactic. (Note: I am not interjecting my opinion on that issue) 

From the UCI social media. .

 While I am not going to weigh in on either side of that argument, I will say that I think that is why the UCI did not feature the Women's Elite race as they did the Elite Men's. The Men's event, which was run on a separate day and without intermingling with lower classes or women's fields, was much easier to broadcast. There wasn't all the confusion with the lower classes, which begs a question: "How does the UCI really see Women's Elite Gravel racing?" . 

I guess one could argue that running all the classes concurrently, (or nearly so) along with the Women's Elite field on Saturday was more "gravel" than not. However; it is my understanding that the female Pro's don't think that's the way things ought to be done, so take that as you may. 

 So, while it seemed like a big miss on the UCI's part, they would most likely claim it was due to a formatting issue. Which doesn't make it any better, and in that light, it maybe is a worse offense, since it puts Elite level Women's racing at the Pro level in a "undercard" position. 

But this is the UCI, after all. What did you expect?

Related post: "The Two Worlds of Gravel"