Paris Roubaix

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mattheus
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Re: Paris Roubaix

Post by mattheus »

thirdcrank wrote: 3 Oct 2021, 11:17am I do wonder if organising a women's version of Paris - Roubaix is the best way to promote élite women's road racing. The men's race is a survival-of-the-fittest event for a certain type of big, heavy, one day specialist with loads of experience of pavé. And there are enough men who believe they have those qualities to attract a large entry. Reducing the distance for the women doesn't reduce the size of the cobbles or the depth of the mud on a wet day like yesterday. This isn't intended to denigrate female riders but to say that the extreme conditions of this race - and on a dry day it's cobbles + clouds of dust - affect smaller, lighter riders disproportionately. I don't know how many riders started yesterday, but the field didn't look big, so I suspect the number of riders injured in nasty falls was disproportionately high.
I think I see where you're coming from, but I think most of the issues will sort themselves out over time.

There has to be a "first time" for everything, and of course there will be teething problems; in this case the downsides were more than compensated for by the positives

(The broken bones were very sad, but we've seen much worse injuries on "normal" road races in recent years.)
thirdcrank
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Re: Paris Roubaix

Post by thirdcrank »

mattsccm wrote: 4 Oct 2021, 6:28am ..... Ultimately it is a shame that the female race was a shorter version. ....
This had me thinking. There's a range of difference between how the rules of different sports provide for men and women: at one end they compete against each other, at the other end they compete separately, with variations in format.

I've done some calculations on this weekend's two races which are below E & OE

Incidentally, my memory is poor over the frequency of rain-affected PRs. It's apparently twenty-two years since the last time.

On Saturday, Lizzie Deignan rode 116.4 kms in 2 56 07 - an average of a shade under 40kmh ie some 25mph

On Sunday, Sonny Colbrelli did 258 kms in 6 01 57 an average (I think) of about 42.7 kmh

If my arithmetic is right, that suggests to me that if both races had been over 258 kms, then if Lizzie Deignan had still averaged 40 kmh then she'd have been less than half an hour down on Sonny Colbrelli.

Looking a bit deeper into the results, some of my original assumptions were wrong. In particular, the women's published start list at 216 riders was was more than I thought, although they may not all have started.

The last man given a time, by coincidence, a Trek Segafredo rider, Emils Liepins finished at 28'46" down in 95th place.

https://www.paris-roubaix.fr/en/rankings

I hadn't previously realised that there was a time limit in single day classics but a stack of men missed the cut off or abandoned

https://www.paris-roubaix.fr/en/withdrawal

The last woman finisher given a time was Abby-Mae Parkinson (GBr) Lotto Soudal Ladies, in 61st spot at 13'49"

A stack of women also missed the cut off time or abandoned, but it's not clear to me if there was a big gap to the next finisher or if it was a tight time limit.

https://www.cyclingnews.com/races/paris ... n/results/
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NATURAL ANKLING
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Re: Paris Roubaix

Post by NATURAL ANKLING »

Hi,
It looked like a merry-go-round with the devil on the throttle.
One guy meandering, probably just got back on bike only to be run down by four cyclists.
Mind you they probably never saw him by the look of the mud splattered faces :P

I wonder if they will ever bring back mandatory entry to get into the TDF?
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kylecycler
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Re: Paris Roubaix

Post by kylecycler »

Women's Olympic, World Championships and WWT (Women's World Tour) races are restricted by the UCI to a maximum of 160 km; the men's races have an upper limit of 280 km. Lizzy Banks won a stage of the Giro Rosa (now Giro Donne), the women's Giro d'Italia, last year that stretched to 165 km, for which the organisers were censured. Cecilie Uttrup Ludwig, the Danish rider who has fairly forthright views on just about everything, predicted that maybe their wombs might fall out but mercifully that never happened; needless to say she was being sarcastic.

So at 115 km, the first women's Paris-Roubaix was quite a lot shorter than the maximum allowed and a fair bit shorter than most one-day women's races or even some tour stages. It was a toe in the water, though, just a first step, and it wasn't beyond them by any means, certainly not in terms of endurance.

As for those who finished but were OOT, that was far, far more than usual for a women's race, so maybe they need to revise the limit for next year's race?
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kylecycler
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Re: Paris Roubaix

Post by kylecycler »

Talking of Lizzy Banks, Lizzy crashed at Strade Bianche in March, suffered severe concussion and was only - eventually - given the all-clear by her doctors the day before Paris-Roubaix. Ellen van Dijk (who recently won the European RR Championship and Worlds ITT) crashed at Paris-Roubaix and although she finished, as did Lizzy at Strade Bianche, she has no real memory of the crash, she just remembers feeling sick and faint, so she has concussion.

Hopefully she'll recover soon, but although the UCI has concussion protocols, how do they apply them on races with gravel sections like Strade Bianche or cobbled sections like Paris-Roubaix where the team cars aren't anywhere near the crash and/or can't get through to the riders? It can't be up to the riders because when they're concussed they don't know up from down.
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Re: Paris Roubaix

Post by mattsccm »

Generally speaking there are enough medics or team cars near enough. A severe head injury won't see a rider getting back on. If they do and pedal away happily they won't be injured enough for them to need immediate (life saving) attention.
Of course there will always be the tiny chance that something rare happens but life is like that and we must never reduce risk at the expense of human endeavour. Ultimately we sign up to what we do and it is our responsibility to deal with the consequences.
I do wonder why the UCI have such limits on womens events. If parity between women and men is desired then level the playing fields.
reohn2
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Re: Paris Roubaix

Post by reohn2 »

We shouldn't forget the first 96km of the men's race was on tarmac ,wheras only the first 33km was tarnac in the womens race after which the cobbles came thick and fast.
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Jdsk
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Re: Paris Roubaix

Post by Jdsk »

mattsccm wrote: 5 Oct 2021, 6:45am Generally speaking there are enough medics or team cars near enough. A severe head injury won't see a rider getting back on. If they do and pedal away happily they won't be injured enough for them to need immediate (life saving) attention.
A competitor being happy to continue is not a reliable measure of there being no brain damage.

Many sports are now recognising this, for example with formal head injury assessments in rugby union.

The appropriate immediate attention in many cases is avoiding a further injury.

Jonathan
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Re: Paris Roubaix

Post by reohn2 »

Jdsk wrote: 5 Oct 2021, 8:50am
mattsccm wrote: 5 Oct 2021, 6:45am Generally speaking there are enough medics or team cars near enough. A severe head injury won't see a rider getting back on. If they do and pedal away happily they won't be injured enough for them to need immediate (life saving) attention.
A competitor being happy to continue is not a reliable measure of there being no brain damage.

Many sports are now recognising this, for example with formal head injury assessments in rugby union.

The appropriate immediate attention in many cases is avoiding a further injury.

Jonathan
My bold

The problem with that in cycling and particular PR is that the medics car can be some way off caught up in traffic and if the rider feels OK initially will get back on the bike,it's the nature of racing.
Though I do take your point much is being done to prevent head injury leading to further complications.
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mattheus
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Re: Paris Roubaix

Post by mattheus »

Jdsk wrote: 5 Oct 2021, 8:50am A competitor being happy to continue is not a reliable measure of there being no brain damage.

Many sports are now recognising this, for example with formal head injury assessments in rugby union.
Based on the discussion in recent years, cycling fully recognizes this too.

They also recognise that the sporting environment (for road racing) is totally different to Rugby; it's tricky. They have improved things recently with new measures, and I am sure people are assessing inprovemts all the time.

And I don't think Roubaix is significantly worse for head injuries than other road races.
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Re: Paris Roubaix

Post by Jdsk »

mattheus wrote: 5 Oct 2021, 9:09am
Jdsk wrote: 5 Oct 2021, 8:50am A competitor being happy to continue is not a reliable measure of there being no brain damage.

Many sports are now recognising this, for example with formal head injury assessments in rugby union.
Based on the discussion in recent years, cycling fully recognizes this too.

They also recognise that the sporting environment (for road racing) is totally different to Rugby; it's tricky. They have improved things recently with new measures, and I am sure people are assessing inprovemts all the time.

And I don't think Roubaix is significantly worse for head injuries than other road races.
Yes, it's tricky. Particularly if there's no immediate supervision possible, as above.

Is there a convenient source for what's being discussed and tried in road racing, please?

Thanks

Jonathan
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NATURAL ANKLING
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Re: Paris Roubaix

Post by NATURAL ANKLING »

Hi,
I would've thought in cycling UCI lead, they would have a same mandatory system, where a damaged helmet would possibly with review of camera, set wheels in motion?
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mattheus
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Re: Paris Roubaix

Post by mattheus »

Jdsk wrote: 5 Oct 2021, 9:12am
Is there a convenient source for what's being discussed and tried in road racing, please?

Thanks

Jonathan
Sorry, I am not a citation library ;-)

UCI are famously closed-door about these things, so good luck finding any meeting minutes online. You can probably find the recent changes to head injury assessment rules - that stuff will be in public domain; but you might find it rather terse and unhelpful!

All my info is from press conferences and interviews. I seem to recall a good one with the Tour-de-France boss a couple of years ago when this all kicked off.
reohn2
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Re: Paris Roubaix

Post by reohn2 »

mattheus wrote: 5 Oct 2021, 9:09am .........I don't think Roubaix is significantly worse for head injuries than other road races.
It's been 19 yrears since a wet PR,were a wet race more often I think that wouldn't be the case.Watching the crash which involve Diijk and the other riders there were a lot of heads hitting the deck and necks getting wrenched,horrifying to see.But such crashes are par for the course in a wet PR.
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thirdcrank
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Re: Paris Roubaix

Post by thirdcrank »

It was a toe in the water,
Or head first into the mud bath in the event.

In terms of injury, it's hard to see things being much different for women or men if they come off their bike. My earlier comment was largely based on my mistaken assumption that the pool of élite women was small so that a handful of, say, broken collar bones, would disproportionately affect the number of licensed riders. Perhaps concerns about head injuries are another argument for recumbents.
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