she won a race last September. That was impressive

Chapeau! That crash was horrific. So glad for her

Here in NZ, Le Tour happens overnight. I end up watching it the next evening. Just as I was about to delete the Tour stage I'd watched, I saw something strange in my SKY recorder box list. I started it and it was the women racing up Izouad!

What a rare and welcome treat to get to see the women racing. While watching mens cycling is pretty awesome, I don't think enough womens racing gets broadcast enough. It was great to watch. The thing that amazed me was that the women seemed to put the hammer down right from the start. 42kph average, to the bottom of the climb and the winner averaging just under 32kph by the end.

I'm sure there's a number of STer's that could beat that, but for the majority of us, that's a pretty impressive average on a very daunting stage. I don't think I could average 32kph on the flat part of that course, if I knew the cliff that was coming.

Congrats to all the women, and I wish we could see more of them racing!

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TriDork

"Happiness is a myth. All you can hope for is to get laid once in a while, drunk once in a while and to eat chocolate every day"

There are very few STers who could actually beat that. It's a tough climb.

Looked like less fun than my first night in prison!

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TriDork

"Happiness is a myth. All you can hope for is to get laid once in a while, drunk once in a while and to eat chocolate every day"

WHile the crash was intense it turned out to not be as bad at all afterwards. She got back into racing maybe a month later. Since then she's won at least 6 big races. So calling it a comeback is more a sign of not following women's cycling much since after all, she was never really out to begin with.

To be fair it's not easy to follow women's Cycling. The cycling podcast does a podcast feménin. It's enjoyable. The lack of coverage of women's Cycling is frustrating but improving.... slowly.
IMO the izoard stage was a small insult. Too short , only one stage, too remote and not enough coverage.
The women's tour in the UK did a much better job.

Agreed, yesterdays women's race was very enjoyable but it I was very unimpressed with the race they've been given when compared with the men's race. The women's race is one single climb (albeit a good one) on a 67.5km route and a 22.5km ITT. It's pretty clear it's just a token event when the men race 3 weeks of stages that are typically 180-220km. They deserve a proper event, not this condescension. It doesn't have to be identical to the men's race but it should be an appropriate test.

Lizzie Deignan was also extremely impressive. She was on the front all the way up Col d'Izoard witrh the exception of Van Vleuten after she attacked and the couple of times she backed off to let her teamate re-attach. Rode everyone but Van Vleuten off her wheel despite appearing to have been designated as domestique for the day.

Cycling News says that over the last 5k of the Col d'Izoard she had the third fastest of the day. Only Bardet and Barguil were faster. That is impressive.

http://www.cyclingnews.com/...o-la-course-victory/

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All I Wanted Was A Pepsi, Just One Pepsi

Team Zoot, Team Zoot Mid-Atlantic

Possibly. Yet, I try to follow pretty closely and I missed it. So maybe, it's more a matter of women cycling being poorly covered?
I guess you never miss any news at any time? ;-)

I googled her and it turns out she was also hit by a car in 2015 three broken ribs and a collapsed lung.

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They constantly try to escape from the darkness outside and within
Dreaming of systems so perfect that no one will need to be good T.S. Eliot

Tough lady!

It has irritated me to no end that 33 years after Joan Benoit ran 2:24 at the Olympic marathon and 28 years after Paula Newby Fraser went top 20 overall with a sub 9 at Kona, sports like speed skating, cycling and XC Skiing have been so partronizing with "shorter" women's events. All this does is flip women's racing in favour of the more explosive athlete vs the ultra endurance type who is your GC man on the men's side......but I don't think the problem is women's cycling racing needing to be as long as the men's.....as evidence from the 100K stage in the Pyranees, what we need is more of these. Yesterday's stage for men and women should have basically started on the run in to the Col de Vars and then ended on Izoard. That would have been the perfect stage for the men after Wednesday's marathon (and you've done that marathon and more at Marmotte, so you know).

Unreal that she had the 3rd fastest climb men or women!!!

Well, third fastest of those in Strava. At least the whole GC bunch went faster. Impressive, nonetheless.

We all miss news occasionally and women's coverage is not great - but the title alone in this topic is far away from reality since she was not out for very long. Calling it a comeback in September 2016 would have seem reasonable but we're 10 months later now. ;-)

It's a long comeback ;-)