Agree that it’s a misogyny issue. But women’s participant is important and what he’s saying will only make it worse in the pro field.
Exactly. There could be a downward spiral effect: less prize money for WPROs → fewer WPROs racing → even less prize money for WPROs → etc.
Skipper, as he sometimes does, failed to think this through before talking.
It’s a free market after all. Apparently the fact that it’s easier for a woman to win money doesn’t attract enough women to pro racing to even out the field depth. So maybe we need to pay them more, relative to the difficulty of the task (i.e. pay them the same money in absolute terms), just to have WPRO racing. Joe likes the free market when it suits him, but not when he would like someone to step in and take women’s money and give it to him because it’s too easy for women because there “aren’t enough” WPROs.
but this doens’t apply just to pros. Even in the AG the % of women participating in some races is something like 10 or 15%, yet IM adds more slots for women to the worlds. Quite counterintuitive to me, as that’s how you end up with men having to do sub 8.20 to get to Kona or sub 4.15 to get to 70.3 worlds yet women doing 14h or more for a full or a 6.30-7h 70.3 go to the worlds. You think this is fair?
I’m all for inclusion and I hope women’s participation increases in the sport, but there’s an argument for what Joe said. I think that the level at top WPROs is absolutely amazing, but there is almost no depth at all.
This is really recent though. I qualified for Kona with a 3rd place in 2015 IMC…that would NOT have qualified as a woman - for years with a single race championship many women’s AGs needed to win to go to Kona. So…now with separate races, yes…right now it’s pretty easy at some races for women to qualify. But I truly believe that it is better for the sport to have separate men’s and women’s world champs - but I don’t think there is any reason to limit the women’s field for these races. Kona last year was different - but I will tell you this - being there on the ground, I was as inspired by the middle to back of the pack as I was to the front. Allround world championship efforts by all.
Going to women’s racing…at Boulder the first AG beat the same percentage of pros in men’s and women’s. 17 male pros - who the argument should be paid deeper than the women - didn’t beat the first woman. Is the depth there? Not the same - I get that - but you pay 8 deep you do it for both sexes. Looking at the numbers - most races the last money woman is pretty close to the winner as the last place man - especially when you use percentages as they are out on the course longer. I just don’t see an argument that makes sense for paying men’s races deeper when the lower half of the men’s field isn’t winning the women’s race anyways (in the case of Boulder)