After 12 years of participating in triathlons and watching/volunteering it is usually a pack of men that go flying by in a pace line. Occasionally I’ve witnessed a women or two in the pack but can guarantee you that I have never seen a group of women in a pace line during a triathlon.
After yesterdays Escape to Miami I checked the percentage of drafting penalties of men (6%) to women (1.5%). The guy who crossed the finish line first received a drafting penalty causing him to lose to Reback. The man was quoted as saying that the lead pack was all drafting so he didn’t think who should have been penalized!
After 12 years of participating in triathlons and watching/volunteering it is usually a pack of men that go flying by in a pace line. Occasionally I’ve witnessed a women or two in the pack but can guarantee you that I have never seen a group of women in a pace line during a triathlon.
After yesterdays Escape to Miami I checked the percentage of drafting penalties of men (6%) to women (1.5%). The guy who crossed the finish line first received a drafting penalty causing him to lose to Reback. The man was quoted as saying that the lead pack was all drafting so he didn’t think who should have been penalized!
Do women race with more integrity?
A lot more men race so you likely notice them more. I have witnessed lots of women cheating as well.
Are you normalizing for the proportion of women vs men entered into the event? Otherwise, simply way more men than women in the race = more men drafting than women.
edit - dang, too slow… My observation is the same as ~M’s.
You ought to see the women in Kona each year. They are about as bad as the men. Of course the issue is that in some countries, the philosophy on drafting (as well as other things) is that it is only cheating if you get caught.
I’ll offer up a simple follow-up observation… most of the races I’ve done have been small enough that 1) there’s not a whole lot of drafting opportunity, and 2) even if there is, it’s almost all going on behind me where I wouldn’t notice it anyway. However, the one big-ass WTC event I’ve done I did witness at least one huge draft pack come whizzing by me, which had several women in it. Of course there were also a lot of men in the pack (almost surely more than the number of women, in fact, except that the women stood out more), but just at a glance I’d say it was roughly in proportion to the ratio of women vs men entered overall. Now, the bigger point: of all the people who were racing legally around me, I don’t recall any women. Not that there aren’t some women that are faster than I am, but it’s a small % and most of those gals probably left T1 ahead of me anyway. Hardly scientific, I know, but based on that anecdotal evidence, I’d say that the women were actually worse offenders relative to the proportion of dudes who could ride that fast on their own.
The idea that men or women draft (or cheat) more is misleading. I think both do. The question is, why do people draft/cheat. And quite frankly, there has been way too many podcasts, articles, discussions, etc. on this. Too many variables. Now, if you were to ask, “Why do people cheat in Kona.” Then you can focus on one event where people face similar variables.
Funny, that’s the complete opposite to my experience.
BOP pro & FOP AG women have consistently been the worst (blatant, unrepentant) drafters I’ve seen in events I’ve raced & officiated.
+1 Probably because some of them are just drafting the faster men (vs. pulling in a pack), whereas fast men have no one to draft (or may be helping their faster running competition reach T2 along side them if they form a pack).
At nationals one year I came out of the water with the 20-24 women. On the bike it was me and one of the women basically dragging a huge pack of wheelsuckers behind us for 40k. 1/2 mile into the run I passed the woman who had pushed on the bike and she was basically in tears because all the wheelsuckers were running on fresher legs and were cheating her out of a spot at worlds.
All that being said, I’m sure the majority of the pro/FOP AG girls race clean, I just remember the ones that don’t because the spend a lot of time glued to my wheel sometimes.
maybe it’s just more men get caught. Since women are slower and the refs aren’t every where, the refs may just be where the biggest population of participants is, which would be men and a few of the faster women.
Funny, that’s the complete opposite to my experience.
BOP pro & FOP AG women have consistently been the worst (blatant, unrepentant) drafters I’ve seen in events I’ve raced & officiated.
+1
Although in fairness then although I’ve had a handful of people get aggressive/shouty when penalised, then I’ve not had that from any women.
Last race I was a draft ref on, then it was the lead group of 3 women and a few top blokes that were in one big draft group for the race (half). We stayed with that group all the way, first 10km repeatedly warning them, then by the end had penalised 7 of the original 15. I assume that the penalised lot were then in a pack 2 minutes behind us…
Now when it comes to the swim, I’m glad I swim in the male waves, from what 've seen / heard you do not want to be in any all female OW swim starts (no matter what fantasy thoughts are going through your minds now. Dirty boy).
In the amateur race it’s like many have said, there are more men and more of those men are racing versus participating like many of the women do.
In the pro races it’s b/c the men’s races are actually deep and the guys know they can’t just sit there and watch groups go by. They have to go with them or they are out of the money. The women’s races have a couple good girls and thats it. Usually if you just show up and beat a few girls you get paid.
Agreed, they are just there to experience the event, have life, and do the life experience. They don’t really know what drafting is, and they couldn’t care less about place.