Cyclocosmblr

I didn’t realize #LogContent was something I had strong opinions about, but dang. This is some good #LogContent.

Hey—I'm going to delete your comment. Not because I disagree with it (which I do) but because it sucks.

If you want to come back and write a better comment that demonstrates you've at least Googled the abstracts of studies on testosterone levels in elite athletes and trans/intersex elite athletes in particular; and also that you’ve carefully read the IOC rules on testosterone levels in elite trans athletes; and furthermore that you’ve considered some of the expert opinions (on both sides, even!) in any of the recent dozens of in-depth articles on the topic in various sports publications; and additionally that you’re aware of the potential legal implications of denying an athlete the ability to compete based on sexual identity; and finally, that you can present a thoughtful, rigorous opinion (even one that I disagree with) based on that self-education, then I’m all for it.

This is relatively new ground for everyone, and there is room (and even need) for respectful, fact-driven discussion about competition guidelines as our knowledge of the issues surrounding them grows in the years come. But until you can clear even the lowest informational bar, my FB page isn’t a place you get to have an opinion. And I’m not sorry for that.

See, I have the same problem with a comment like “testosterone is a thing” as I do with “biological advantage”—it’s a sloppy, oversimplified response that purports to leverage “common sense” in heading-off the sort of rational question-asking responsible for pretty much everything humans have ever accomplished.

And, as it happens, my disdain for that particular phrase stems not from issues surrounding trans athletes, but from my fellow cis-males, a certain subset of whom insist that some amorphous “biological advantage” prevents a Cat 3 amateur cyclist who can put out 250 watts at threshold at age 20 from competing fairly with a Cat 3 amateur cyclist who can put out 250 watts at threshold at age 45.

Regardless of the specific areas they’re applied to, these are just bad arguments, and you should not make them. If, for some reason, you remain hellbent on public proclamations about where trans-females should and shouldn’t compete—a topic that will literally never affect you, by the way—as someone who looks like you and who may be pre-judged based on the things you say, I’m going to have to demand you make a good faith effort to at least present some actual reasoning.

It’s true, I suppose I could have not deleted your comment and instead posted this as a reply. But that’d just be rewarding your ignorance on the topic with attention it has not earned and most certainly does not deserve. The resulting discussion, no matter how nuanced and detailed the responses, or how carefully cited the specific facts, would not change your mind, and—as a point of basic psychology—would likely make you cling ever more relentlessly to your own ignorance on the topic.

On September 27th, 2001, Filippo Simeoni soloed clear of a breakaway on Stage 18 of the Vuelta a España. As he approached the line (around 2:30 or so in the above video), he took the unusual step of dismounting his bike, holding it aloft, and kissing the top-tube before walking across.

He was fined for this—and this is where we enter the apocrypha so endemic to pretty much everything in professional cycling. Wikipedia, uncited, claims the UCI was involved, and fined him despite the fact that the gesture was somehow a “tribute to the victims” of the 9-11 attacks.

However, the admittedly tiny sliver of primary sources available to me makes no mention of this. VeloNews’ report focuses on breaking the drought of Italian wins at the event. Cyclingnews had a blurb reporting on the fine following day, but attributes it to the race organization, not the UCI, and quotes Simeoni explaining the unorthodox salute: “It's my best-ever win and I thought I'd give the crowd something to remember me by”. No mention of September 11.

Fast-forward to July a few years later. Simeoni has a dust-up with a certain Lance Armstrong over testifying against Michele Ferrari two years earlier. It’s an objectively terrible look for Lance, but if you haven’t learned by now that support for public figures is more tribal than rational, I don’t know what to tell you. But I do know that having counter-narrative, some dimension to Simeoni to make him more than just another of Lance’s Euro-antagonists, would be an extremely useful thing to the growing legion of fans who were sick and tired of the Texan.

And the very next month, as the sort of unfounded opinion you’d expect from such a predominantly old, white, and male fanbase was flying, a letter appeared in Cyclingnews, quoting Simeoni, in an alleged post-race interview from that 2001 Vuelta stage, as saying "The gesture of raising my bike above my head was also meant as a protest against the terrorist's attacks in New York.” In October of that year, Simeoni’s first Wikipedia entry appears, also pushing the 9-11 Tribute.

It spreads as these things do—forum posts, blogs, etc—pretty much anywhere outside the professional cycling press, which would have been extremely reluctant to raise Armstrong’s ire at that time. No matter that the BBC article cited in those forum posts contains nothing even suggesting a Twin Towers remembrance—it’s the line I’d always heard, passed along by Lance haters and long-time Euro cycling fans alike, a badge of knowledge that a deeper sport existed beyond the even-then-cliched prattle of Phil and Paul.

But was it real? Does it make any sense that an Italian rider in a Spanish race would feel compelled to dedicate a win to the victims of a terrorist attack in the US two weeks earlier? Wouldn’t the rider have mentioned this to American journalist Andrew Hood, covering the Vuelta for American publication VeloNews, in his post-race commentary? Wouldn’t he have at least brought it up as justification when fined for the unusual display?

Like so many of cycling’s war stories, it’s almost impossible to know. Truth and fiction have always blended easily in a sport built to craft narratives to sell papers. And as a digitally-based Anglophone, it’s a particular challenge—the only thing I can find even close to a citation for the September 11 tribute comes from Simeoni’s Italian Wikipedia page: page 20 of the 28 September 2001 edition of the defunct Italian paper, L’Unità.

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