For Once, The Women Won't Be Thrown Under The Bus

Say what you will about Serena Williams' outburst, her style or anything else:  Women's tennis needs her more than she needs it.  I mean, when she retires--which I predict will happen some time after she breaks the record for Grand Slam singles titles--who will command the same sort of respect and attention she has?

(Now, I don't want her to retire any time soon. But I really want to see her break the record, especially because Margaret Court holds it.)

While the fact that she could break the record within a year speaks volumes of what a great player she's been, it also can't be denied that the state of the tour isn't what it was, say, thirty years ago.

Back then, Martina Navratilova dominated the sport in a way that, possibly, no other athlete dominated his or her sport.  Even though people expected her to win whenever she played, she faced some formidable competition from the likes of Steffi Graf and Chris Evert.  This is not to say that Serena's opponents are pushovers; I just don't think they quite match up to what Martina faced.

If you were to argue that the women's game was better than the men's, few would have disagreed.  That is the reason why most tennis sports and sports historians agree that Martina was the greatest female player of all time, and more than a few she was the greatest tennis player, male or female, who ever graced a court.

Once Williams retires, women's tennis will revert to the state of affairs that existed before Billie Jean King came along.  And broadcasters, sponsors and the general public won't be nearly as interested as they have been, let alone as interested as they were when Navratilova ruled.

Women's cycling, unfortunately, has had a parallel history.  I can recall a "golden age" for American women, which started roughly with Mary Jane ("Miji") Reoch's prime in the early 1970s and lasted for about two decades, at least until Rebecca Twigg's 1995 victory in the World Championships.

During that time, American male cyclists were on the rise, too:  Greg Lemond, after all, won the Tour de France three times in the late 1980s.  But, although he competed against some strong American male racers, the American women were, on the whole, more dominant and garnered at least as much attention.

Also, toward the end of that period, European women were ascendant.  In fact, a women's version of the Tour de France commenced in 1984 as a curtain-raising event for the men's race.  It ran in various forms, and under various names (the men's Tour organizers sued to keep the women from using "Tour" in the name of their race) for a quarter-century.  

It's telling that when American Marianne Martin won the first edition of that race, she and runners-up Heleen Hage and Deborah Shumway stood on the podium with male winners Laurent Fignon, Bernard Hinault and Greg Lemond.  While Fignon won the equivalent of $225,000, Martin was given $1000 and a trophy.

The women's race always had to scramble for sponsorship, even in the best of times.  So, when economic times got tough and sponsors had to cut back on spending, guess what they cut?  As best as I can tell, the men's Tour, as well as the Giro and Vuelta, are still going, even though interest in bike racing overall has declined.

The loss of the women's Tour-equivalent mirrors a situation found all over bike racing, and in sports generally:  When money supplies tighten, women's events are usually sacrificed.  While I don't think the women's tennis tour will disappear, I think we'll see a lot less of it once Serena retires--unless, of course, someone else comes along who's as dominating and compelling as she is.

Fortunately, though, one event is bucking the trend, if in a relatively small way.  The Colorado Classic has featured men's and women's races since it debuted two years ago.  Next year, however, one of them will be eliminated.

It won't be the women's race.

Why?  According to Ken Gart of the RPM Events Group, which organizes the event, the change will allow organizers to set up "one great race instead of two average ones."  Or, as Colorado Governor-Elect Jared Polis said, it could allow the event to turn into "the premier women's race in the Western Hemisphere."

The theory is that by putting all of the resources into one race, longer and more challenging courses could be set up.  Also, as Gart explained, "We love men's cycling...but our ability to impact men's cycling was very minimal."  

One could say he means that the best way to promote women's cycling is to not force it to compete with men's racing.  That might be true, but I think what's more important is that the women's race won't be an adjunct to, or "opening act" for, the men's race, as it was in the women's tour.  

That may well be what women's sports in general needs:  a way to make it interesting and worthwhile in its own right--as women's tennis was in the era of Martina, and women's cycling was in the days of Twigg--and not merely something designed to sink or swim in the trail of men's competition.

Missy's Must-Have Accessory, Circa 1993

Once upon a time, there was a girl named Melissa--but we all called her Missy--and we wanted all of her accessories.

OK, this isn't about fashion, or a fairy tale, though I suppose it could be.  It's a story about cycling and, in particular, a part of it in which I was active for a few years. 

Some of you may have figured out that I'm talking about mountain biking and the girl in question is a girl in the "You go, grrrl!" sense:  none other than Missy "The Missile" Giove.


 She dominated her sport to a degree--perhaps to an even greater degree--than Eddy Mercx did two decades earlier.  If anything, I'd say her domination was more like that of Martina Navratilova in tennis a decade earlier.I actually saw her ride twice and I don't think I've ever seen a fiercer competitor anywhere. I take that back:  She wasn't a competitor because she couldn't be:  No one else could have competed against her.  

Perhaps it's more accurate to say that she was simply the fiercest athlete, and one of the fiercest people, I've ever seen.  I say that with great admiration:  Her firepower came from her intensity and an innate need to better herself rather than from hyped-up rivalries and petty jealousies.  She reminded me, in an odd way, of the first two lines in one of Emily Dickinson's most famous poems:  "Because I could not stop for Death/He very kindly stopped and waited for me."  Missy did not stop for anything because, really, I don't think she could:  The only way to catch up to, or with her, it seemed, was to wait.

To say that she was the first superstar of downhill mountain bike racing, a sport then in its juvescence,  would be to trivialize her dominance.  For a time, she held the world's downhill speed record.  Not just the record for women, mind you:  The Record.

Now tell me:  If you saw someone like her, wouldn't you want her accessories, too?

Perhaps the most iconic--and, at the time, best-selling--of them were her Onza handlebar ends.  For those of us who spent a lot of time riding dropped-bar road bikes before trying mountain biking, one of our biggest complaints was the lack of hand positions on the flat handlebars.  Most of us change hand positions, sometimes frequently, on rides of more than a few minutes.  The Onza bar ends offered at least a forward, somewhat aerodynamic position and a forward-facing flat section that somewhat resembled the "ramps" of road handlebars.  

I still see Onza bar ends fairly often.  Most often, they're on a Specialized or Trek or other mountain bike from the early- or mid-'90's that someone re-purposed as a delivery bike or "beater" and simply didn't bother to take them off.  I'm guessing that the ones that were actually ridden off-road are in landfills simply because most other mountain bike accessories and components that were ridden hard are there, too.  No matter how good such items are, they, like anything else, can only take so much abuse.

Other companies imitated the Onza bar end and some offered them in a rainbow of colors.  (If I recall correctly, the Onzas were available only in black because they were heat-treated--or, at least, that was the rationale the company gave.)  But most riders found that they didn't use the forward bend much, if at all.  Plus, trail and woods riders found that the shape made them easy to entangle in branches, brambles and other obstacles.  Furthermore, mountain bikers (some of them, anyway) were becoming weight-conscious--about their bikes, that is.  Onzas and similarly-configured bar ends weighed more than some of the handlebars to which they were clamped.

So, after a few years, those J-shaped extensions were replaced by more minimalist pieces that kept the "flat" but eliminated the forward bend:

Even so, Onza bar ends and their carbon-copies were a "must have" for about half a decade.  Very few other accessories last for more than a season, even if they're used by a smokin' hot chick named Missy:

Is This What Cycling Needs?

About twenty years ago, some cycling buddies and I were enjoying a post-ride pizza.  (Actually, it was more like pizzas, plural:  If I recall correctly, we did a long ride at a brisk pace.) Miguel Indurain, possibly the least effervescent personality ever to dominate a sport, had just won the Tour de France.  While we all admired his talent and skill as a rider, a couple of us lamented the fact that he was all but unknown outside of a few European countries.  That was one of the reasons why so few Americans, at that time, were paying attention to the Tour or racing in general. 

A few years earlier, Greg LeMond won the Tour for the third time in five years.  There was some “buzz” in this country about him and cycling, but it died out pretty quickly after he hung up his bike.  Of course, some of the waning of American interest in the Tour, Giro and Vuelta could be blamed on the fact that no American rider of LeMond’s stature followed him, at least for nearly a decade.  

Although people who met him said he was likeable enough, he wasn’t particularly compelling in an interview.  Moreover, the same people who professed to liking him also said, in the immortal words of a journalist I knew, that he “wasn’t the brightest thing in the Crayola box”.  A couple of interviews I saw mostly confirmed that impression.  

At least he was more interesting than Indurain.  Some reporters said the Basque rider was a jerk; others said that spending time with him was more narcotic than aphrodisiac.  Even he himself admitted, in a post-race interview, “My hobby is sleeping”.

As we gobbled our slices of tomato, cheese and dough, one of our “crew” came up with this insight:  “What cycling needs is a Michael Jordan.”

If my sense of history of accurate, Jordan had retired from basketball for the first time.  I don’t recall whether it was during his failed attempt at a career in baseball, which he said was always his first love in sports.  But even in his absence, Chicago Bulls #23 was, by far, the best-selling sports jersey in the world.  Kids were wearing it in France when I rode there later that summer, and a newspaper reported that he was the most popular athlete in that country.

I thought about my old cycling buddy’s insight  yesterday when I was listening to the radio news station and the sports reporter said that in a few days, the Yankees will start their first training camp in two decades without Derek Jeter.  Some would argue that he was the greatest baseball player of this generation.  (Even though I’m not a Yankee fan, I wouldn’t argue against that claim.)  He, like Jordan, “Magic” Johnson, MuhammadAli and Martina Navratilova, was one of those athletes known to people who aren’t even fans of his or her sport, or sports generally.  And, although neither basketball nor baseball is starving for fans in the US, I’m sure that the executives of the leagues in which they played—not to mention legions of marketers and advertisers—were glad that Jordan, Johnson, Ali, Navritalova and Jeter came along.

From Triangle Offense

As I thought about that, I thought about Lance Armstrong and realized I hadn’t heard much about him lately.  After his last Tour de France victory in 2005, he seemed poised to become, possibly, the first cyclist to transcend his sport, even if he didn’t dominate it in the way Eddy Mercx, Jacques Anquetil, Bernard Hinault  and Indurain did during their careers.  

(Even when they were willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, most European cycling fans agreed with such an assessment of Lance.  Although he won the Tour more often than the other riders I mentioned, he didn’t win, or even enter, many of the other races, including the “classics”, on which those other riders built their careers.)

Of course, part of the reason why he would have been a transcendent phenomenon was his “Lazarus” story.  Even before he confessed to doping, there were whispers that he faked his cancer (having known people who lived with and died from it, I don’t know how it’s possible to do such a thing) in order to lull his competition and create a media sensation.  But, even if he hadn’t gone from wondering whether he’d lived another day to leaving peloton wondering how far ahead of them he would finish, he probably would have gotten all of those offers he had for commercial endorsements.  I even think he would have been mentioned as a candidate for public office, as he was before his now-famous (or infamous, depending on your point of view) with Oprah.  

What I’ve said in the previous paragraph makes sense when you realize that even before he won his first Tour, he was in demand as a motivational speaker.  Of course, some of that had to do with his bout with cancer, but even if he hadn’t faced such adversity, he would have been invited to give pep talks.  He’s not a great orator in the classic sense, but he is the sort of person to whom people would pay attention even if he weren’t so famous.  Although not necessarily loquacious, he’s articulate.  But, perhaps even more to the point, he is an intense and fiery personality who doesn’t have to tell a particularly compelling story or use florid language in order to capture the attention of his audience.  At least, that was the impression I took away from the one brief in-person encounter I had with him, and from the times I’ve seen him interviewed.

If Lance indeed consumed as many illicit pharmaceuticals as has been alleged, and if he bullied his teammates into doing the same, the story of his rise and fall is a sort of Faustian tragedy.  But his tumble from grace is also sad for cycling and its fans because it denied the sport its first universal household name.  For that reason, it will be a while before the early Spring Classics will generate as much attention in the US as the beginning of baseball’s Spring training season.

Before Martina, There Was Nancy

Every once in a while, an athlete comes along who completely dominates his or her sport, at least during his or her career.  I'd say that in my lifetime, there were four such athletes:  Eddy Mercx, Martina Navratilova, Wayne Gretzky and Michael Jordan. 


(With all due respect to Lance, I think Eddy was the most dominant cyclist because he won every type of race that existed while he was competing.  Like Mercx, Bernard Hinault and Miguel Indurain also won the Tour de France and a variety of other races.  However, they never seemed to have the same aura of invincibility Mercx had in his prime.)


Of the four, perhaps Navratilova's timing was the most fortuitous.  She came along during the 1970's, when women's sports first started to achieve anything like a wide audience, and was at her peak during the early and mid 1980's.  


Recently, I learned of another great athlete who may have been on the other side of the mirror from Navratilova.

Nancy Burghart accepting the trophy for her 1964 National Championship from USI President Otto Eisele Jr.

Nancy Burghart (now Nancy Burghart-Haviland) won eight US National Championships during the 1960's.  She was one of the most versatile riders of her time, as she also won pursuit and sprint championships.  Nearly any time she mounted a bicycle, people expected her to win, much as they did when Navratilova entered a tennis court.


Some would say that Burghart had the misfortune of racing at a time when relatively little attention was paid to cycling, and to women's sports, in the US.  However, she garnered great respect from both the men and women in her sport, and even got some overseas press, which was no small feat in the conditions I've described, and in the absence of the Internet and 24-hour news cycles. 


During Burghart's career, the traditional cycling powers of Europe and Japan did not take American racing very seriously.  However, one could argue that, even then, American female cyclists were among the world's best.  In countries like France, Italy and Japan, bicycle racing, and the media that covered it, were focused almost entirely on male racers.  This could only have stunted the development in women's racing in those countries.  On the other hand, bicycle racing in the US during the three decades after World War II was entirely an amateur affair.   Some have argued that this is a reason why male and female racers were on more or less equal footing, and may have been what allowed women's cycling to gain more prominence in the years before Greg LeMond won the Tour de France.


In my research, I found another interesting detail about Ms. Burghart:  She was born and raised in the Jackson Heights section of Queens, barely a couple hundred pedal spins from the Kissena track--or my apartment.  That track, of course, is where any number of American racers have trained as well as raced.  And it's also where the trials were held for the 1964 Olympic team.


In 1957, when she was 12 years old, she won the Girls' Midget title.  Her twin sister Melissa also competed in the race, and others Nancy rode and won.  It would have taken plenty of determination for an American boy to pursue a bicycle-racing dream at that time:  Imagine what it must have taken for two girls!


From what I've gathered, Burghart-Haviland now lives in Maine.  Given her role in cycling, and American sports generally, I am surprised she isn't better-known.