Marianne Martin: What Should Have Been

I am very happy that the Women's National Basketball Association is finally getting at least some of the attention it deserves--even if it took a heterosexual Great White Hope to get it.  As much as I like Caitlin Clark, her ascendancy begs this question:  Who will get more commercial endorsements, she or Brittney Griner?

That said, I am also happy to see the success of other women's sports, particularly tennis and soccer.  Both, I believe, have developed identities distinct from those of the men's games:  Tennis has had female players (like Billie Jean King, Martina Navratilova and Serena Williams) who could beat most men, and female footballers had the advantage of not only being great, but also of not having to compete with men (at least in North America) for attention.

Once upon a time, women's cycling was like that, at least in the US.  From the mid-70's through the '80's, a generation of great American female riders won medals and accolades, though not a lot of money.  Unfortunately, time has not been kind to some of them: Mary Jane "Miji" Reoch was killed during a training ride.  Rebecca Twigg has fallen into homelessness. And now Marianne Martin has suffered a horrible crash that has left her with multiple injuries and a lot of pain.

If you're not yet in, ahem, midlife or a cycling fan, I can understand why you haven't heard about Ms. Martin.  But four decades ago, she shared the podium with Laurent Fignon, Bernard Hinault and Greg LeMond.

That year, Hinault achieved the fourth of his five Tour de France General Classification victories.  He would win his fifth the following year.  Fignon won the two previous Tours; a year after Hinault's final victory, Le Mond would win the first of his three Tour titles.  

So why was Marianne Martin on that stage? Well, she won the first edition of the Tour de France Feminin. Maria Canins of Italy and France's Jeanne Longo would finish first and second, respectively, in the 1985 and 1986 races; they would trade places for the last three TdFFs in  1987, 1988 and 1989.

In short, Marianne Martin was one of the most accomplished cyclists in the world. But her moment, like those of Reoch, Twigg and other members of that “Golden Generation” of American female cyclists (who included, among others, Connie Carpenter, Sue Novara and Sue Young) was all too brief. Some would argue that Greg LeMond’s Tour wins, and victories by other male American riders, overshadowed the women’s accomplishments. That’s true mainly because men’s sports garner so much more attention and sponsorship money.  Another reason why women’s racing dropped off the radar has to do, I believe, with attitudes about women in sports.

While there was arguably less gender inequality in American sports than in those of other countries, the distressing fact is that even in the US, female athletes got attention for things that had nothing to do with their athletic accomplishments. For all that she did on a bike, Twigg was noticed as much, or more, for her looks. In Europe, the center of bike racing, the situation was even worse: female riders often gained more fame, however fleeting, (or not-so-fleeting notoriety) for posing rather than pedaling.

Sex indeed sells, but only for so long. So does scandal. Ms. Martin did not generate, however inadvertently, the hype or hysteria of other athletes: She wasn’t even brushed with accusations of doping, as Longo has been.

Thus, riding her bike and being (as far as anyone knows) a good citizen was not enough to keep Marianne in the public eye. It took a horrible crash—caused, according to official accounts, over-correcting on the sort of high-speed turn she made hundreds, possibly thousands, of times before—to bring notice to her in a time when—I hope—women’s sports is ready taking its rightful place in the public’s view.

For Her Country, And Everyone’s

 Many cycling events, from local charity rides to races involving world-class riders, have been cancelled or postponed during the pandemic.  The cancelled rides were, mostly, annual events, and one assumes that they will resume once things return to “normal,” whatever that may mean.

On the other hand, Afghanistan’s female cyclists have no such hope.  Nobody really knows what could return that country to what it was three months ago, before the Taliban took power.  Women are losing the rights they regained during the past two decades—including, in effect, the right to ride a bicycle, an effect of the Taliban’s dress codes and prohibition against women venturing outside their homes without a male relative.

For some women, not being allowed to ride a bike means that they have no way to get to their jobs or schools—if indeed they are still allowed to work or study.  For some, though, it spells the end of their lives unless they can get out of the country and have a sponsor or other help waiting for them wherever they land.

Those women include Rukhsar Habibzi. Before she evacuated from Kabul Airport (just before it shut down) she was riding with the Afghan women’s national team and attending dental school.  Oh, and her activism got her a nomination for a Nobel Peace Prize—and threats of gender-based violence.

From Kabul, she was brought to Quatar, then to a US military base in Germany and an immigration center in New Jersey, where she waited for an emergency visa before settling in another state last week. 

She is slated to compete through 2023 for the Twenty24 development team.  Twenty24 owner Nicola Cranmer has set up a GoFundMe page to help Habibzai with rent, food, utilities, clothing, books and tuition. This fundraising effort “is not to fund a cycling team,” Cranmer stresses. Rather, she is trying to help a young woman become “the best athlete, student and leader she can be” after leaving her country “with just her purse.”  As an emergency visa holder, Habibzai gets very little assistance from the government.

She probably has dreams of winning races.  But Habibzai summed up her real goal in training and studying: “I want to showcase the physical and mental strength of an Afghan woman to Afghanistan and the whole world.” That, she believes, will show that “a woman is not weak” and that “success can be achieved by any gender.”

I’d be happy to have someone like her in my country!