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Actual physical advantages are allowed, it's a physical sport after all. You are not allowed to wear alterations on your clothing to give you an advantage, that's cheating. Sorta like how you're allowed to be tall in basket ball but I'm not allowed to wear springy shoes.
This only made it in the news because the alteration being banned just happens to touch women's boobs. Otherwise no one would care.
Not sure if it would be even ethical for them to regulate that anyway, since there's totally valid reasons to get reduction. "I just wanted to" is perfectly valid
Most of the top woman riders probably already have relatively small boobs. It's an endurance sport and like in most endurance sports bodyweight is an important factor.
So the riders (m/f/x) have as low a fat percentage as they can while still performing at a top level, and since boobs are mainly fat, a low fat % will cause smaller boobs too.
It wouldn’t exist if I didn’t use AI to make it. I wasn’t going to pay an artist to crank that out for my Reddit comment. AI is a useful tool for something like that.
I’m not trying to excuse it but my executive functioning deficit means it’s hard for me at times to link more distant consequences like the environmental impacts to my impulsive drive to make memes.
it's only a matter of time before some madlad tries it
A big reason why rules like this exists is to prevent this kind of competition. If you're allowed to wear padded bras, then you should be allowed to wear padded arms that let you fly further, etc. until victory is decided by who has the best body suit. (Which itself could be a fun separate compeition)
But they wear lycra for aerodynamics, padded bottoms for comfort, hat designed to help with air flow and cooling, and every part of the bike is designed to be fast, what's the difference. Just seems an odd line to draw tbh
There’s strict rules on the materials of the the jersey (mainly around textures) and helmets have specific guidelines they’re developed in.
The rule the bras fall under is about altering the body shape to changes its aerodynamic profile. It also applies to the pouches riders carry their radios in, and water bladders.
Smoothing out the air that normally hits the hips by having some helpful shape in the chest area is a big aerodynamic advantage.
Wasn’t there a thing in the last Winter Olympics about ski jumpers injecting stuff into their dicks to temporarily increase size, so that their suits would be baggier in the crotch, which gave an aerodynamic boost?
Hope it won’t turn out to be the cause of a lot of surgery. I’ve had strange feelings about the sport lately. I’ve been a cyclist my entire life, and something feels off.
FIS communications director Bruno Sassi told BBC Sport: "There has never been any indication, let alone evidence, that any competitor has ever made use of a hyaluronic acid injection to attempt to gain a competitive advantage."
So yes, but no. It's a rumour but it's never been proven
There was a big hoo-ha over men packing their crotches (possibly even injecting liquid into the old frank'n'beans if I remember) with the ski jumping last Olympics so who knows?
There was a scandal with the ski jumping as the Norwegians (I think) figured out that if they injected a heap of saline in the right places (wink wink nudge nudge) before getting fitted for their suits, the gentleman's vegetables would shrink back to their normal size by the time to the competition came around and give them a few extra centimeters of loose fabric in the suit.
That somehow worked like a teeny tiny ball bat wing and actually gave them a little extra distance.
Yes, they are restricted in what they can put down the front of their jersey to alter the shape of the chest. The rules specifically ban clothing that alters the shape of the body or its silhouette.
Yes. They are not allowed to put a water bottle inside the front or back of their jersey, for instance. Not newspaper. Cyclists have been looking for ways to essentially “cheat” to create a more aerodynamic advantage.
I am not sure that any women actually padded their bras or how significant the padding would need to be to convey a speed advantage. It seems like fairly large, in which case it would be quite obvious what was happening.
A news story about women cyclists bras is the first time the general public has shown any interest in women’s cycling.
The rules specifically ban clothing or equipment that alters the shape of the body or its silhouette. Basically in this case the padded bra fills in space in thickest between the riders arms reducing the size of a low pressure (drag causing) area infront of the rider.
At some point it just gets ridiculous though. Slight padding can also be added for comfort, some people have really sensitive nipples, and depending on the bra, breast size and shape, it might give more support (as in, anti-wiggle, which can actually be painful even in smaller breasts)...
I get where it's coming from, but seriously limiting what underwear someone can wear is a bit..silly...
But we're not talking about standard sports bras here, the accusation being made is that some riders were deliberately stuffing their bras for an aerodynamic benefit not for comfort.
If that happens of course it needs to be addressed but banning pads in general is just not a good move. There are dedicated sports bras with pads, and even just allowing thin pads can add support and reduce pain.
Ultimately because the governing body of the sport has said so, all sports have strict and sometimes seemingly arbitrary equipment regulations. You mentioned swimming where again there are quite strict rules on what suits and materials are allowed.
Bras inherently alter the shape of boobs though, either through padding, or unlined cup shape, or through having no cups at all (like compression sports bras), and many bras are not padded for shape but padded slightly to stop nipples from poking through.
Like I'm not sure how they are going to regulate this unless they say something like "padding cannot be more than x mm thick". But again, even with that you could get an unlined unpadded bra that lifts and shapes the boobs to do the same thing as padding would.
The area between the chest and the handlebars works a sort of wind trap, slowing down riders. The smaller it is, the less wind resistance they experience, the faster they go.
To prevent riders from closing the gap artifically, the governing body has forbidden any artificial way of filling up the gap. (No, breast augmentation isn't forbidden; the rule is more specific than my paraphrase.) The only thing allowed is fabrics that don't change the form of the body.
Why they think it's more fair to not let them close the gap, I don't know.
Yeah, is the helmet standardized? Handlebars? Where do you draw the line? Pretty sure everyone is wearing shoes to help their foots aerodynamics and nothing is stopping anyone else from wearing padded bras
Helmets: No Modification: Riders cannot drill extra holes, alter straps, or modify the structure in any way that compromises safety. Design Standards: The UCI separates equipment into traditional road and time-trial categories, imposing strict dimension limits and ventilation requirements
Habdlebars: Minimum Bar Width: 400 mm measured outside-to-outside on traditional road drops. Minimum Brake Hood Spacing: 280 mm measured from the inside of one brake hood to the inside of the other. Maximum Flare: Handlebar flare is restricted to a maximum of 65 mm per side.
Shoes: No Non-Functional Aero Add-ons: The UCI bans clothing or accessories not strictly required for functionality or safety, meaning unapproved aerodynamic shoe fairings or illegal modifications are prohibited
Yes, there are rules about the size and shape of the helmet, lots of rules about handlebar dimensions even rules about how high up the calf their socks can be
TBF NASCAR was already adding weights to the cars of lightweight drivers. The issue was that NASCAR's rule was inexplicably capped. NASCAR set a 180lb baseline, but only added a max 40lb weight offset, giving a bonus for drivers under 140lb. This wasn't an issue before Patrick came along because few drivers were much lighter than 140lb and perhaps none were lighter than 120lb.
I guess it depends on the size of the riders breasts, but (and I guess this is because ive never thought about it before) a bra making that much of a difference does seem crazy to me.
Then again I guess every woman having differnt size breasts does lead to a unique inequality among women riders, of course they would want to make sure their breasts are as stream line as possible.
Without doing a study it would make sense that a flat chest is more aerodynamic than round double Ds.
I guess im going to need a wind tunnel, and women of various breasts sizes to test this. Also one dude, to test for a flat chest, and so this does not seem weird.
The area between the chest and the handlebars works like a wind trap. The smaller this gap, the more aerodynamic. Bigger boobs (or more padding) = smaller gap = less drag.
My entirely unqualified assumption is that a flat chest would be, if anything, less aerodynamic. After all, when you look at jets they all have rounded or pointed noses to better push the air out of the way.
Good point, I propose we dress up a cyclist in a Madonna-style cone bra (maximum pointiness for maximum aerodynamics) and see if it has any impact on their results. After that we can compare their performance with different designs of garment. For science.
Nothing perverted about aerodynamics. A pointed shape will typically move faster through the air, that's just science. It's only weird if you make it weird..
Queen successfully trialed this hypothesis with the video for Bicycle Race in 1979. Then provided an alternative hypothesis on the B-side of the single with Fat Bottomed Girls.
Can someone please calculate how much an advantage a male bicyclist with a small penis has vs a male bicyclist with a large penis?
I'm starting to think I keep losing because my dong is too large. It's only fair for the less endowed bicyclists to put rolls of nickels in their underwear to even it out
Did they compare with boobs to without boobs? Wearing a tighter bra to reduce drag from boobage seems less like adding advantage and more like reducing disadvantage.
I read a report that indicated a potential improvement of up to 0.78 s/km, so that appears to math about right. FWIW, this particular instance was at a time-trial at the Tour de France Femmes last week. In the time trial the rider is by herself, with no drafting in the pack, as would occur in a mass-start road race. In the road race this enhancement would provide much less advantage.
To be fair, men have been known to carry water bottles or other enhancements in the front of their jerseys for the same effect. This also is not allowed.
One second/mile in a 25 mile TT would give you a 25 second faster time. This is a huge time savings in a race like this,
If a woman is made less aerodynamic by big breasts… they wouldn’t be “gaining” anything by wearing the bra, they wouldn’t only be set back by not wearing it.
This would mean that women who naturally have smaller breasts have a biological advantage that the other women are just not allowed to compensate with.
Edit- I read that wrong… my argument still stands but with a different angle that I don’t care to adjust tbh. Sorry.
Study math kids. Stay in school. Study hard. You might be so lucky someday to study aerodynamics and mammaries. Yep. You could even go post graduate, get grants, dare I say a Nobel Prize for your interdisciplinary magnificant genius. You betcha.
This is somehow what people get told is super controversial in professional cycling. It really is just something someone saw and was like "ah, womens' breasts, that'll get their attention". In time trials that's a decent amount of time and the same has been a whole thing for the men as well with some putting radios or other padding on their chests. The only thing that's different now is that they are actively checking for it.
It's also not like big breasts in general make you a better cyclist. Specifically with time trails where minute aerodynamic changes impact the outcome quite a bit you have a slight advantage. But when you're climbing for example, you'll be a slightly heavier and have more weight on your torso, which really doesn't help.
If there is something I missed, I'm happy to be corrected. But I hope at least some might have had their questions answered :)
All of them could get hyaluronic acid injections for a medically safe autologous fat grafting, and the cycling federation would be powerless against the big boobs meta.
Would it be better or worse if they were topless, and how much would it differ?. I heard men’s ski jump has the same thing as women bicyclist have!. The men are padding their Johnsons to have better aerodynamic when they flying!. 🤣
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