Newsgroup: it.sport.ciclismo
Titolo: A hero worthy of the name

http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,1840006,00.html
The disgrace of Floyd Landis, disqualified from the Tour de France on 
Saturday and summarily sacked by his team, has been the only cycling 
story you could read for the past two weeks. And cycling's doping 
problem has been the only talking point. Shock, denial, anger, 
depression ... those of us who care about these things, have to endure 
the familiar sense of loss - loss of any heroes worthy of the name.
But overlooked in this sorry business is the fact that - if only we were 
not so blinkered by received values - we do still have a hero worthy of 
the name. And her name is Nicole Cooke.
While everyone has been looking the other way, the young woman from 
South Wales - long the best in Britain (national champion for the past 
seven years) - has recently consolidated her claim to be the best female 
bike racer in the world. Not only did she win the women's Tour de France 
this year (though it was virtually unreported in British sports pages), 
she has now established a commanding lead in the season-long World Cup 
rankings.
If you thought that in a sport demanding extreme endurance, fitness and 
speed, women would be the weaker sex, think again. A male friend who 
races as a top elite amateur told me that he went mountain-biking in the 
Brecon Beacons with a group including Cooke last winter - and she 
dropped him on every climb. She is, by any measure, a phenomenal 
athlete. And it goes without saying that she is clean.
So why is Cooke not a household name? Why isn't her picture on the back 
of cereal packets? There are no simple answers. In this country, women's 
cycling is a Cinderella sport within a Cinderella sport. Even in 
mainland Europe, it is the poor relation to the men's sport. Nothing 
unusual there; the rewards and coverage of women's tennis are the 
exception that proves the rule in almost every other sport.
And like many others, cycling is battling to turn round a history of 
disregarding women's participation. It is easy to throw about 
accusations of institutional sexism - and it is true that, in the bad 
old days, cycling clubs were not very welcoming towards potential women 
members. (Then again, some were not very welcoming, period.) That is 
changing, but the larger truth is that sports simply reflect society.
More women are cycling than before; but even as commuting cyclists, men 
have tended to outnumber women by a factor of four or five to one. What 
goes into that? A perception that cycling is unsafe has deterred more 
women than men, probably; that bike shops are unfriendly places in a 
specifically sexist way, perhaps; that it is hard to dress nicely and 
ride a bike, possibly. But one excuse we can't make any more is a lack 
of role models. Not now that we have Nicole Cooke.
-- 
http://modesta.biciticino.ch
Il sito dedicato alla giovane ciclista lituana Modesta Vzesniauskaite

 of role models. Not now that we have Nicole Cooke.
Women racers and entries into America races is at a all time high, with
record turnouts, even more then the men in some races. No shortage of women
racers here, but more a shortage of great ones like Neben, Armstrong and
Baldwin.
B-