Over her career, Olympic cyclist Inga Thompson has been in a few feisty tangles in her quest to advance women’s sports.
Close to 30 years ago, the 10-time US National Champion spoke out when the Union Cycliste Internationale governing body tried to keep women from racing while on their period.
“I remember thinking, ‘This is 1990 and I have to fight whether or not I can race during my menstrual cycle,’” she told The Post. “We had a lot of heated conversations about enforcement and motive.”
Eventually, she said, “common sense prevailed.”
Then she took on doping, which increased exponentially in the ’90s and led to many competitors walking away from the sport.
But for the last six years, the 59-year-old has encountered what she calls her toughest uphill climb. Thompson is among the most prominent voices in women’s athletics trying to keep women’s sports fair — which, in the year 2023, translates to: Keep women’s sports female.
“This has been the hardest fight I’ve had. This doesn’t even compare to the others,” Thompson said.
Fifty-one years after the passage of Title IX, we’re living in bizarro land. Cynisca Cycling, of which Thompson was director, even put a hit out on her reputation after the Olympian — who won silver at the 1987 Pan Am Games — voiced support for protesting the UCI’s policy allowing transgender riders in the women’s division.
This, despite the powers that be privately agreeing with her stance: “Two men who were on my side, Plus, she had already resigned from the board 10 days earlier to battle breast cancer.
“Anyone who speaks out about fairness in women’s sports gets eviscerated by transgender radical advocates,” Thompson said. “You can see why people don’t speak up. It’s not for the weak of heart, and I’ve watched people buckle.”
Lately, cycling has been at the forefront of the raging debate over trans women in women’s sports, in both the pro and the amateur ranks.
Back in March, Olympic hopeful Hannah Arensman quit the sport after losing at the 2022 National Cyclocross Championships in December to Austin Killips, a 27-year-old trans woman who has been dominant in the female category.
In April, Killips won the Tour of the Gila in New Mexico, becoming the first transgender rider to win a UCI stage race. Last week, Killips won a race by a whopping five-minute margin.
Today, the Pro Road Nationals kick off in Nashville and cyclist Chloé Dygert will be competing against Killips. At stake is a spot in the 2023 World Championships and the 2024 Olympics in Paris.
Dygert herself has been on the other end of the cancellation cattle prod: In 2020, she was dragged by her team’s sponsor Rapha, for the high crime of liking a Candace Owens tweet calling for protecting women’s spaces. Dygert issued a public apology.
“Having spoken to her at length, we believe that Chloé has the capacity and the will to listen, learn and to change,” Rapha’s hostage statement read.
Dygert has been quiet since. But in an encouraging sign, other female athletes, including Riley Gaines — the former UPenn swimmer and teammate of trans woman Lia Thomas — as well as Paula Scanlan and Thompson, are in her corner. On Sunday, they will be at a Nashville rally with the Independent Women’s Forum, protesting UCI and USA Cycling rules allowing biological men to compete in the women’s category.
After all, it shouldn’t be incumbent on the competitors to shoulder the load alone.
“When people say that women athletes should boycott, [they’re] not realistically looking at this. These are young women who just want to race their bikes. They didn’t get into cycling to become political and fight for their rights,” Thompson said.
I’ve spoken with people at different sports and media organizations, many of whom share a common refrain: They say their superiors privately agree that trans women should not be competing in women’s sports. But those same honchos have also told them to keep their common sense view closeted.
As one prominent woman in media told me: If everyone privately agrees that this is insane, then who are we publicly cowering to?
It’s the reality-challenged activists.
One of them is Kelley Robinson, the president of the Human Rights Campaign, who has testified before the US Senate Judiciary Committee this week. According to her bio, she specializes in “racial and gender equity, with a focus on lifting up marginalized communities and building political power.”
Absent was any mention of science or sports — as was quite evident during her testimony, which suggested she doesn’t know a tennis ball from a testicle.
“There’s been this news article about men that think they can beat Serena Williams in tennis. And it’s just not the case. She is stronger than them,” Robinson said with a straight face.
Not only were Serena and Venus Williams both beaten by Karsten Braasch, the 203rd ranked man in the world, in 1998, but Serena told David Letterman there was a vast biological gap between the sexes while discussing a potential match-up against Andy Murray.
“The men are a lot faster and they serve harder, they hit harder, it’s just a different game. I love to play women’s tennis. I only want to play girls, because I don’t want to be embarrassed,” she said.
But fast forward a decade, and one wonders if Serena would face a firing squad for expressing that same factual assessment. Talk about progress.
Transgender athletes should have the right to compete, and many organizations are now creating nonbinary categories to accommodate. But let’s not pretend they don’t have a physical advantage over biological females.
Thompson said that, while radical activists are making it easier to shut up, there’s a vast majority in her sport, standing in her corner. Quietly.
“They all agree, they just can’t say it,” she said. “You just want to pull your hair out. [But] if 95% of you spoke out at the same time, they can’t fire all of you.”
Indeed, this is fragile a house of cards, propped up by activist bullies. It’s vulnerable to reason and the oxygen produced by more voices. Let’s hope more people open their mouths.
This story originally appeared on NYPost
