12 May

‘Breaks my coronary coronary heart’ – Villafañe laments lack of drafting rule change for Unbound Gravel

The door had been opened to the potential for a rule change for Unbound Gravel in 2024 to cut out drafting between riders from differing lessons – an issue normally of specific relevance to the skilled ladies’s race. Nonetheless, concerns over enforcement appear to have prevented the switch, a name lamented by dominant gravel rider Sofia Gomez Villafañe (Specialised).

“I actually believed Life Time Grand Prix/ Unbound Gravel have been going to find out an answer to present the elite ladies a race that is perhaps shielded from start to finish and by no means allow any males to affect the race dynamics or consequence,” talked about the 2022 winner and 2023 runner-up in an Instagram put up.

“Loads progress has been executed over the earlier two years and I’m grateful for the separate start that was utilized in 2023 and the added time buffer that will go into impression in 2024 nonetheless we nonetheless have a protracted resolution to go.”

Drafting between lessons is one factor that will occur all by the sphere – with rule ten clearly stating that “drafting on one different event participant is allowed”. It occurs all through an infinite array of races as, whereas staggered begins have gotten further widespread, distinct stand alone races for women or professionals are nonetheless a rarity in gravel. The professional-women are typically scattered amongst a loads larger space of every expert and amatuer males’s lessons as a result of this truth the interaction between lessons can have a substantial have an effect on on the dynamic between the very best riders throughout the race.

In 2023, a yr the place Villafañe obtained right here second at Unbound, organisers had tried to mitigate the have an effect on to the women’s race of the intermingling of lessons by carving out a start time for the elite ladies that was two minutes behind the elite males and eight minutes ahead of the amateurs. Nonetheless it didn’t take prolonged for the lessons to mix, notably throughout the highly effective muddy conditions of ultimate yr’s event.

“Learning an e-mail like this breaks my coronary coronary heart,” talked about Villafañe. “I actually really feel like on the end of the day it’s solely a logistical inconvenience to supply the women the race we deserve.”

Cyclingnews has sought comment from Unbound.