Team Israel refuses to be intimidated and remains in cycling race

Imagine the absurdity of the situation unfolding in Spain, where the Israeli Premier Tech cycling team, competing in the Vuelta a España, found itself under siege, not by rival athletes, but by the sanctimonious posturing of pro-Palestinian protesters. 

On Wednesday, the team was pressed by race organizers to withdraw from this prestigious Grand Tour, one of the crown jewels of men's road cycling, because of demonstrations clogging the route in Bilbao, a city notorious for its anti-Israel fervor in a nation often deemed among Europe's most reflexively pro-Palestinian. The team's response was resolute and principled: "The team remains committed to continuing to compete in the Valletta. Any other course of action sets a dangerous precedent in cycling, not only for Israel Premier Tech, but for all teams."

What are we to make of this? The race director, Kika Garcia, in a moment of spineless capitulation, admitted on local radio that he had appealed to the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) to have the Israelis removed. "This was the most complicated day of the race. If no changes are made, the protests will continue," he bleated, as though the mere presence of Israeli athletes justified the chaos. "Right now, the participation of Israelis is mandatory and we need to protect everyone. We have informed the UCI of our opinion. I hope things will change." Change, in this context, is a euphemism for surrender; a groveling acquiescence to the mob.

The 11th stage in Bilbao was delayed by 19 minutes as demonstrators, brandishing Palestinian flags and anti-Israel placards, blocked the road. With 15 kilometers left, organizers truncated the stage by three kilometers, declaring no winner, citing fears that protests at the finish line might endanger riders. For the first time in the Vuelta's 80-year history, a stage was cut short. 

This is not mere disruption; it is sabotage, dressed up as moral righteousness.

Tom Pidcock, one of the race's leading contenders, captured the frustration with understated dignity: "It was hard to describe the disappointment of the premature end," he said, believing he had a shot at stage victory. "But risking our lives is unacceptable. Protesting at the expense of our safety does not advance anyone’s cause." Here is a man who understands the stakes, not just of the race, but of the principle. To endanger athletes for political point-scoring is not activism; it is thuggery.

The protests were not confined to Bilbao. During Stage 5's team time trial, men and women stormed the road in front of the Israeli team. In Stage 10, they did so again, forcing riders to swerve or slow down. One, Simone Petilli, crashed as a result. His injuries were minor, but his plea on X was raw and human: "I understand that is not a good situation, but yesterday I crashed because of a protest on the road. Please, we are just cyclists and we are doing our job, but if it will continue like this our safety is not guaranteed anymore, and we feel in danger! We just want to race! Please."

The UCI, to its credit, condemned the protests, stating that the right to demonstrate cannot come "at the expense of the safety of the athletes. Echoing Petilli, they added that the racers "are not involved in political matters and are just doing their job." The Israeli team, meanwhile, expressed gratitude to "race organizers and the UCI for their continued support and cooperation, as well as the teams and riders who expressed their support publicly and privately, and of course, our fans."

Let's be clear: this is not about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, whatever one's views on that intractable mess. This is about the cowardice of allowing a sporting event to be held hostage by those who would rather see chaos than competition. To ask a team to withdraw because their presence offends a vocal minority is to hand a veto to the loudest, most disruptive voices. It is to say that merit, effort, and the right to compete can be nullified by the threat of a tantrum. If this precedent is set, no team--Israeli or otherwise--will be safe from the whims of any group with a flag and a grudge. 

That is not progress; it is regression into a world where might makes right, and the mob rules all. 

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FLASH: Biological male keeps beating biological females in cycling

Biological male who can produce sperm
because he still has his junk

Definition of male: a male person : a man or a boy: an individual of the sex that is typically capable of producing small, usually motile gametes (such as sperm or spermatozoa) which fertilize the eggs of a female--Online Dictionary

Biological male cyclist with X-Y chromosomes who now goes by the name Rachel McKinnon just keeps beating the crap out of  biological women and smashing their records. And it's no surprise because he has a greater number of fast twitch and slow twitch musculature than biological women due to the fact that he's a man but thinks he's a woman.

McKinnon, 37, not only set the record in the 35-39 category but also won the 200m gold medal at the Masters Track Cycling World Championships on Sunday. Canadian McKinnon beat out American Dawn Orwick, and Denmark’s Kirsten Herup Sovang, who took silver and bronze behind McKinnon.

McKinnon also won the 2018 UCI Masters Track Cycling World Championships in Los Angeles in 2018, among other events.

But not everyone was thrilled by the unsurprising win.

Jennifer Wagner-Assali, a competitor who lost to McKinnon in the past — but did not race last weekend — called McKinnon’s win “unfair,” the Times reported. I would call it bs.

“It was an unfair race, and I accepted that when I pinned on the number, and I tried to do my best to overcome the unfairness,” Wagner-Assali said of McKinnon’s male dominance over biological female racers.

“I do feel that hard-fought freedoms for women’s sport are being eroded. If we continue to let this happen, there will be men’s sports and co-ed sports, but there won’t be any women’s sports,” Wagner-Assali added.

Wagener-Assari also said that if men claiming to be women continue to dominate women’s sports, then many young girls won’t even bother to get into sports. “I see little girls competing . . . and I don’t want them to have to fight this issue,” she said.

To put it into further perspective, women competing for college scholarships will lose to transgender "women" who actually tend to be mediocre in terms of male stats in the sports in which they compete. For example, the FC Dallas under-15 soccer team beat the U.S. Women's National team in a scrimmage. Boys beating adult women because there is a difference between the sexes.

McKinnon, though, rebuffed the charge that he was dominating the women’s sport. “I haven’t won any Olympic medals. I haven’t won any elite world championships,” McKinnon said, forgoing the use of the word "yet."

Before Sunday’s race, McKinnon defended the right of men with gender confusion disorder or gender dysphoria to compete alongside real women saying that “preventing trans women from competing is denying their human rights.”

No, men competing against women is denying those women the right to fair competition. You want fair? Have transgender women compete against transgender women. That would be fair.

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