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I'm feeling for her. Finding the right work is never easy but it seems reconversion after pro-sport can be really tricky, especially for these sports where it's

by doe88 7y ago

I'm feeling for her. Finding the right work is never easy but it seems reconversion after pro-sport can be really tricky, especially for these sports where it's hard to earn enough to make a living. From all the examples I read through the years I got the impression that the least disrupting kind of reconversion in these cases is have the luck to find a way to somehow stay in your sport, trainer, or work in the federation or something like that, but of course easier said than done, you're certainly not alone with this simple idea, and of course I think it's even more difficult when you're a woman.

pbhjpbhj 7y ago
>and of course I think it's even more difficult when you're a woman. // Would you mind explaining why? I'd imagine how difficult it is to move to the coaching/administration level was more a function of the particular sport? Are you thinking just about differences in the level of funding?
- stevenwoo 7y ago
  Only in the past year has it become mandatory for women at an elite level of cycling to be paid a salary and it's less than beginning male pros who are just starting out. Probably less than a dozen women make over five figures a year. 95% of the advertising money in cycling is generated from the men's Tour de France. The organization that runs the Tour de France and a few other races, these are mostly for men with sometimes a day or two set aside for women's races. All the money gets generated by the men's events, gets poured back into creating men's events. For a different type of story, we could look at women's tennis. The cigarette brand Virginia Slims became the sponsor, the sport was televised, and the women started earning ballpark what the men were at least in prize money back in the 70's. It helped that there were few women at the top of tennis and they organized together. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia_Slims_Circuit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia_Slims_Circuit There are a few superstars in cycling but the farm system or whatever you want to call it is full of potential riders to replace the current ones so it's too easy to get strike breakers if cyclists tried to do the same thing.
- doe88 7y ago
  > Would you mind explaining why? Not at all. Simple. Always (until now at least) a prejudice against women when positions have limited numbers to fill. And of course, the whole area of sport is biaised against women, for instance, for her sport there is still no real tour de france for women in cyclism, in 2019.
  - pbhjpbhj 7y ago
    [I'm not at all denying your hypothesis. Just wishing to probe the issue further.] When women are choosing their coaches do they exhibit the same sort of choices, that you called prejudice? Maybe in general men are better at coaching? Are you assuming it is prejudice, or is that demonstrable? I wonder if sportsmen perceive that more successful sportsmen make better coaches, so female sportsmen think that males are better because of the monetary bias? The bias in sport seems to be primarily biological. Your second clause doesn't answer why it's harder for women already at the pinnacle of their sport to move in to "retirement" posts (coach, admin, advocacy): besides prejudice do you have any other hypotheses. I imagine the travel involved is similar to being an itinerant salesman; if there are self-selective pressures that differ by the sexes then I could see similar proportions to that field.
    - doe88 7y ago
      Again a simple example. Track cycling always been more difficult for athletes to make a living from, even for men. A lot of them either are integrated in traditional pro-teams or shift to road pro-cycling after their accomplishments on track. For instance Bradley Wiggins started on track then later won TdF. So part of my point was saying when there is less opportunity to make something like that (there is no true TdF for women, therefore less money, therefore less opportunities to shift from track) then to me there is an obvious difference between opportunities offered to women than men in track cycling.
      - parineum 7y ago
        Can women not participate in the tour de france?
- acdha 7y ago
  If nothing else, there’s a lot less money available and that’s around the level where there are a lot of threshold effects — not “do I buy a big house or a small one?” but “can I pay my rent?”. That makes it harder on the athletes and fewer opportunities to be a coach/trainer, and they all pay less.

by doe88 7y ago

pbhjpbhj 7y ago

>and of course I think it's even more difficult when you're a woman. // Would you mind explaining why? I'd imagine how difficult it is to move to the coaching/administration level was more a function of the particular sport? Are you thinking just about differences in the level of funding?

stevenwoo 7y ago
Only in the past year has it become mandatory for women at an elite level of cycling to be paid a salary and it's less than beginning male pros who are just starting out. Probably less than a dozen women make over five figures a year. 95% of the advertising money in cycling is generated from the men's Tour de France. The organization that runs the Tour de France and a few other races, these are mostly for men with sometimes a day or two set aside for women's races. All the money gets generated by the men's events, gets poured back into creating men's events. For a different type of story, we could look at women's tennis. The cigarette brand Virginia Slims became the sponsor, the sport was televised, and the women started earning ballpark what the men were at least in prize money back in the 70's. It helped that there were few women at the top of tennis and they organized together. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia_Slims_Circuit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia_Slims_Circuit There are a few superstars in cycling but the farm system or whatever you want to call it is full of potential riders to replace the current ones so it's too easy to get strike breakers if cyclists tried to do the same thing.
doe88 7y ago
> Would you mind explaining why? Not at all. Simple. Always (until now at least) a prejudice against women when positions have limited numbers to fill. And of course, the whole area of sport is biaised against women, for instance, for her sport there is still no real tour de france for women in cyclism, in 2019.
- pbhjpbhj 7y ago
  [I'm not at all denying your hypothesis. Just wishing to probe the issue further.] When women are choosing their coaches do they exhibit the same sort of choices, that you called prejudice? Maybe in general men are better at coaching? Are you assuming it is prejudice, or is that demonstrable? I wonder if sportsmen perceive that more successful sportsmen make better coaches, so female sportsmen think that males are better because of the monetary bias? The bias in sport seems to be primarily biological. Your second clause doesn't answer why it's harder for women already at the pinnacle of their sport to move in to "retirement" posts (coach, admin, advocacy): besides prejudice do you have any other hypotheses. I imagine the travel involved is similar to being an itinerant salesman; if there are self-selective pressures that differ by the sexes then I could see similar proportions to that field.
  - doe88 7y ago
    Again a simple example. Track cycling always been more difficult for athletes to make a living from, even for men. A lot of them either are integrated in traditional pro-teams or shift to road pro-cycling after their accomplishments on track. For instance Bradley Wiggins started on track then later won TdF. So part of my point was saying when there is less opportunity to make something like that (there is no true TdF for women, therefore less money, therefore less opportunities to shift from track) then to me there is an obvious difference between opportunities offered to women than men in track cycling.
    - parineum 7y ago
      Can women not participate in the tour de france?
acdha 7y ago
If nothing else, there’s a lot less money available and that’s around the level where there are a lot of threshold effects — not “do I buy a big house or a small one?” but “can I pay my rent?”. That makes it harder on the athletes and fewer opportunities to be a coach/trainer, and they all pay less.