work4bike

What's going on, on the podium at the Tour of California?

The podium girls seem to be there to just set up the winners for photo shoots and to sneak in some "VIP" for the initial photo shot. I guess this is all about not "objectifying women..."

That's fine...I guess...but the way they're doing it now is just stupid. The idea of having these "VIP's" up there just isn't working. Everything just looks so frantic during the presentations.

BTW, that blonde podium girl seems so stressed out as she attempts to manage the photo shoot set ups.

Iride01 

It's always looked frantic. Doesn't matter whether there are podium girls there or not. If you are more specifically talking about the stage two winner, (name withheld, no spoilers here). I thought it was slightly amusing. The girl was whisking him front stage and back stage, ripping jersey's off of him and taking care of that heavy bottle of wine he apparently was too tired to want to hold.

But hey, I thought she did a good job. Time constraints for pictures and everything else, when you win four jerseys and get a stage win, things are going to be hectic for the dazed and tired 21 yo relatively new to pro cycling rider.

Though I think the one I'm talking about was a brunette. Might have to go back and check. Didn't watch the podium for stage 3.

dstrong 

"Podium Girls" are out..."Podium Ambassadors" are in...no kissing required (except in the Giro). It's a time of sexual enlightenment around all sports...no more tiny-shorts-wearing cleavage-bearing models to objectify. I miss the Podium Girls and am very concerned about their prospects for employment.

Lazyass

The TDF is getting rid of the podium girls. Sad times.

https://www.bicycling.com/racing/a20...-podium-girls/

trailangel

Indeed.. the PC nannies are taking over.

bikemig 

Racing bikes are pretty different than they were back in the day as well. Sometimes things change for a good reason. This is one of them.

Lazyass

This is not a good change. It's idiotic.

peter_d

I remember thinking at time of watching, how well those girls managed everyone, None of the VIP's got to hog the stage or upstage the athletes, they seemed very efficient.

berner

George Hincappie loved podium girls so much he married one.

Shadco 

mattm

Heathpack 

bikecrate

Yeah, I think the whole kissy kissy thing on each cheek was kind of stupid. Time to put an end to the '70's.

trailangel

How about a couple of Podium Boys?

Iride01 

It's not the "kissy kissy" thing that is the problem. For the most part it's just what happens when you get a bunch of teenagers and young adults still in adolescence with hormones raging through their body along with being in a fast moving here one day and gone the next environment. It's not an excuse to forgive the transgressions, but until that reason is acknowledged as one of the issues there won't be a real solution.

Lazyass

French men kiss each other on the cheek and that's naturally that's politically correct. Stop the madness. The girls at the TDF are classy. There is no "tiny-shorts-wearing cleavage-bearing".

mattm

Some generations will never get it.

This will be totally gone in 5-10 years. (I hope!)

Caretaker

Absolurely, those skin-tight cycle shorts are demeaning to men.

tyrion

canklecat

The whole notion of using women as ornaments for men's sporting events is cringe-worthy. I've been a fan of boxing since I was a kid in the 1960s and later an amateur boxer, so I remember a time before "ring card girls". Ring card girls are the fifth worst thing to happen to boxing, after organized crime, crooked promoters, the HBO team of Larry Merchant, Harold Lederman and Jim Lampley, and celebrity referees with gratuitous catch phrases (Joe Cortez, looking at you, buddy. Nobody cares if you're firm but fair. Just do your damn job and stop getting in the way. And Jay Nady... just don't. Retire. Stop refereeing fights.).

It's an embarrassment and insult to us all now that so many women are participating in sports at an elite level (swimmer Katie Ledecky is currently the highest compensated athlete for product endorsements, in part because she's squeaky clean in an era where so many "heroes" turn out to be badly flawed).

But if the job involves serious PR stuff, which includes shepherding celebrity guests efficiently through photo ops, grip and grins, etc., that's fine. That's been part of the job for interns and entry level hopefuls of both sexes in PR. They don't need to wear bikinis or hot pants for that unless it's a bikini and hot pants festival.

Caretaker

I'm not embarrassed seeing well dressed women presenting jerseys and trophies at men's bike races, if they were in beach wear I might be.
In modern European culture female 'beauty' is idolised whereas in other cultures and times like ancient Greece the male form was the 'ideal'.

If it makes you cringe or feel embarrassed then don't watch.

brianmcg123

Shimagnolo

But without ring card girls, boxing is just two men giving each other degenerative brain disease.

canklecat

Yeah, I have mixed feelings about the consequences of boxing. More than most sports there's a high risk of brain damage. I've seen interviews with retired boxers who were sharp and witty in their youth and now mumble almost incoherently. OTOH, many boxers seem to suffer few or no apparent side effects.

Every sport has some risk of brain damage from head blows, even without loss of consciousness or even a diagnosis of concussion. Cycling is risky. I'm recovering from a shoulder injury after a car struck me a couple of months ago. My helmet smacked the pavement but apparently not hard enough to dent the helmet, and I had no concussion. Presumably my shoulder absorbed the brunt -- it sure snapped and popped like it did.

Traditionally, for many young people, boxing and other sports have offered a way out of poverty. Unfortunately many of them end up back where they started, along with brain damage. But I think most of them know the risks and are willing to accept them in exchange for an opportunity. I knew the risks when I was an amateur boxer and I retired from the sport in my early 20s when I began suffering headaches after bouts, even when I won. I still hold just enough libertarian leanings to be disinclined to forbid anyone from pursuing a risky goal if the person mostly likely to suffer consequences is the athlete him/herself.

Shimagnolo

I was heavily into Tae Kwon Do when I was ~20yo. One of my peers who started training at the same time I did was able to progress much faster than me, made 1st Degree Black Belt, and began competing in full-contact tournaments. I had not seen him for some months, when I heard a rumor he had abruptly quit competing. The next time I saw him, I asked him about it. His answer went something like this:

"Well, I started meeting these guys who had competed for years. What they had to say made sense, but their speech was slurred. Then every time I competed in a match, my head was ringing for a week afterward. The hell with it. I didn't want to end up like them."

Then just a few months later, I read an article in a martial arts magazine about a study that had summarized the autopsies of ~50 boxers. Something like 98% had brain damage.

Now mind you, this was back in the 1970's!

That put an end to any thoughts I ever had about training for full-contact.