USA Cycling strengthens protections for elite women’s events

USA Cycling has strengthened its rules to block men from participating in elite women’s events.

For international events, men who have experienced puberty cannot participate in the women’s category in accordance with the Union Cycliste Internationale’s (UCI) revised standards from July.

Beginning next year, the USA’s national governing body will also tighten its entry requirement for elite women’s competitions on the basis of testosterone levels. But for non-elite events, men will still be permitted to compete as women via self-identification.

Male winners

In Chicago’s 2023 CycloCross Cup, male cyclists Tessa Johnson and Evelyn Williamson took first and second places in the women’s SingleSpeed, leaving female cyclist Allison Zmuda in third place.

Under USA Cycling’s upcoming rules, the elite-level male cyclists will only be able to compete against women in elite competitions if their testosterone levels are proven to have remained below 2.5 nmol/L for at least 24 months.

According to records, Williamson has won 18 titles since he started competing in women’s competitions in 2017.

‘Erasing women’

In the US state of Maine, 15-year-old male runner Soren Stark-Chessa has come under fire for rising to fourth place in the girls’ 5k cross-country competition, after previously ranking 172nd among boys in the state.

Stark-Chessa, who attends Maine Coast Waldorf School, became the state’s first transgender athlete to win a regional high school cross country championship, after taking first place in the Southern Maine Class C Regional’s female division.

Former National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) swimmer Kaitlynn Wheeler said: “This is unfair and discouraging to every girl in that sports conference who is giving her all to be the best runner she can be – women’s sports isn’t a retirement home for failed male athletes.

“We all owe it to these girls to speak up and fight the push to erase women and destroy women’s sports. These injustices will only accelerate if we don’t speak up now.”