Cycling’s governing body backpedals on allowing transgender athletes to compete
Luke Gentile
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The Union Cycliste Internationale, cycling’s world governing body, appears to be backpedaling on its position regarding transgender athletes following a biological male’s dominant win in a UCI women’s stage race.
Austin Killips, a biological male who identifies as female, took first place in the Tour of the Gila women’s category on Sunday, and an outcry in defense of women’s sports quickly followed, according to a report.
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Killips broke away from the pack of female competitors and won by a margin of 89 seconds.
Retired cyclist racer and three-time Olympian Inga Thompson blasted Killips’s win as “killing off women’s cycling,” and Alison Sydor, a retired professional cross-country mountain cyclist and Olympic silver medalist, compared the advantage Killips has to being “no different functionally than doping.”
Killips, who took home $35,000 for first place, was fully sanctioned to compete in the stage race because the athlete was in accordance with UCI policy, which requires suppressed testosterone levels of 2.5nmol/L for a 24-month period.
However, in the wake of outrage following the 27-year-old Killips’s win, the UCI announced it had heard “concerns” surrounding unfair competition.
The UCI management committee decided to reopen the discussion on transgender participation in elite cycling when it meets with national federations and athletes in Glasgow come August.
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“The UCI’s objective remains the same: to take into consideration, in the context of the evolution of our society, the desire of transgender athletes to practice cycling,” the body said.
“The UCI also hears the voices of female athletes and their concerns about an equal playing field for competitors, and will take into account all elements, including the evolution of scientific knowledge.”