They completely underestimated the undercut which gave Red Bull the upper hand. They had to bring in Lewis before Max the first time round. Instead they brought Bottas in first.
Not really, if you look at the strategies of Norris/Vettel/Stroll which worked. The strategy calls just weren’t cut and dried in that race. Look, Max drove brilliantly, and did what Lewis has done (brilliantly) to him previously. When Lewis does it, you can barely contain your admiration. So really, this one is on Max driving a killer race. Give him the credit as you do with Lewis.
By the way, nobody can complain really that Valterri didn’t defend strongly enough, when Lewis himself barely defended his own position at all.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-57549653 Thoughts on this? I think it's incredibly unfair personally.
Totally ridiculous. I have no issue if someone wishes to be considered transgender or non- binary, etc but they CANNOT then take part as an equal person in any sport which involves muscle mass. This is unfair on the other competitors abd, especially, on the woman who has lost her place in the team after a lot of hard work.
Agree completely. Imagine working towards something your entire life and losing out to someone who has a biological advantage.
I mean it's totally wrong but at least they know what they're up against unlike drug cheats. Everyone else should boycott.
I’ve been thinking about this and trying to be open-minded about it but I honestly think this is a really bad idea. Apart from the immediate unfairness to other competitors, there is a real danger that in sports where the money is much, much more lucrative than weightlifting, someone might be tempted to go through with the transgender process for financial rather than psychosexual motives.
But you aren’t allowed to use surgical or medical enhancements in sport generally, which in a roundabout way this is.
Fair point. Perhaps I could have worded it better but you see what I'm getting at. There's a reason why these sports are separated by sex/gender and it's because Men have huge biological advantages. I honestly believe it's not fair in the slightest. May as well have mixed sex for all Olympic sports. Bet people would complain when they were almost predominantly won by men though.
Yeah, but that's a bit of a different argument. It's also one that has been applied fairly inconsistently, given therapeutic use exemptions. We're also some distance short of this being A Problem. To date, we have exactly one trans athlete to qualify for the Olympics, and they aren't favoured to medal. They were also a high-level male athlete who, after transitioning, ceased to be a high-level athlete at all for a number of years. Even setting aside the gender-reassignment aspect, I cannot see any athletes basically sacrificing their prime years in order to take a giant pile of hormones that'll make them lesser athletes, in the hopes that they'll win through sheer size thereafter.
One trans athlete qualifies in a woman's sport which means one actual woman, Kuinini ‘Nini’ Manumu loses the right to participate, so that is 'A problem' for the future of women's sport. While it may be a first for the Olympics, Hubbard is not unique. Fallon Fox, Veronica Ivy/Rachel McKinnon, Hannah Muncey and Cece Telfer to name just a few, all trans athletes and all of whom have won titles and/or broken records while participating in women's sport. So your suggestion that Hubbard is not favoured to be awarded a medal is a superficial argument to put forward. Hubbard was born male and had all the physical advantages of male puberty, which obviously means that Hubbard has acquired larger muscle mass and greater strength, larger and stronger bones, higher circulating haemoglobin as well as mental and/or psychological differences in contrast to the actual female competitors. In a women's competition even at 43, Hubbard will still reap the benefits of male puberty and with an intact male body, the suggestion that doping for a year to reduce the male testosterone level will magically turn Hubbard into a woman is ludicrous. Women are not testosterone levels.
RBR putting the frighteners on Mercedes today. Easy win for Max on another “Mercedes circuit”. For all his brilliance, I don’t think Lewis is going to get this back this season. Astounding recovery drive from Charles too, from a whoopsy on the first lap that put him 15 seconds behind the second last place up to behind his teammate by the end.
The gap isn't even one race win. All it takes is a mechanical failure or a mistake from Max and Lewis is in the lead.