Leadville, Colorado – For the first time this year, the Leadville Trail 100 mountain bike race featured a separate start for the elite men’s and women’s fields. Previously, it was a mass start with men and women intermixing, but the start format was changed along with other Life Time Grand Prix races.
The move was applauded by top women riders as a positive, but they still felt their race was impacted by drafting with men’s riders.
“The women’s start was probably the coolest thing that I’ve seen in a long time,” said winner Melisa Rollins. “You knew who was in the lead, you knew that you would be in the lead group, you knew that you made the chase group, you knew where every single one of your competitors were.”
Melisa added that while the separate start was great, drafting with men gave the women’s leaders an advantage. After the Powerline descent, Rollins was joined by Sofia Gomez Villafane and Michaela Thompson, and the trio rode with men, which is legal. This reporter witnessed the leaders ride through Twin Lakes with a group of men, just ahead of the Columbine climb where Rollins launched her winning move.
“I think in the future there needs to be a rule that there’s no drafting because that impacted my race too,” Rollins said at the finish. “The three of us that got away after Powerline, we were with a group of men, and I think we were moving faster.”
Villafane also called for a no-draft rule, going as far as saying that drafting aided her in chasing back to second place. Thompson had passed her on Columbine, but Villafane was able to draft a male rider to catch her back, after which she moved into second.
Villafane has been an advocate for separate women’s starts and no-draft rules as the topics have come into the limelight the last few seasons in the largely unsanctioned gravel and off-road scene.
“In my eyes, the podium is really Melisa, Michaela, and then me third,” Villafane said. She continued: “She [Michaela Thompson] rode so well. In my eyes, she deserves second place but I can’t not do something that’s within the rules. I hope that the coverage of how I made it back to her is used, and that Life Time [the Leadville organizer] has a conversation that we finally deserve the drafting rules that I’ve been asking for since day one.”
Thompson echoed the others, calling the separate start “amazing” but wishing for drafting regulations.
“I think that hopefully we can get a no-drafting rule and really have our own race, but compared to last year, my gosh, having the separate start was huge, super helpful,” Thompson said.
Earlier this year, there was discussion of a possible no-draft rule ahead of Unbound Gravel. Race organizer Life Time solicited input from women’s riders, but the organizer ultimately decided not to implement a rule. Challenges surrounding enforcement, particularly across a 200-mile-long race like Unbound, were cited as the primary reason for upholding the status quo. They also didn’t feel comfortable implementing a half-baked rule before it was fully ready.
When asked at Leadville following the women’s race, Life Time said that a no-draft rule is still on the table, but there is no timeline for when that decision might be made.
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