A WEIGHT NEEDS TO BE LIFTED

I remember watching the BBC Sport documentary following Geraint Thomas behind the scenes of the Tour in 2019, and picking up on a passing comment Ineos soigneur Marko Dzalo made about how Thomas was often worried about his weight during the season. He would get frustrated if he couldn’t reach his target, he said. When I followed it up with Thomas a few weeks later, he wouldn’t go as far as to call it “obsessive”, but said that when racing he’s constantly aware of what he’s doing when it comes to his weight.

Thomas’s comments highlight the importance of weight in cycling. Obviously weight is important - how heavy you are will affect how fast you can push yourself on the bike, especially up mountains and in a threeweek endurance test like a grand tour. It’s unavoidable. But as the margins between the top riders become ever smaller, it is no surprise that the focus on weight has become bigger. And the consequences when it does become obsessive can be dangerous.

Anecdotally, there’s been a dripping tap of stories for years of the sport’s crisis. At the start of 2020, Rohan Dennis revealed that in his quest to become a grand tour GC contender, he was on the verge of developing an eating disorder. Sophie Smith wrote an article for this magazine in 2019 that examined mental wellbeing, within which unhealthy eating or obsessing over weight was a big topic. Last year, Janez Brajkovič made public his history of bulimia during his racing career. Then in February, Davide Cimolai, the Italian sprinter, revealed he feels he wasted years at the start of his career due to an eating disorder. In this very issue, Ashleigh Moolman Pasio speaks about the presence of eating disorders within the women’s peloton and her own experiences with anorexia.

Cyclists have been telling us for years there is a problem. Weight might be a significant factor in the sport, but cycling also has a duty of care to its riders. It’s time things changed.