Sunday, June 10th was the Belgian Waffle Ride in North Carolina. Held annually in Hendersonville, NC, this was their third time hosting this leg of the event. The women’s division featured a biological male as the top finisher.
27-year-old Austin Killips has been identifying as a “woman” and entering bike races as such since 2022. In this 137-mile race, he took the lead almost immediately and never let up. Unroad UNLTD documented the race on their Instagram page, where they chose to prioritize the 2nd and 3rd place riders Paige Onweller and Flavia Oliveira. At the 13th mile, Killips was solidly in first, with Onweller and Oliveira maintaining their pace at 2nd and 3rd.
Miles 55 through 59 had the trio battling back and forth, with Onweller taking first for a brief period. Yet, as they crossed into mile 108, Killips had slipped back into 1st place. From there on out, he continued to pad his lead, and as they neared the finish, he took a 5-minute pace over them. As he crossed the line, he professed how hard and massive this win was for him.
Killips has done a decent job of dominating bike races, including a victory in the top-tiered Tour of the Gila in November 2022. Ironically enough, that was also the first-year men and women were paid for their victories equally.
Then, in December 2022, Killips faced accusations of forcing Hannah Arensman off the racing course at the UCI Cyclocross National Championships. Spectators took to Twitter with a video of Killips trying to force her out of bounds. As the poster stated “Forget the fact that AK is a biological male. He/She should have been DQ for this move which was only one of at least 3 attempts to put Arnesman into the tape. I was standing right there when one of the others happened. You can do better.”
Arnesman was a champion 35 times over her illustrious career. As a result of the incredible controversy and horrible antics around the attempts to force her off the course, she elected to hang up her cycling jersey. Given the media and sponsor attention the incident garnered, nobody could blame her, either.
Back in May, Killips had his status as a woman solidified by both USA Cycling and the Union Cycliste Internationale as they declared that his status as a trans athlete met the requirements for cycling. Given his domination of events in both racing organizations, he has effectively taken his competition out, Nancy Kerrigan style.
Women’s cyclists across the globe are fed up with Killips and other trans athletes moving into the women’s division and taking it over. They believe that enough is enough, and they want their own divisions back. Many of the women are ready to start taking knees on the awards platforms or simply not racing.
As a result, multiple races have opened a non-binary/transgendered category, and yet people like Killips are refusing to race there. They want that competitive edge of being called a woman and being able to dominate all the ladies. Yanking away all the accolades and prizes with them as they walk out the door.
With organizations offering up compromises like these but people refusing to accept them, it becomes evident that there is a lot of work to be done to get transgender racers to fall into their place. As much as the liberals don’t like the idea of someone telling another person where their place is, sometimes it is necessary, and this is one of those times.
Going forward, cycling has but one choice: let people like Austin Killips continue to dictate the narrative behind their organizations. Their failures to achieve success as a man and then deciding women are easier to compete with are horrific to these true women. It’s time for them to get things right and let the women have what they earned.