October 18, 2018 (Los Angeles, California) – Canada came home with five medals following the 2018 UCI Masters Track Cycling World Championship held Oct. 6-13 in Los Angeles, California. The biggest buzz came when Canadian, Dr. Rachel McKinnon, strode atop the podium after winning the 35-44 women’s sprint on Oct. 13. In so doing, she became the first transgender athlete to win a world title.
The event kicked off with a gold medal performance from Fabien Lamaze in the Men’s 35-39 time trial on Oct. 6. Other medal winners include Vikkie Appeel, bronze in the women’s 45-49 individual pursuit; Charlotte Roberge, silver, women 35-44 scratch race; and Bruce Camacho who won silver in the men’s 70+ points race.
McKinnon, who was born a biological man and identifies as a transgender woman, races both track and road. In addition to her victory, she also briefly set a world record in the Flying 200m qualifying with a time of 0:00:11.92
Her world championship victory set off a chorus of both cheers and jeers, and the Canadian athlete took to Twitter to defend her victory.
Some suggest her biological gender gives her an unfair advantage over cis women, while others note that it is within the rules, she is allowed to compete, and moreover she is doing something ground-breaking and inspiring other transgender athletes to pursue sport as well.
“Umm, I trained 15 months *straight* to be able to go 100% and barely make this pass in the final 50m of a race,” she wrote on Twitter on Oct. 17, still dealing with the backlash of her victory. “I train 15-20hrs per week, week in and week out, usually training twice/day. There was nothing easy about this. I barely won,” tweeted McKinnon.
The issue was also debated in an article published in USA Today earlier this year with McKinnon’s position being contrasted by fellow cyclist Jillian Bearden, who agreed with the International Olympic Committee that “naturally occurring testosterone gives transgender women an unfair advantage in competition against cisgender women.”
Yet McKinnon sees it differently, saying that, “whether other competitors believe transgender women have an unfair advantage is irrelevant because she says there is no way to measure if such advantages even exist.”
In July 2017 the UCI, Cycling Canada and the Ontario Cycling Association agreed to change their policies regarding transgender female athletes in the settlement of a human rights action by Kristen Worley and to embark on a program of awareness and education related to diversity and inclusion of all participants – read more here.
Congratulations to all the Canadian riders who competed.
USA Today article here.
UCI Masters Track Worlds 2018 here.
CBC report here.