Cycling dismay as women's events frozen out for London 2012

Cycling sport affords one the chance to be competetive and geeky at the same time. It's bound to be male-biased.

I think actually it might be the outfits that put women off! Seriously, I really don't know why participation is so low.

It's gender stereotyping from a young age--people doing their best to fit into predefined and ill-reflected roles. Naturally, of course, there are roughly equal numbers of competitive men and women, but women's competitiveness is channelled into other things than physical exercise early on and doesn't recover much. The talent pool remains almost completely untapped. Conversely, there are many men that are just supposed to be competitive because they're men but would actually rather not be.

Much as I'm not particularly keen on elite sports, the huge disparity between male and female levels of pay, participation, and publicity annoys me very much. It's obviously reflected at grassroots level, where its impact is worst.