Bra Doping: The Tour de France Femmes’ Newest Body-Policing Problem

“Bra doping” is the phrase making the rounds in cycling news this week, and no, it’s not what it sounds like. Nobody has been accused of stashing performance-enhancing drugs in their sports bra. What’s actually being alleged is aerodynamic: some riders may be padding their bras or wearing specially shaped inserts to smooth the airflow around their chests during the individual time trial — a trick cyclists call a “chest fairing.”

To be clear up front: as of this writing, no rider has been found to have cheated. This started as concerns raised by rival teams, reported by the Dutch outlet WielerFlits, and it prompted the UCI to run extra equipment checks before Tuesday’s time trial at this year’s Tour de France Femmes.

Why would this even matter? Because time trials are won and lost in fractions of a second, and aerodynamics researchers say the underlying science is real — a chest fairing can measurably cut drag.

I was struck by two things. First, wow, a competitive sports advantage for large-breasted women! Is this a first? Second, the riders are mostly not very large-breasted women since there is such a competitive advantage in having a lower-weight body in cycling, particularly climbing hills in France. They all look very thin to me.

Here’s where it gets interesting, feminist-issue-wise. This isn’t actually a new problem. Men have been doing versions of this for years, tucking ice packs or water bottles down the front of their jerseys for the same aero effect, and the UCI has already banned that. Dutch rider Jan-Willem van Schip is something of a repeat offender. He was disqualified from the Ronde de l’Oise this past June for racing a time trial with a hydration pack stuffed into the front of his jersey, chasing the same “chest fairing” effect riders are now being accused of getting from padded bras. Same physics, same rule against altering your body’s shape for aero gain — just a very different object doing the altering.

But policing it for men is comparatively simple. After all, a bottle-shaped lump under a jersey is a bottle-shaped lump. Women’s bodies don’t offer that same clean test. Breast size varies naturally, rider to rider and even day to day, which means the UCI’s fix — sending riders through pre-race chest checks — puts officials in the position of eyeballing bodies and making judgment calls about what’s “natural” and what isn’t.

Unsurprisingly, that went about as well as you’d expect. The riders’ association pushed back hard on how the checks were rolled out — thrown together the night before, with little warning — and specifically raised concerns about rider “dignity and privacy” being protected during what amounts to officials inspecting women’s chests before they’re allowed to start. A female commissaire was assigned to do the actual checking, which maybe helps, but doesn’t erase the strangeness of the situation: a sport already prone to scrutinizing women’s bodies in every other respect is now formally empowered to scrutinize them for hidden padding before a race.

So here’s the tension I keep turning over: on one hand, a rule against artificially altering your body shape for aero gain is a completely normal kind of equipment regulation — no different in principle from banning an illegal bike frame. On the other hand, applying that rule to breasts, specifically, in a sport that already treats women’s bodies as endlessly inspectable, is not a neutral act. It’s hard to imagine an equivalent scenario for men that would involve officials in a tent making judgment calls about whether a body part looks “natural.”

What do you think? Does fairness require stricter enforcement? And is there a way to enforce a rule like this that doesn’t put women’s bodies under yet another layer of scrutiny?

Further reading: Jan-Willem van Schip disqualified again — Cyclingnews | UCI conducts chest-area kit checks — Canadian Cycling Magazine | chest checks video