This year\u2019s Tour de France Femmes has been rocked by allegations that some riders are artificially exaggerating their bust size to gain an aerodynamic advantage.<\/p>\n
Several women\u2019s World Tour teams have raised concerns that cyclists on rival teams are padding their sports bras to give them a boost in time trials, according to leading Dutch cycling news site, WielerFlits<\/a>.<\/p>\n Every second counts<\/p>\n The practice of \u201cchest fairing\u201d \u2013 also known as \u201cbra boosting\u201d or \u201cbra doping\u201d \u2013 involves increasing the surface area of the chest to change the airflow around the torso. Other forms of chest fairing include placing a water bottle or radio receiver under your cycling jersey. This can reduce drag, potentially saving valuable seconds in a time trial, where aerodynamics are crucial.<\/p>\n The Week<\/p>\n Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \nSUBSCRIBE & SAVE\n<\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n Sign up for The Week’s Free Newsletters<\/p>\n From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.<\/p>\n From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.<\/p>\n Latest Videos FromThe Week<\/p>\n An optimised chest fairing can reduce drag by as much as 3.6%, which could gain a time-trial cyclist at least 0.78 seconds every kilometre, according to research published in the Journal of Wind Engineering and Industrial Aerodynamics<\/a> in 2024. \u201cYou won\u2019t gain tens of seconds,\u201d said study lead Bert Blocken, an aerodynamics expert at Heriot-Watt University in Scotland. But over a 20- to 30-km time trial, \u201cit could save enough seconds to make the difference\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve done some testing with a push-up bra versus a sports bra\u201d and \u201cwe\u2019ve definitely found some differences there\u201d, Koen de Kort, head of technical and innovation at professional cycling team Lidl-Trek, told The Athletic<\/a>. We haven\u2019t used enhanced bras in competition, as we \u201cdon\u2019t think it\u2019s in the spirit of the sport\u201d but I\u2019m sure other teams \u201chave found the same results and have experimented with it\u201d.<\/p>\n You may like<\/p>\n It\u2019s a controversy that has echoes of the row at the Winter Olympics earlier this year, when male ski jumpers were accused of artificially boosting their penis size in order to be fitted into ski suits with larger, more aerodynamic dimensions in the crotch area.<\/p>\n Grey area<\/p>\n Using any item to \u201cartificially modify the morphology\u201d of a rider to gain an advantage is banned by the UCI, cycling\u2019s governing body. Riders found violating these rules can be disqualified and fined. Yet, at present, they are \u201cvirtually unenforced\u201d, said WielerFlits.<\/p>\n For male riders, the policing of chest fairing \u201cis relatively easy\u201d, said Cycling News<\/a>, but it becomes \u201ccomplicated for women, who all have different sized breasts and use all different kinds of sports bras during races\u201d.<\/p>\n On Monday, the UCI took the unusual step of issuing a warning that the Tour de France Femmes race jury overseeing final checks for yesterday\u2019s stage 4 time trial will play \u201cparticular attention\u201d to clothing and accessories which \u201ccould modify riders\u2019 morphology\u201d.<\/p>\n