The Daily Agenda: Leveling the Olympic playing field
A local nonprofit that promotes equity in sports has a growing Olympic roster ... Three of its athletes are competing in this year’s games ... Candidates weigh in.
There are more than a dozen athletes with ties to Tucson competing in this year’s Olympics, including hometown favorites Delaney Schnell, Roman Bravo-Young and Daleny Vaughn.
But there’s another trio of athletes competing who also have a connection to Tucson and have family and friends in the Old Pueblo cheering them on from afar as they compete in the Paris Games.
Caileigh Filmer, Victoria Velasco and Kristen Faulkner are all alumnae of the Homestretch Foundation, a nonprofit that provides housing and training opportunities for athletes pursuing a career in endurance sports, including cycling, swimming, triathlon and running.
Since 2016, the foundation has helped 97 athletes, including 90 women and seven men, representing 18 different countries.
This includes seven Olympians in road, track, mountain biking and rowing, all of whom spent time living in the foundation’s 4,000-square foot, split-level home, trucked away in a desert neighborhood on the far east side.
Homestretch Foundation was started by professional cyclist Kathryn Bertine, who came up with the idea after she struggled to support her career without a base salary.
The fight for fair pay in professional sports made worldwide headlines this week, but we’ll get to that later.
Before opening the Homestretch Foundation, Bertine helped women gain entry to the Tour de France and pushed for the Union Cycliste Internationale to allocate base salaries for female pro cyclists.
She started Homestretch as a way to help women during the years-long fight for that pay, which wasn’t allocated until 2020 and at the time, was not a living wage.
Bertine talked to Caitlin in 2021 for an Arizona Daily Star story about the foundation, which at the time boasted 70 alumni athletes. It’s added nearly 30 more to its ranks in the years since, thanks to community support and donations.
Filmer and Velasco both stayed at the home in 2022, and Faulker, the lone U.S.-born athlete in the trio, is an unofficial 2021 alumna.
Calleigh Filmer, who hails from Canada, is competing in women’s rowing as part of an eight-person team. The Canadian women’s eight team placed second in the semi-finals this morning, punching their ticket to Sunday’s finals for a chance to defend their gold medal.
This is Filmer’s third trip to the Olympics. She won the bronze medal in the 2021 Tokyo Games as part of the women’s pair in rowing.
Filmer is also a professional cyclist and began her transition from rowing to cycling at Homestretch after her Tokyo win. But she wasn’t quite ready to completely quit and took a hiatus from cycling this year to qualify for Paris.
Team Canada won the World Championships in May and are the reigning Olympic champions in the women’s eight.
Kristen Faulkner, who competes in both road and track racing, is making her Olympics debut with events on Sunday and next Wednesday.
The Alaska native and Harvard grad got into cycling through a learn-to-ride clinic in Central Park in 2017. She liked it so much, she quit her job as a venture capitalist in 2021 to pursue a full-time career in cycling.
Faulkner was selected as a Homestretch resident that same year, but unfortunately the pre-vaccine pandemic prevented her from moving into the foundation house.
Bertine and the foundation’s other athletes watched Faulkner’s career take flight in 2022 and 2023 and were thrilled when she became a U.S. National Road Race Cycling champion earlier this year and qualified for the Olympics in two events.
Victoria Velasco is representing Team Mexico in omnium cycling, which is four track cycling categories rolled into one event. The first-time Olympian will compete next Saturday. Last year, Velasco became the first Mexican cyclist to win gold in omnium in the Pan American Track Cycling Championships.
Velasco is from Monterrey and was signed to Roxo Racing in 2022, after a video of her getting a haircut by a housemate on the Homestretch Foundation porch made the rounds on social media. Roxo’s team director reached out to ask about her personality, and she was signed to the team later that year.
Velasco qualified for the 2021 Tokyo Games, but due to a clerical error by the Mexican Cycling Federation, she wasn’t allowed to compete. When she’s not cycling, Velasco is working towards her degree at the Savannah College of Art and Design.
Bertine said that while she’s proud to call the trio Homestretch Foundation family and is cheering them on, the fight for equity in professional cycling and sports is far from over.
“There is progress, but we’re still not equal,” she told Caitlin. “For example, the new Tour de France Femmes is in its third year. There are still only 8 stages, not 21 like the men. And the distances and prize money is less. “
Pay is also an issue. Last year, the UCI Women’s World Tour team was finally given an official base salary, but it’s far less than the salary paid to men.
And the Women’s Pro Continental riders still have no base salary, meaning that athletes typically hold multiple jobs and rely on supplemental sources of income to make ends meet.
The financial struggles some professional athletes face made headlines earlier this week, when it was reported that Flavor Flav had signed a sponsorship deal with the U.S. men's and women's water polo national teams.
After Flav saw an Instagram post by team captain Maggie Steffens seeking financial help to support athletes who worked two and three jobs to make ends meet, he quickly answered the call.
“As a girl dad and supporter of all women’s sports, imma personally sponsor you, my girl, whatever you need. And imma sponsor the whole team,” he commented on the post.
Flav made good on his word and was in Paris for the team’s July 27 match, which kicked off their quest for a fourth consecutive gold medal.
Bertine hopes to see equity in pay and competition in professional sports, and says that while the Olympics are headed in the right direction, there’s still work to be done.
“Paris is touted at the “equality games” in terms of equal numbers of men and women, (and) that’s a big step forward,” she said. “But there are still sports — like road cycling — where the women race a shorter distance on less strenuous courses.”
This sends the message that women aren’t able to compete at the same level of difficulty as men, which Bertine said is problematic.
“My hope is 2028 will eliminate such inequities at the Games,” Bertine said. “Then we can truly use the word ‘equal.’”
Zig-zagging for the win: After Jen Allen surged past the three other candidates in the Democratic primary for county supervisor in District 3, she said in a statement that she and her team “zig-zagged” across the district for the past nine months, building support for the campaign. Allen will face Republican Janet Wittenbraker in the general election.
“It’s clear that the voters want someone with experience and collaborative leadership style,” Allen said. “They want to see progress on issues like affordable housing, climate change, and rural services. The voters have chosen an organizer who brings a problem-solving approach and who cares about the well-being and dignity of everyone in our community.”
Conover prevails: County Attorney Laura Conover lauded her campaign’s “county-wide, grassroots effort” as she spoke to supporters following her resounding victory over challenger Mike Jette in the Democratic primary, the Arizona Daily Star’s Charles Borla reports. Since no Republicans are running, Conover’s victory in the primary ensures she will hold office for another four years.
Fosters needed: While the Pima Animal Care Center is near-overflowing with animals, PACC is going to take in 100 large dogs from two separate homes this week, the county said in a news release. County officials are looking for fosters and adopters so they can open up kennel space. Dogs are free to adopt at PACC and each one is microchipped, spayed or neutered, and vaccinated.
Looking ahead: Over in District 1, Supervisor Rex Scott praised his opponent Jake Martin, 21, for his “commitment to our community and his personal integrity.” He’s now up against Republican Steve Spain (who Scott narrowly defeated in 2020) in the general election. In a statement, Scott said his goal, if re-elected, would be to continue to “make sure that all the services and supports our constituents depend on are delivered with equity, responsiveness to their needs and respect for the public revenues entrusted to us.”
943: Former lawmaker Vince Leach’s lead as he tries to unseat state Sen. Justine Wadsack in Legislative District 17.
What a great story! Thanks for the break from the election. I needed a day off.