05/17/2008

Michelle Dumaresq: An interview with the National Freakin’ DH Champion! By Leigh Hargrove

Last month local rider Michelle Dumaresq won her first National Downhill Championship in Whistler. It was a first for her, but it was also a first for the country, and possibly the world. Dumaresq became the first known trans-gendered athlete to win a National title in Canada. She has also become the first trans-gendered athlete to enter the top five in the world at an international event when she qualified fifth at the Mont-Ste-Anne World Cup earlier this season.

I took Michelle out for dinner and a couple of beers not too long ago and we were able to discuss and review the past as well as the future for the talented rider. She trains harder than most racers I know, riding up to three times a day and contributing to the community on a regular basis through coaching and helping other riders.

Michelle is currently in Europe to compete in the final World Cup Race of the year as well as the World Championships.

During our dinner and fair share of liquids, we were able to dissect the last couple of years and look at some of the tough issues surrounding Michelle’s day-to-day life as a pro mountain bike racer. In no particular order, here’s what we discussed.

Leigh: This is your second season; last year there was a lot of media attention. How has it differed from last year?

Michelle: There’s been nothing! Nobody cares! I can’t believe it. I am as disappointed for myself as I am for Alison Sydor, Roland Green, Chrissy Redden, and Marie-Helene Premont and Mike Jones. There was no coverage locally for MTB Nationals, hardly, and a little bit for the World Cup at Grouse.

Leigh: When there is media coverage, how do you handle the media and your image?

Michelle: I am very protective of my image, and I’m very careful. For one thing, I’m hyper aware of the media, I’m a media watcher myself. I watch a lot of news; I’ve studied the media, and studied how they treat minorities in general and especially sexual minorities. Even though, I only get reminded that I’m trans is when the media brings it up. For the most part, I don’t go walking around yelling, “I’m a trans person! I’m a trans person.” It’s not part of my life. Yeah, I had some surgery to correct a birth defect, but yeah, whatever, I’m female. I just moved on. I get constantly reminded that I’m trans. I have to protect that, and keep in it perspective. Yeah, technically, on some level I’m trans. But in reality, the word ‘trans’ itself doesn’t really apply to me. Because trans means moving from one to another, well I moved from one to another, so now what do you call me? How ‘bout woman… Now I’m just trying to be looked as a legitimate woman athlete. I’m not asking for any special treatment, I just want the same treatment that the other woman athletes get.

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Michelle on Mt. Fromme.

Leigh: How did you do at Nationals last year? What was the reaction from the media?

Michelle: Third. Last year, at one point, it was 25 calls a day. August ninth last year was when they announced the National Team, and it was over 100 phones calls that day. Cycling BC handled the calls, forwarded them to me. From there until the Worlds, I got on average from 10 calls to a full machine. This year, I got a call from CBC. I said, “Oh, you must have heard about the race last weekend. They were like “What race?” and I said “ Don’t you know about Nationals?” and they said “What Nationals?” They were just phoning me out of the blue. They didn’t know. Nobody knows!

Leigh: You’re National Champion, and hardly anyone knows!

Michelle: National Freakin’ Champion!

Leigh: I’ll put that in the title, I like that.

Michelle: It’s good and bad. A part of me says why doesn’t anyone care? We just had the National Championships, we had some of the best riders, especially cross country, in the whole world, at nationals, and the mainstream media doesn’t even bother to cover it. On the other hand, I got home on Monday and my phone was quiet. Personally it was nice that I didn’t have to deal with the distraction of tons of media calling.

Leigh: Things have obviously calmed down with the media.

Michelle: Yeah but, Marie Helene Premont won the nationals this year, and that girl is on fire. And she’s young and she’s going to be the next Alison Sydor in Canada. Everybody is going to know the name…but nobody cares! How is she ever supposed to be a household name in Canada, and get sponsorship that allows her to compete in this sport, if nobody covers the Nationals?

Leigh: All too true.
What has your season been like this year in comparison to last year?

Michelle: Oh my gawd, what a difference a year makes. If you played your tapes from last year, you’d hear me say. All I want, is for those other women to get over me, and go okay, Michelle, if you’re two seconds faster, I’m going to get on your wheel and find out where those two seconds are. And, that’s exactly what is happening this year. I have people like Danika (Schroeter), Deb (MacKilop), Claire (Buchar); we’re all training together. Which is exactly what I wanted to happen last year. I don’t want to do this by myself. I want to work with the Canadian girls; I want one of us to be on the podium at a World Cup event, it doesn’t necessarily have to be me. Now, Danika is turning up the heat, Claire is a very good rider, and there are a couple of women in Canada that are pushing it and now we’re all working on it together. We’re going to worlds and training together there. Hopefully one of us will be on the podium at the Worlds, and I’m hoping it’s me. But, if it were Danika, I would be cheering just as loud.

Leigh: Was the difference between the Canadian women’s reaction to you last year and the international women’s reaction?

Michelle: The big difference is two characters that have now quit racing. Well, last year, there were two people that were at the forefront of the controversy, Sylvie Allen and Cassandra Boon. They were the two loudest objectors last year, they both quit, be it for protest, be it for injury or whatever, they’ve stopped racing now. What a difference that has made. The rest of the women now have the chance to make up their own minds about me without someone screaming at them, going “the boy is here, the sandbagger is here to compete in our category”. The rest of the women are all very respectful. They don’t necessarily believe it’s fair, still. If you ask Claire, she’ll say, “I don’t believe it’s fair that Michelle races against us. At the same time, Michelle is a really nice person, and we get along fabulously.” I train harder than anyone else out there. And that’s why I’ve gotten better results this year. Simply because I trained harder. I don’t believe for a second that I have some unfair advantage. I watched the video from Nationals, and I watched other riders that were sitting down at the end Not me.(near the end of the race other riders were seated rather than standing up and pedalling hard – Ed.)

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Freeriding in Ashland Oregon.

Leigh: What about the international riders?

Michelle: This year at Grouse Mtn this year, I did my race run at Grouse and it was obvious that I had crashed. Everyone knew it, when I was supposed to come out of the trees according to the clock, I didn’t. Sabrina Jonnier was sitting in the hot seat and I came across the line, way back. She actually got out of her chair and came over and asked if I was alright. Well…last year, Sabrina wouldn’t even make eye contact with me, let alone come over and say are you ok. For me, it was a bit of a breakthrough. That’s what it’s been like this year. The girls have all realized that Michelle is not going to come out and bust our assses right away and become a superstar. They’ve all seen me ride, and they’ve all seen me progress. I qualified fifth at St. Anne, I did really well. They all know I can ride. They’re all going, she’s good, but she has to try hard like us, and they’ve accepted me being there.

Leigh: Last year the UCI gave the official yes for you to race with the women, but they never physically tested you in order to make this decision. Would you have preferred it?

Michelle: I always said that I am open to being tested, as long as you put Fionn Griffifths, Tracy Moseley and myself, on a treadmill, and compare the three of us. I refuse to be tested against the average woman because I am not the average woman. I am a World Cup mountain biker. If you want to test me against someone with the same body type – Fionn Griffths, Tracy Moseley, Lisa Sher, or any of those girls that have a similar body types – absolutely, I’d be there in a second. But I refuse to be tested against the average woman, because I am not average. But they didn’t test me, and they never will test me because they are afraid of what the results will be. I am sure this comes from higher up than the UCI, the Olympic Committee. But the Olympic committee is so scared to know that trans-people compete legitimately against biological women, medically. The coolest part is that I’ve gotten three emails from women that are about to qualify for the next Olympics, who are trans!

Leigh: If the UCI decided not to let you race as a woman, would you race as a man?

Michelle: No.

Leigh: Okay…How come?

Michelle: Because I can’t.

Leigh: Okay…

Michelle: The UCI’s own rules state that according to them, the men’s category is the men’s category; the women’s category is the women’s category. The women couldn’t race with the men, even if they wanted to. Missy Giove is not allowed to race with the boys, no matter how much she wants to. Her birth certificate says she’s a woman. She must race with women. My birth certificate says that too!

Leigh: Do you think you have an advantage, given your circumstance?

Stay tuned for the second installment where Michelle answers this questions and tells us more about her background and her ambitions.

You may have noticed in a couple of photos that Michelle is garbed in nsmb clothing. We are proud to be one of her sponsors which means, like our team members, you'll see her on Maxxis tires, Titec cockpit parts and Smith Eyewear on top of her other sponsors John Henry Bikes and Santa Cruz Bicycles