One year after winning a women’s cycling title and standing alone on the podium, trans-identified male Lesley Mumford has again taken a first place win in a women’s racing category. Mumford, 47, seized a gold at the Desert Gravel Co2uT 100-mile race in Fruita, Colorado, which was held on May 4.
Mumford came out first in the women’s 40 to 49 age category, and placed fourth in the women’s category, and 24th overall. A total of 949 participants, mostly males, competed in the race. There were three gender divisions: male, female, and non-binary, and the only women to place ahead of Mumford in the general rankings were those half his age.
In his category, Mumford beat the second-place woman by almost 13 minutes, finishing in 6 hours and 13 minutes compared to Jessica Davies’ 6 hours and 26 minutes.
While the Co2uT is mixed-sex, the race’s founder — Morgan Murri — said he was “inspired by his daughter” to found “a girl-focused charity to reconnect kids with the wild.” In an effort to attract female riders, Co2uT offered discounted fees for the first 150 women riders to sign up to the event.
“We strive to have the highest percentage of female participants in our gravel event on the planet,” reads their website. Their races do not offer cash prizes for winners.
But this is not the first time Mumford has dominated the race. In December of 2023, he attracted ample negative attention after being the only “woman” to stand on the winner’s podium at the 100-mile Desert Gravel Co2Ut.
The win garnered him scathing media coverage, including from former Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly, who mocked the viral photo of Mumford standing alone on the podium: “Gee, I don’t know where everybody is. I beat all the women—why didn’t they show up?!”
The women who came in second-place to Mumford in that race, Lindsey Kriete, later told media that she didn’t refuse to stand on the podium because she lost to a male, but because she didn’t place in the top three overall.
According to media, a spokesperson for the race posted on Facebook that none of the female cyclists complained about having a male in their category, and that Mumford “has undergone all required surgeries and treatments to transition from a man to a woman and would thereby qualify as a woman racer under both USA Cycling and International Olympic Committee rules.”
One popular race results website notes that Mumford has won five titles in a 12-month cycling career. This includes a second-place win in the December 2023 women’s Colorado State Cyclocross.
Mumford began to identify as a woman in 2017 and has referred to himself as “a single mom with a full-time job and more aspiration than time.”
Mumford was previously the operations commander for the Summit County Sheriff’s Office in Ohio. He worked in law enforcement for 17 years, and ran a multi-jurisdiction SWAT team at the time of his transition. His unorthodox career trajectory resulted in him receiving sympathetic media coverage when he began claiming to be a woman.
One outlet, The Gayly, stated that Mumford was the “first transgender woman accepted to attend the FBI National Academy in its 83-year history.”