Trans Tour de France legend wins top book award for ‘The Escape’ we need right now
Pippa York's memoir, co-authored by David Walsh, has won a major literary award. The audiobook is very good company on a long drive. The post Trans Tour de France legend wins top book award for ‘The Escape’ we need right now appeared first on Outsports.
Mark
Robert Millar raced cycling‘s Tour de France 11 times, claiming the “King of the Mountains” jersey and a career-best finish of fourth place in 1984.
Millar is now Pippa York, whose memoir “The Escape” — written with the journalist David Walsh — has just been named William Hill Sports Book of the Year in the U.K. It’s the highest literary honor in sportswriting.
The book is subtitled “The Tour, the Cyclist and Me” and weaves Millar’s achievements in professional cycling with the story of the Scot’s subsequent transition, all wrapped in a travelogue of the three Tours from 2020 to 2022.
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Cycling legend Philippa York embraced by her sport after coming out as transgender
‘Tolerance has become acceptance,’ she says of the reaction.
The conversations between York and Walsh, who are driving around France together as members of the media, add extra flavor. I consumed it by audiobook while on long drives myself, and found it both richly entertaining and highly informative.
York is a trans woman who came out publicly in 2017 and is now in her late 60s. She is voiced in the audiobook by Annie Wallace, an award-winning actress from Aberdeen who is also trans and who spent a decade on British TV screens in the soap opera “Hollyoaks.”
Wallace’s role not only gives the narration greater authenticity, but her accent is also warm and evocative, serving as the ideal vehicle. She guides listeners through the streets of Glasgow’s southside in the 1960s and 70s, as the young Millar grows into a supremely talented rider while grappling with gender identity away from their bike.
For cycling fans everywhere, there is so much to enjoy. The co-authors analyze the modern Tour marvels, including Slovenian duo Tadej Pogacar and Primoz Roglic, who finish first and second in 2020; they recall anecdotes about legends such as France’s homegrown hero Bernard Hinault, and Greg LeMond, the three-time Tour-winning American; and they give insights into life on Le Tour, from the quirks of rural guesthouses to the one item of classic French cuisine that York just can’t stomach.
Through Wallace’s Caledonian tones, and the gentle Irish lilt of actor Gerry O’Brien who voices Walsh, “The Escape” audiobook gives an additional sense of atmosphere to the education. York’s most personal memories, such as a trip to Thailand to undergo her medical transition, invite empathy, which comes most naturally when you’re listening with care and attention.
Among the most powerful passages is York’s recollection of a short stay in 1985 at a family-run hotel, for the filming of a TV commercial for breakfast cereal.
By chance, Millar encounters a young trans person, who is living with a freedom that is simply not possible for the cyclist at that time. Through carefully chosen words, there is both sadness and hope for the future.
Pippa York says question of trans women in sports is ‘a distraction’
As a pro rider, Robert Millar was famously reticent to the point of rudeness, and there once seemed little prospect of Pippa York having a post-career journalism presence after her abominable treatment by British newspapers in the 2000s.
It reflects well on the sports side of the industry that she has been embraced by her peers. “I have found the media world a lot more friendly than I thought it was going to be,” she recently told Pride of the Terraces.
The key factor in coming out publicly in 2017 was her decision to accept an invitation to join the TV broadcast team covering the Tour. She wrote then: “Gratifyingly, times have moved on from 10 years ago when my family, friends and I were subjected to the archaic views and prejudice that some people and certain sections of the media held.”
However, in 2025, prejudice feels more prevalent, with parts of the British press and even the BBC increasingly using terminology that dehumanizes trans people. This is supplemented by social media discourse that frequently becomes discriminatory.
Last week, York joined “The Sports Agents” podcast to discuss her book. Asked why even talking about trans issues is now so challenging, she pointed to the wildly disproportionate attention that is given to the question of trans women competing in women’s sports, calling it an ongoing “distraction.”
“You’re looking at history, and have there been any trans world records? Has there been anybody who’s competitive at elite level, a World Championships or Olympics? No, there isn’t.
“So then you realize that this has got nothing to do with inclusion and everything to do with the distraction of not dealing with the problem of women’s sport, not being regarded at the same level as the men’s side.
“Because women’s sport is always seen as inspirational for somebody else, for somebody younger to come through and be inspired by that person.
“Whereas men’s sport is just seen as sport — and nobody deals with that.”
@thesportsagents "It's just something to deflect from how poor a job they're doing" Pippa York says the government are to blame for inflaming debates around trans people, immigration, and unions in order to deflect from the real issues at hand. #TheSportsAgents #fyp ♬ original sound – The Sports Agents
York says she is not aiming to inspire anybody herself, nor is she interested in taking on those who want to argue about gender dysphoria and incongruence.
“I’m not really in that kind of place where I’m going to debate whether I exist or not,” she adds.
Nor should she. “The Escape” contains all the explanations necessary for those who have a genuine interest in the topic and her life.
What’s uplifting to consider is that many readers will pick up this award-winning book because they love cycling, and they will put it down having learned more about Le Tour and about the trans experience.
Those listening to the audiobook are likely to feel even more connected. It’s like riding on the rear wheel of Robert Millar or being a backseat passenger in the rental car of David Walsh and Pippa York. You know you’re in very good company.
“The Escape: The Tour, The Cyclist and Me” is published by Harper Collins.
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The post Trans Tour de France legend wins top book award for ‘The Escape’ we need right now appeared first on Outsports.
