Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
Splainin’ Myself about Women’s Sports
On another post, relating to the Olympics, I commented: “But the women athletes are third-rate, if even. They do well against women. They are almost never competitive with the men.” Some of the ladies weren’t very happy with me about this. I think that my claim is objectively true and I am going to illustrate with my own sport, swimming. I was a pretty good high school swimmer back in the mid-1980s. So here are the facts:
In swimming, the men and the women generally swim the same events, at the same distances, in the same pool, off the same blocks. They are carefully timed, electronically, to the hundredth of a second. Results are entirely objective.
I’m going to start by comparing the women’s Olympic gold medal results, during this past week, to the men’s. The competition is ongoing, so I include a few examples in which both the men’s and women’s competitions are completed. It is important to note that if, for example, the winning woman’s time would have placed, say, 30th among the men, this does not mean that she is the 30th best swimmer in the world at the event in question. Each country can only send two athletes to compete in each event. There will be a number of men who didn’t make the cut, but who had times better than the women’s champion.
Emma McKeon of Australia just won the women’s 100 m freestyle today, with an Olympic record time of 51.96. That time would have placed her 55th in the men’s qualifying heats this week. It would not have made even the (slower) Wave I cut for the US men’s Olympic team trials (50.49). In the heats of the US men’s Wave II trials last month, McKeon’s gold medal time would have placed 61st. There were 60 male competitors.
Ariane Titmus of Australia won the women’s 200 m freestyle this week, with an Olympic record time of 1:53.50. That time would have placed her 39th in the men’s qualifying heats this week. It would not have made even the (slower) Wave I cut for the US men’s Olympic team trials (1:50.79). In the heats of the US men’s Wave II trials last month, Titmus’s gold medal time would have placed 51st. There were 50 male competitors.
Katie Ledecky, who dominates distance events among the women, won the inaugural women’s 1500 m freestyle this week, with a time of 15:37.34. The men have not yet competed in this event this year. Ledecky would have placed 43rd in the men’s qualifying heats at the 2016 Olympics, and the men’s winner in 2016 beat her time by over 52 seconds. Ledecky’s gold medal time would have made the slower Wave I cut for the US men’s Olympic team trials (15:44.89), but not the faster Wave II cut (15:35.69). In the heats of the US men’s Wave II trials last month, Ledecky’s gold medal time would have placed 22nd.
Now we can do another comparison. There’s a database of times maintained by USA Swimming (here). I searched the men’s times for a single year (July 1, 2020, to June 30, 2021) for the three events noted above. The search engine lists the top 100 times.
- Emma McKeon’s gold medal time of 51.96 in the 100 free was far slower than the 100th male time (50.28 by Evan Carlson).
- Ariane Titmus’s gold medal time of 1:53.50 in the 200 free was far slower than the 100th male time (1:51.57 by Kacper Stokowski).
- Even Katie Ledecky’s gold medal time of 15:37.34 in the 1500 free was slower than the top 38 male times.
I could go on, but I think that you get the point. In fact, you can compare the women’s Olympic gold medal results (here) with the US men’s Olympic team cuts (here). With the competition completed in 8 of the 11 women’s events (not the 50 m free, 800 m free, and 200 m backstrokes):
- None of the women’s gold medal times would have made the Wave II cut to get into the US men’s Olympic trials.
- Only two of the women’s gold medal times would have made even the slower, Wave I cut to get into the US men’s Olympic trials (Titmus in the 400 free and Ledecky in the 1500 free).
Unfortunately, I can’t compare the women’s Olympic results directly to men’s college or high school results, because the distances aren’t comparable. Olympic swimming is long course meters, meaning that it uses a 50-meter pool. College and high school swimming is typically short course yards, meaning that they use a 25-yard pool.
There is one comparison possible, however. According to this page at SwimSwam, the current American women’s record in the 100-yard freestyle is 46.29. I was able to find the 2017 results for the Arizona high school boys competition, and the winning time was 46.04, faster than the women’s American record.
This is consistent with my recollection. According to the same SwimSwam page, the women’s American record from 1983 to 1988 in the 100 yard free was 48.40. Missed it by that much! I won the City Championship in Tucson back in 1984, with a time of 48.48. I was not good enough to get a college swimming scholarship, but I was competitive with the best women in the world. When I was a sixteen-year-old boy.
This seems generally consistent with my impression of other sports. The women’s Olympic champion is usually about as good as the high school boy’s champion of a medium-sized state.
Facts don’t care about your feelings.
I don’t know why we encourage women to be third-rate men when they could be first-rate women.
Published in Sports
I’ve made a lot of comments on both this thread and Jerry’s other post about Simone Biles’s withdrawal, trying to flesh out my argument/opposition. Clearly I’ve failed to convince anyone (or, it seems, even effectively communicate my own opinion based on what everyone is choosing to respond to), so I’ll just have to leave it there.
The vibe from some people in this thread and the thread that it sprung from is not simply that some people find women’s sports less interesting. I’m not being sarcastic because I’m an adamant fan of women’s basketball, swimming, tennis, or any other sport. Except for a couple classes of auto racing, I find all sports uninteresting.
The case that some people are making is that women competing in sports is wrong. It is unwomanly. It’s going to lead to population loss and a takeover by foreigners. I’m not the one making character judgements about what activities people enjoy participating in or watching.
Nobody is saying that those statements are offensive. Some of us are arguing that just because those statements are true, doesn’t mean that women shouldn’t compete in sports.
I understood you @charlotte and appreciated your comments. I had assumed that the use of the term “third rate athletes” was meant to be provocative and so the fact that some of us took issue with it was A) the point of the OP; B) entirely appropriate.
OK, who cares if someone else thinks women competing in sports is wrong? Is he making a case that the laws should be changed to force it to happen? That would be making a political case.
Now, I was not in this other thread that has everyone all upset. I read this one where the OP tried to make his point. Nothing in that OP seems to make the case as it leading to foreign women robbing us of our precious bodily fluids.
I am still left as to why any of Y’all care this much Jerry not liking women’s sports, or even thinking they should be a thing.
See my first comment on the other post. I’ve quit being a sport spectator. Women may do whatever suits them as long as it is legal and doesn’t harm others and men may do that as well. Individuals must individually determine what pursuits are satisfying for them in their lives. My advice is don’t let someone else decide that for you.
Obviously, this was posted so we could comment on it. And that’s what we’re doing!
I think for most people Jerry’s argument is refuted because it also entails the end of all weight categories, leaving nothing but heavyweight boxing, wrestling,weightlifting, martial arts, etc.
Nonetheless his argument was useful for clarifying our thoughts.
I like lower weight fights because there is more dancing about. It is like how I prefer women’s tennis.
Not always, and I believe that is a more recent trend. Check out Graziano vs. Zale III:
Hey Ladies! I was discussing the topic of this thread with my trainer and he pointed out that women are competitive with men in ultra marathons, i.e., any distance over 26 miles and sometimes including 100’s of miles over several days. Apparently, the longer the race, the smaller the gap between men and women. Women have won really long events outright over heavily male fields. Men clearly dominate in regular endurance events, but these are considered “ultra endurance” events where you generally aren’t performing at maximum capacity at any time. So this is a case where women’s physiology, perhaps because we have more fat and less muscle mass to keep supplied, may be an advantage. Interesting!
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-49284389
The new post on the story of Marathon and Pheidipides reminded me to post this here.