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Original poster

Interesting real life stats on boys/girls sports

136 replies

Ozgirl75 · 24/04/2021 09:43

My 8 year old son recently competed in a cross country event. This was for around 25 schools, each of whom did their own cross country at school and then sent the fastest 5 runners to compete in this event.
This is all primary, being age 8/9, 10, 11 and 12.
I received the results today. I would have assumed that because the 8/9 and even 10 year olds were well below puberty, that boys and girls were similar speed runners.
Well they weren’t at all.
My son came 54th in the boys, running 2k in 9minutes 24 seconds. In the girls race this would have put him in 7th place.
The fastest boy was 40 seconds faster than the fastest girl. And this is 8/9 year olds.
This is relevant as the top 15 runners go on to trial at another event where the fastest runners of that run for the state and then eventually, Australia (obviously the pool gets smaller and smaller!)
My interests firstly are, why? Why are Pre pubescent boys significantly faster runners than Pre pubescent girls? For example, my son isn’t really even a runner, he’s just an all rounder and plays lots of sport, but he would have finished one place behind a girl at his school who already runs for NSW (and obviously runs and trains pretty hard).
And secondly - wow. If this is the difference before puberty, what will the difference be like after? (Rhetorical question). It makes me see even more strongly before that sport should be segregated for the absolute protection of girls’ sports and scholarships.

OP posts:
RedDeerRunning · 24/04/2021 12:05

I think there is decent evidence that prepubertal boys have athletic superiority over girls from as young as 4. There was a Japanese study in very young children that showed boys had greater strength (I think). Don't forget, they have testosterone in the womb.

Original poster
Ozgirl75 · 24/04/2021 11:52

@timeisnotaline yes I mean top 15 in each race (so top 15 girls and top 15 boys in each age range)

If it was top 15 by age performance, there would not be a SINGLE girl who would go through. Hence the importance of sex based competition.

OP posts:
NotBadConsidering · 24/04/2021 11:47

The “boys are encouraged more” point has validity, but not when you look at swimming. My DC swim in a squad as part of a club (also in Oz 👋). They have club night, where all the kids in the squad swim races. They’re mixed and the pre-pubertal boys are consistently faster than the pre-pubertal girls. Not all of them obviously - the curves overlap more. But this is a cohort of children who all swim the same sets in training, same frequency, race just as regularly etc. And there is still a noticeable sex difference pre-puberty.

timeisnotaline · 24/04/2021 11:40

ozgirl I’m in melbourne. By the top 15 runners go to the next level, do you mean 15 boys and 15 girls? Or 15 by absolute performance? I’m hoping the former!
I would absolutely agree that this is sex based difference- the average girl is much less active but in oz there is a lot of girls sport. We took my son to starter football (afl) this mornign (he’s 5) and it’s 20-30% girls, as we left the girls league game started, 2 teams of very fit strong 15-16 year old girls, every girl I know plays sports.

Silverfly · 24/04/2021 11:39

I've found the same OP. My DS was faster than my DD when he was 9 and she was 11 - and she's very fit and sporty. I was really surprised.

Original poster
Ozgirl75 · 24/04/2021 11:35

Please do note - I’m only saying this as a reason as to why I completely agree with sex segregated sport.

OP posts:
bluebluezoo · 24/04/2021 11:34

It may not be purely physiological. Boys are often encouraged to spend more time doing sport from a very young age and to participate in more physical activities - throwing, running, jumping, swimming. Even for young girls, their play can be less physical - pretend play with dolls, hair and make-up, drawing and colouring for example. And girls clothes are often styled in ways that are less practical and less comfortable for physical activity. Add to that, girls are not encouraged to be competitive and may receive censure for wanting to be the best. So from a very young age, boys get the message that it is good to be sporty and physical, whereas girls internalise the message that they need to be careful and that doing sport is embarrassing

This.

Boys are usually encouraged to run around, play football etc. Even if girls are encouraged to be physically active it’s one ballet or gymnastics class a week, which won’t help with running fitness, so the difference between them and boys who are running around everyday playing football will be huge.

Original poster
Ozgirl75 · 24/04/2021 11:33

I do very much agree with that - absolutely so. Except that these are the girls that absolutely are good at running and would be fit, determined, running at a high level - not just a random selection of girls.
So the fastest female runner in my son’s year is a much more committed runner than he is, and yet he is still a faster runner than her.
These girls are the best runners in all their schools (mixed and girls) and, to be fair, in Australia there is an extremely sporty culture that involves both boys and girls. Yet they still, as a group, are slower than the male runners.

OP posts:
InvisibleDragon · 24/04/2021 11:23

It may not be purely physiological. Boys are often encouraged to spend more time doing sport from a very young age and to participate in more physical activities - throwing, running, jumping, swimming. Even for young girls, their play can be less physical - pretend play with dolls, hair and make-up, drawing and colouring for example. And girls clothes are often styled in ways that are less practical and less comfortable for physical activity. Add to that, girls are not encouraged to be competitive and may receive censure for wanting to be the best. So from a very young age, boys get the message that it is good to be sporty and physical, whereas girls internalise the message that they need to be careful and that doing sport is embarrassing.

This is from Margaret Atwood's Cat's Eye about being a girl:

Something is unfolding, being revealed to me. I see that there's a whole world of of girls and their doings that has been unknown to me, and that I can be part of without making any effort at all. I don't have to keep up with anyone, run as fast, aim as well, make loud explosive noises, decode messages, die on cue. I don't have to think about whether I do these things well, as well as a boy. All I have to do is sit on the floor and cut frying pans our of the Eaton's Catalogue with embroidery scissors, and say I've done it badly.

So there may well be physiological differences between boys and girls that are noticeably at a young age, but let's not forget the impact of gender stereotyping and gendered behaviour expectations either.

Original poster
Ozgirl75 · 24/04/2021 11:11

It just really surprised me that even amongst a group that wasn’t a random sample of children, but specifically children who were already fast at running (each child there was top 5 in their year for running) the girls were pretty much all slower than the boys.
The fastest girl wouldn’t have made it into the top 15 runners if boys and girls were running against each other.
And at our school lots of sport is mixed - eg girls can be selected for the boys soccer teams and the tennis team is basically 50/50 at year 5/6 level.
I was just fascinated that the physiological differences make themselves known so young.

OP posts:
FortunesFave · 24/04/2021 09:48

I am in Australia too. I think, having girls who were always friends with boys, that the boys do tend to be faster quite early on.

My girls were always sporty/rough and tumble but haven't been typically as strong as their male friends.

After they hit 13=14 the difference is much wider...the boys shoot up quite quickly. Aussies are big though...