Laurel Hubbard to go to Tokyo

It’s the fourth most read item on the BBC website.

I hope this peaks the world but Hubbard’s participation in the Commonwealth games and Pacific games didn’t so I’m fearful it won’t.

The comments sections in media here in NZ are of course locked down to ensure nothing negative gets through.

That is my conclusion too.

I do like how the 2017 article I quoted tried to flag the fairness issue by referencing the weigh-ins. You only pick up on it if you have a pre-existing personal interest in picking things up and putting them down again, but it was a reasonable assumption that anyone reading articles about international weightlifting competitions did!

There is also an ‘alternate’ which I believe is an athlete in reserve if one of the team can’t compete, in the the US BMX team.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9701947/BMX-rider-Chelsea-Wolfe-Team-USAs-transgender-Olympian.html

So a US female has been denied a reserve place too.

I think Hubbard may weigh more than that. If Hubbard was in their biological sex category, Hubbard would presumably be in the 109kg and over category, which is the heaviest category for male athletes in weightlifting, whereas the women's category tops out at 87kg and over.

Oh, whoops. I was making the mistake of reading all the weight categories as "under XXX". (I've got no idea about human weights in kilograms, so didn't stop to do a sanity check...)

That does explain what seemed to me to be quite a small gap between that table's "Elite" and Hilton's graph of 35+ performance. I assumed they were being rather generous on what they called "Elite".

Right, so that makes Hubbard "Advanced", along with most of the male 35+ world competitors. Only the very best 35+ males are still "Elite".

For the Olympics (and all womens sporting events from today) two winners lists need to be created:

1. The cheaters Charter list.
2. The real winners list.

Both lists need to be shared far and wide.

In 2017:

Weighing in at 131kg, 9kg more than Sipaia and 41kg more than South Australia’s Carly Allen, Hubbard had to wait 52 minutes for her first crack as the session’s 14 other competitors all had their three snatch lifts at a lower weight than what Hubbard’s first - 118kg.

The wait did nothing to ease her nerves. Hubbard ate in to her allotted time far more than anyone before, her arms shaking visibly as she gripped the bar for her first lift.

www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/more-sports/laurel-hubbard-wins-female-90kg-division-at-weightliftings-australian-international/news-story/cd4a5fa012eb9a5ceb0281faceea5c7a

Here is the figures for a 130kg male
Beginner 145kg
Novice 183kg
Intermediate 228kg
Advanced 277kg
Elite 328kg

Do the IOC think we have two categories for sports because half the population have 'lady brains'?

Is there anything we can do with IOC or has the ship totally sailed to make them consider their policy going forwards? Letters? Protest?

Huge banners with “Laura Hubbard CHEAT CHEAT CHEAT”

I hope Laurel Hubbard wins! I really do. And I hope that it makes the front page of every newspaper around the world. I want this to be front and centre in everyone’s minds. It is the only way things will change.

Our awkward issue here is that I don't think Hubbard is elite in their biological sex category,

Hubbard would be classed as male elite from that table (lifting more than 256kg at 90kg bodyweight), and Hubbard's performance is median among other males competing at world level in their age group.

But there's still some way between being merely "elite" (ie qualifying at world level) and "winning the Olympics".

So being a woman is just about testoterone levels now then? Not something you can identify as? Do we all need blood tests to see if we are a woman or not. It's all very complicated. I'm just sad about there being no professional female sports any more really.

This is grossly unfair.
The only positive I can take from it is that the sunlight cast on this event will reach many people and will almost certainly bring a lot of them to that place were apparently not allowed to name now.

There just isn't going to be any overlap between elite males and elite females. The difference for the 95kg category are even starker at the other end, for novices. 95kg Female Novice - 59% of her bodyweight. 95kg Male Novice - 110% of his bodyweight.

Our awkward issue here is that I don't think Hubbard is elite in their biological sex category, which obscures their advantage.

Prediction: Hubbard will pull out at the very last minute for some bullshit pretend sport injury reason so that this doesn't get tested but no actual NZ woman gets to replace her because the team has been selected. The TRAs will claim a victory.

Thanks, Purgatory. Those numbers correspond with Emma's table.

As Ross Tucker noted - there is no overlap in male and female performance in those 10 years of age 35+ events. The lowest male result is higher than the best male result.

Even if the best female could have qualified for a male event, she would have come last every time.

I'm sure pp have said this but Hubbard is going to peak the world. The women pushed out of the way for this are heroes.

This is from a website that provides tables of male and female weightlifting performance, according to age and experience.

The headings are Beginner, Novice, Intermediate, Advanced, and Elite.

I have switched on bodyweight ratios for easy comparison, and picked the deadlift as the exercise.

Look at the 95kg category, and how much of their bodyweight an elite male lifter could expect to lift: 280%. For women, the figure is a mere 192%.

How is this situation fair?

Sport is about physical strength, stamina, speed and agility. Biological sex matters. It's ridiculous to categorise athletes based on 'gender identity'.

It astonishes me that anyone could support this.

(Sorry, another correction - 77% was Hubbard's winning margin in the competition setting the 280kg record. It's "only" around 45-50% better than the best female performance in the entire 10-year period shown in the graph).

Another thing to note on Hilton's graph. That's a complete Y axis starting from zero. This isn't one of of those charts where it's zoomed in to show small differences.

Hubbard really is lifting twice as much as many of the women competing, and 77% more than the nearest female competitor.

New Zealand Olympic boss comments are basically mealy mouthed word salad chucking in some Maori words but quite clearly saying ‘the IOC set the rules so this on them’

www.theguardian.com/sport/2021/jun/21/olympics-tokyo-laurel-hubbard-trans-weightlifter-new-zealand

Something not seem a bit off about such late in life success?

It's more than a "bit off". Emma Hilton plotted Hubbard's performance compared to others in the same age category here:

twitter.com/FondOfBeetles/status/1399432823048708097?s=20

Hubbard leaps off the top of the top-level female performance by miles, to land somewhere in the middle of the top-level male performance for that age.

So Hubbard is far, far better than any woman of the same age, and is just about still competitive at Olympic level where higher-performing young women compete.

When it comes to inclusion and fairness, fairness must trump inclusion.

Here’s the unflappable Ross Tucker explaining why:

twitter.com/Scienceofsport/status/1277522426398674944

@NotBadConsidering

Just looked, Tonga has only had a total of 43 Olympians EVER. How special would it have been if Manumua had been one too?

Laurel Hubbard is, among other things that you wouldn’t normally expect to be compatible with competing in the women’s lifting event forty-three years old.

Something not seem a bit off about such late in life success?

Kuinini, Charisma, and all the other women losing out RIGHT NOW, I am so sorry. I stand with you. I wanted to see YOU lift. I have no interest whatsoever in Hubbard’s results, which are of no interest to women’s lifting.