Janice Turner in Times - women will never accept sports being rigged

Yes but it didn't seem to have occurred to her that the men's football team may have thrown the match!
Lose a battle to win the war?

I have thought about how something became a sport in the past and how that something did seem to link to what the male bodies might wish to compete in (against other male bodies).

Flexibility, for instance, doesn't rate its own events in men's sports, and that is one of the areas where women might have an edge. Perhaps also in long-distance swimming and some other endurance events.

Women's sports have been created so recently and so much based on men's sports that it is difficult to imagine what they might have been under different overall circumstances.

www.cosmopolitan.com/entertainment/celebs/a38976411/womens-figure-skating-ages-younger/#:~:text=So%E2%80%A6why%20is%20this%20happening,to%20withstand%20the%20physical%20stress.

@Truthlikeness I found that very interesting too. These child athletes worry me so much; the figure skaters are heartbreaking.

Slightly off topic but this is an interesting article from that site - themedalcount.com/2022/02/18/the-recent-rise-of-child-athletes-in-the-olympic-games/

Interesting that all the extremely young athletes are female. I'm not sure you can even chalk it up to earlier puberties, as many of them qualified when they were 11.

[quote Innocenta]@Truthlikeness I don't want to bore everyone (...more than I already have!) or derail the thread too much, but essentially, the history of artistic gymnastics has seen more than one seismic shift in the demographic of the athletes competing at elite level. This is all bound up with the politics of sport (not relating to sex and gender in this instance), the marketability of certain groups of athletes at certain times, and even things like the nature of the equipment and how that has changed over the years.

During some periods, the most prominent athletes have all been very young (including ages which would not even be allowed to compete in the senior elite category now). Something connected with this is that very young athletes are easier to control, and so in most cases, it has emerged in hindsight that the environments creating these elites were profoundly abusive. What we see as 'graceful' is often the result of literally starving a child over many years. That's not to say we can't appreciate their gymnastics, but it is a sport with huge ethical issues in its past (going far beyond the famous sexual abuse scandal), and so the idea that a lot of people who don't follow it have, i.e. that the grace has vanished, reflects a lack of familiarity with how the changes have occurred and what those changes are.

For example, a major reason why there are bigger tumbles now is that many more gymnasts have gone through puberty. So they do have more muscle and are able to do harder skills. But surely it isn't desirable to keep them in a state of forced delayed puberty so they can compete at 14 with the body of a little girl, just because that's what used to happen...? Hypothetical, obviously, I'm not saying I think you would want that! But I hope you see what I mean. Another reason is simply that the equipment has developed immensely over the decades: the vault is totally different now, the floors are bouncier.

I won't bore on anymore, but check out themedalcount.com for interesting gymnastics history. (Not my blog, no affiliation at all.) [/quote]
Very interesting. thanks.

@Innocenta - thanks.Very interesting! I appreciate the performance of a powerful adult female body, so I certainly don't think these changes are negative. I guess sports that include some degrees of interpretation rather than a quantifiable result, will always tread a more complicated path to 'fairness', not that any sport is immune to rules changes that benefit one group over another.

hadn't read this yesterday as the share token had expired

what a magnificent article

God, sorry that was so long, I didn't realise. I'm going to leave the thread now - apologies again.

@Truthlikeness I don't want to bore everyone (...more than I already have!) or derail the thread too much, but essentially, the history of artistic gymnastics has seen more than one seismic shift in the demographic of the athletes competing at elite level. This is all bound up with the politics of sport (not relating to sex and gender in this instance), the marketability of certain groups of athletes at certain times, and even things like the nature of the equipment and how that has changed over the years.

During some periods, the most prominent athletes have all been very young (including ages which would not even be allowed to compete in the senior elite category now). Something connected with this is that very young athletes are easier to control, and so in most cases, it has emerged in hindsight that the environments creating these elites were profoundly abusive. What we see as 'graceful' is often the result of literally starving a child over many years. That's not to say we can't appreciate their gymnastics, but it is a sport with huge ethical issues in its past (going far beyond the famous sexual abuse scandal), and so the idea that a lot of people who don't follow it have, i.e. that the grace has vanished, reflects a lack of familiarity with how the changes have occurred and what those changes are.

For example, a major reason why there are bigger tumbles now is that many more gymnasts have gone through puberty. So they do have more muscle and are able to do harder skills. But surely it isn't desirable to keep them in a state of forced delayed puberty so they can compete at 14 with the body of a little girl, just because that's what used to happen...? Hypothetical, obviously, I'm not saying I think you would want that! But I hope you see what I mean. Another reason is simply that the equipment has developed immensely over the decades: the vault is totally different now, the floors are bouncier.

I won't bore on anymore, but check out themedalcount.com for interesting gymnastics history. (Not my blog, no affiliation at all.)

I'm more than a testosterone level / women are more than a testosterone level are quite pithy phrases!

Women will never accept sports being rigged

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/a1be0454-b1f2-11ec-8b8c-0207c0fd6104?shareToken=c5551cb22f3c608c89b621787f2b53be

Equestrian sports also have a very high proportion of gay male athletes at high level. Dressage particularly, which had the the first openly gay athlete to compete in the modern Olympics.

The current FEI dressage rankings have women occupying 8 of the top 10 slots with two gay men (who actually happen to be a couple) in positions 7 and 10.

@Innocenta - thanks for the correction. Would you say then it's the case at elite level gymnastics, which is necessarily the older athletes? There are plenty of comparison videos between international athletes in the 70s vs today showing the difference in approach.

Fucking hell

MEN in sports shouldn’t accept women’s sports being rigged!

Just the person you want to buddy up with on a trail ultramarathon in the middle of nowhere.

I had never considered that sport was designed for men and that’s one of the many reasons I love this section as I am always learning and challenging my thought process!

After a certain distance woman can beat men.

We know we can bear them. Just about.

I'm an ultra runner and there are some awesome women smashing records out there. It seems that after a certain distance women can bear men.

In a previous life I was in the equestrian world.

I wonder whether we'll ever see a trans ultra runner or show jumper. I would highly doubt it as there wouldn't be any advantage as an adult.

Goodness! Thank you, I had no idea.

@Binglebong The background is that rhythmic is under one person's control in Russia and she is literally the wife of an oligarch, close to Putin. She is very abusive to the athletes. In Tokyo, the top Russian did not win all around gold in rhythmic. The Russian response was incredibly negative and melodramatic, including having a gold medal made for this athlete (who took silver), and vast anti Semitic social media trolling of the actual winner, who is Israeli.

www.givemesport.com/1735380-tokyo-olympics-russia-brand-rhythmic-gymnastics-judging-a-disgrace/

www.nbcolympics.com/news/tokyo-olympics-rhythmic-gymnastics-review-dramatic-upsets-end-russian-dominance

Any chance of a share token for that article?

I'd be interested in knowing more about the Tokyo Rhythmic problem - I've nor heard anything. Maybe just a link so as not to derail this thread.

Sports being designed for male bodies has blown my mind. It just never occurred to me but of course it so obvious. I feel very ignorant.

[quote Truthlikeness]@EmbarrassingHadrosaurus - that's an interesting point - also seen in gymnastics where powerful tumbles have replaced grace and artistry. And the iceskating example is very pertinent as the only women who can do the high scoring quads are pre-pubescent girls with the physique of a man - skinny, no hips. When puberty hits (usually late as they are often also anorexic) their careers are over.[/quote]
This absolutely is not true. There is still a huge amount of grace and artistry in gymnastics. Powerful tumbling reflects slightly older athletes rather than little girls, and that's actually a good thing.