Women's World Matchplay Darts

I agree with those who say' 'physical advantage' (which will always be queried, see this thread for examples) isn't really the point. Whether darts, pool, or, indeed, chess or tiddly-winks, women's competitions are for women only. Many sports treat the 'mens' comps as effectively 'open'; women are free to enter if they're good enough. This is absolutely fine, and generally works well, particularly for sports like pool, where the advantage is much less, and the best women can, and do, sometimes beat the best men. But not regularly.

"It is also a male person who has deliberately limited their performance level through their own decisions."

Also Laidbackguy, can you tell us what other group who choose to limit their own performance through medical treatment should be rewarded with being allowed into a protected category of their choice?

How about any male who has lost their testicles and decide to not supplement their testosterone? should they be allowed to compete as a female person too? Even if they do not say the words 'I am a woman'?

This.
It's the Women's competition. At some stage Darts decided that it was the right thing to have a Women's competition. That's all you need. It's for women, not men.

This tedious wrangling trying to persuade women that if something's got the word women or girls in it it must really be for men and boys as well because ... strength, muscles, sad men, entitled men, boring men and all the other endless arguments.

NO. A million times NO.

Women's sport is for women and women are entitled to associate with women if we choose. It's so fucking tedious all this.

"If strength, resting heart rate and muscle type is a factor in darts why is it a sport dominated by fat middle aged generally unhealthy men?"

Because even, to use your own words, fat middle-aged generally unhealthy men have the physical attributes and have honed their skills so that their own lack of fitness doesn't mean they lose competitiveness against other male people.

However, even a male in the bottom quartiles for grip strength for example will have a strength that is higher than most female people. I believe I read something like higher than 90% of female people. Hence it is only an absolutely exceptional female that will have higher strength in grip than the weakest group of male people.

You don't seem to understand the degree of differences here.

So, do you laidbackguy understand then a mediocre male person is being rewarded for being mediocre compared to the best male competitor by competing in the female category? That just because you don't understand that the chances of that male beating an elite level female competitor makes this undoubtedly unfair competition. This is not an elite level male competitor taking the place of an elite level female competitor. It is also a male person who has deliberately limited their performance level through their own decisions.

It also comes down to category boundaries being ignored to allow someone from outside a protected category to compete. What other category would you be happy to have ignored because someone 'identified' into that category?

Should a sighted person compete with visually impaired athletes if they identify as partially blind?

Should a 25 year old compete in the under 14’s if they identify as a child?

Should a 25 year old compete in the over 85 year old Masters category if they identify as 86 years old?

Should a professional athlete compete as a novice?

Nothing to worry about, those who identify into those categories don't have any advantages in your opinion.

All because why, laidbackguy? Because people such as yourself don't understand the physical advantage of males and are prepared to ignore those male physical advantages and the discrimination that have prevented female competitors from achieving their full potential as well?

Agree.

Interesting about the physical advantage men have, but irrelevant actually.
It's the Women's World Matchplay Darts. The clue's in the f-ing title.

There are no men's and women's classifications in PDC darts - only open and women's.

To play open PDC you need a tour card which is earnt through merit.

Noa-Lynn is not good enough currently for a tour card so has decided that they can invade the women's game.

There are lots of other open opportunities for non tour card holders including the Modus and PDC arranged invitational challenge and development tours.

The PDC woman's tour is a bit of an anomaly as you don't need a tour card and there are very few events- most events are on the amateur circuit.

Noa-Lynn has played and won a challenge tour and also did well in a recent open Modus event. Note they weren't invited to the women only event.

For whatever reason they did not play to their usual standard yesterday as they would have been expected to at least beat Mikuru.

As there are so many different ways they can play, they should utilise those and not play in a woman's event which were set up for those with XX chromosomes to gain experience of big stage competition with an actual decent prize as those opportunities are far and few between.

They should respect what the events were designed for and play any of the other events above but also ADC, County or any of the many WDF events for men.

Well, about judging health by appearance, and making facile assumptions about sporting prowess and male advantage.

https://www.espn.co.uk/darts/story//id/12126904/why-darts-players-phil-taylor-perfect-athletes

Excerpts:

"This action of minimal movement requires very precise balance and very great control. Such things are made possible by body-shape, by the rock-solid base on which the movement takes place. [Dutch darts player] Raymond van Barneveld, another ex-champion, looks as if you could mount a siege-gun on his and he'd absorb the recoil...

In the same way, darts players tend towards their own specific shape: big shoulders, powerful frame, and yes, frank counterweight bellies. [Darts player] Taylor won the world championship eight times in a row; in 2003, he lost three stone and with them the championship. It was suggested that this change in body-shape had affected his balance."

The average woman in the UK is 5ft 3

I mean I know internet reception is intermittent inside that tricky wardrobe you keep trapping yourself in due to your unsuitability to be left by yourself but Google is your friend here lovey

and if you’re talking bollocks about that, I wonder what else you’re talking bollocks about? 🤔

The average woman in the UK is definitely shorter than 5'7". If you're gonna quote stats, then get them right!

Had a quick look. The average woman in the UK is just under 5'4". And Phil Taylor is just over 5'8". So, from Phil being smaller than the average woman, he's over 4" taller!!!!!

I don’t really get the impression that Laidbackguy cares what women want.

I’m not, I’m questioning why we need men and women’s categories where in a “sport” like darts where players are all shapes and sizes?

'We' might not need them. Why can't women have them if we want them? Lots of sports have all sorts of categories. Sex is pretty tame compared to three sword types in fencing, 8 (and counting) weight divisions in boxing, seniors, pro-am and on and on.

But women can't compete together because you don't see the need. For some reason.

You do realize even the height the bloody board is hung at is optimized towards the default male? I believe darts is mostly open rather than men's competition. If they truly believe in no male advantage let them move it 15cm lower.

And secondly, assuming for a moment there is NO make advantage then the charming "Noa" won't have any ill effects from cross-sex hormones either so no excuse at all for needing to invade the women's category (even that puff piece makes it clear he's already competing in the men's anyway.)

You’re not very laidback about this are you? You can have several finely trained muscles and still be a chunky person as the overall calorie drain of darts practice is not the same as for the 100m sprinters. Is that not pretty obvious? Plenty of weightlifters look pretty solid, they are also pretty damn strong. excess weight doesn’t have the sporting cost it does in a sport where you have to propel it round a field /court/track so they don’t have that competitive motivation to be lean mean athletic machines.

You could make a thread about that then. It’s been discussed a lot on mn, there are some interesting threads about this.

I’m not, I’m questioning why we need men and women’s categories where in a “sport” like darts where players are all shapes and sizes?

like why do we have a men’s abs women’s world chess championship?

Darts players are all shapes and sizes, Phil Taylor dominated darts for 30 years and is 5’6. The average woman in the U.K. is 5’7. Based on your suggestion why don’t darts players dwarf the NBA?

If strength, resting heart rate and muscle type is a factor in darts why is it a sport dominated by fat middle aged generally unhealthy men?

In womens' darts, players have the option to have the oche closer to the board. It's not just a sop, it's to make things more even, for reasons already pointed out.

In general, male people are also taller than female people meaning that they can throw a dart from a greater height. Meaning the increased power from their well documented increased power from muscles (including those fast twitch muscles) and hand grip strength goes into the stability of the dart. Ie they are throwing with the natural fall of the dart not having to add even more power to throw it upwards fighting gravity.

This also will give a difference in viewing perspective.

Leverage points are different also due to skeletal proportions. And even balance is different due to the q angle. Those hips never lie!

What are you talking about @Laidbackguy?
What's BMI got to do with reach & upper body strength?

Why do you feel the need to advocate for males in women's sport? I'm interested.

God I love the women of Mumsnet. Absolutely bullseye! 🎯 ❤️

1 - Men have, on average, an 8 inch greater reach than women. Darts are released at the limit of reach so the average man is effectively 8 inches closer to the board than the average woman.

2 - Men have a lower resting breathing rate than women and therefore throw from a more consistent base point.

3 - Men have a lower resting heart rate than women and therefore throw from a more consistent base rate.

4 - The average man has between 2 and 3 times the upper body strength of a woman. This means that they can generate the effort to propel a dart without moving their upper body.

5 - Men have a far higher ratio of fast twitch muscle fibres than women. This enables them to project a dart towards the target with significantly more power than a woman.

Over to you.

Doesn't matter. It's called Women's World Matchplay Darts. There's a clue in the title about who should be eligible to compete.

No sports were originally gendered. The categories were based on sex.

The female sex category is for females. Noa-Lynne isn't. By being there, Noa-Lynne has taken a place from an actual female. This is not fair.

I'm sorry but you're really stretching there on anything physical, have you seen the state of most male darts players?

Google seems to be on the darts isn't gendered side of the argument.