Here is another explanation of why the Phelps Gambit is weak.
https://x.com/Scienceofsport/status/1820462042765001041
Ross Tucker
5 August 2024
Yeah, poor old Phelps became the poster child for this illogical argument that his advantages are the same as those of males. I'll try to explain why this is such poor thinking. First, Phelps' advantages are not category-crossing. That is, there is no category for short arms, and there is no category for small feet, or high lactate producers etc. So we have decided, for better or worse, not to create a category for people without Attribute X. And thus, when a person has X, they shouldn't be excluded, so there's no basis to disqualify Phelps.
Now, one could have a debate over whether we SHOULD think about creating a category for small feet or short arms. If we did this, then Phelps' supposed advantages would become 'outside of category', and we'd say that he's not allowed to swim in the protected category, right?
But we don't need to do this, because the advantages that he has are tiny compared to what male advantage does to performance. Phelps wins by 0.5%. Males win by 12% (compared to females). By scale, then, these advantages are orders of magnitude different.
It's also a massive oversimplification to say that Phelps won because his arms are long or that he produces less lactate. They're daft, incorrect attributions anyway. And finally, females also have some of these advantages - there are women who produce less lactate, or have long arms.
They don't make up for the absence of male advantage. So they're totally different situations. Fundamentally, what sport is trying to reward are those exceptional individuals within categories. We actually celebrate these advantages, they make sport what it is, no?
But we need to rule out some other advantages - size/mass in boxing, age in all sport - because otherwise the things that do NOT matter overwhelm the things that do. Phelps physiology matters - it's why he wins gold medals. Katie Ledecky, though, also has physiology that deserves gold.
It's just she doesn't have male advantage as well. And that's the point - "as well". They are equally great swimmers, but within their categories. The only way around this is to say that we should create a category because Advantage X is so large it also overwhelms the result.
But it doesn't - as mentioned, by scale, what Phelps has over males is tiny compared to what males have over females. Put another way - the fastest swimmer with small feet or shorter arms (whatever that means) is not beaten by thousands of longer armed, bigger footed swimmers!
So I hope I've not laboured that or explained it clumsily. To sum up, Phelps is a bad counter point. So is height in basketball (there's no "short people NBA, only 180cm or under" category).
Rather think age, weight and disability class, and ask if the attribute, X, devalues the things we actually want to reward, or whether it's part of it. Phelps' advantages are part of the excellence. Male advantage is not - being male is NOT a talent, and as such, shouldn't be part of the mix. What Phelps has, those are different.