A comparison of male vs. female performance in different sports

How often have you wondered about the differences between male and female athletes, and NOT in a Venus and Mars sort of way?  In most sports, men and women compete in separate events.  In fact, triathlon is one of the few sports where some races start men and women together.  You might argue that it is just not fair if women raced together with men.  But is it always unfair for every sport?  And if it is unfair, is it always by the same amount?  This article looks at this question in detail.

World class performances were compared from three different sport disciplines:  competitive swimming (in a 50meter pool), outdoor track running, and long track speed skating.  These three different sports have very different movement requirements to excel.  But they have several things in common.  They are all time-based (the fastest wins), and they all have races of similar duration.  In all three sports, there is a race that takes a world class athlete about 45seconds, 2 minutes, 4 minutes and 8 minutes to complete (even though the speeds in the sports vastly differ).  So, a comparison between the three different sports can be displayed together to see if patterns of male performance versus female performance translate from one sport to the other.  After all, the duration is the same and the rough purpose of the event is the same, so why shouldn’t the performances also be the same?

Here are some details in the comparison data.  For all events, the average of the top 40th place through 60th place in the world was calculated for men and women.  The ratio of these average times (men / women) was obtained.  You might think it would be better to use 1st through 20th place.  However, the very top times in the world (male or female) are often skewed by 1 or 2 athletes who leave the rest of the world in the dust.  These star performers could have skewed the results, and so 40th-60th was chosen to be more consistent.

The comparison results are shown in the chart below.  As expected, the performance of men versus women did change with race duration in the same sport.  But what was surprising was that the pattern of change was different for all three sports.  If men and women performed in equivalent fashion relative to each other in all circumstances, then all three lines in the chart would be parallel.  But the lines are different.  In fact, the patterns for track and swimming are opposite!  And for some reason, speed skating falls between the two.

This blows away any argument that the differences between men and women athletics comes from a single factor such as strength, speed or endurance.  A complex array of variables is at work.  Maybe men possess more brute-force strength on average.  But more muscles means more mass to carry.  Maybe men have longer legs and arms on average, but height and length adds volume and additional drag or resistance.  Any potential physical advantage has negative consequences that vary depending on the type of movement being performed, and the duration of that movement.

I will not claim any understanding of the mechanics of track and field or speed skating.  Everything I know about track and skating I learned on TV!  Thus I cannot explain the actual factors that caused these comparison results.  If anyone out there has ideas on why the men/women results are what they are, please post your comments below or email me as we would love to post your comments.  In all my experience with swimming, I took it for granted that women become more competitive compared to men as the duration of the race lengthens.  On average, women gain 4.5% on the male/female ratio in the 800 meter freestyle in comparison to the male/female ratio in the 100 meter freestyle. 

To be clear, this article does not at all imply superiority of any gender.  The level of dedication of world class athletes in triathlon, swimming, track and skating is simply astounding.  If toughness and desire were all that mattered, then men and women would not need to compete in separate categories.  But the reality is that the same amount of willpower (male and female) is going into different body designs.  And so long as the physical features of men and women are different, their results in sport will vary.

So as a triathlete, how can you use this information?  Many triathletes come from a single sport (like swimming, or running).  You may be used to an equivalent level of performance compared to athletes with similar ability but of the opposite sex.  The comparison results of this article say that equivalence varies from one sport to another.  Long distance swimming tends to be a great equalizer between men and women.  But in running, the women tend to show their greatest moments in an all-out sprint.  Hopefully, this gives you some understanding of the results you see in the various athletic events in which women and men compete!  Until next time, happy training!

Comparison data was taken from the following websites for this article:
Swimming:  times from www.fina.org
Track:  times from www.iaaf.org
Speed Skating:  times from www.isu.org

The specific events used for this article are shown in the table below.