Olympics 2020

[Callum Todd]

The Slovenia hype train is dead

[Marc Meakin]

The Slovenia hype train is dead

France for the gold

[Gavin Chipper]

Interested on people's take on this video:

https://youtu.be/6VtjgZF9RE8

I gave it a go. The initial preamble isn't promising, in that the maker of the video pretty much states his position that anybody having concerns about trans athletes competing in the female category of sports is wrong and worse still, a far-right bigot who hates all LBGTQ people. So it doesn't appear that he's going to be approaching this in a very open-minded way. But still, let's see what his evidence and arguments are.

To cut a long story short, he doesn't seem to dispute the role of testosterone in conferring an advantage in sports. However, he then uses this to argue that because testosterone is suppressed as a necessary requirement of gender transition from male to female, then any prior advantages that trans women would have are entirely lost. He says that the only differences are due to the higher average height and weight of males over females, and that men of the same height and weight as women would be no stronger or faster. This completely ignores the other advantages conferred by a male puberty, such as thicker bones, greater proportional muscle mass, muscle fibres with a better androgenic response, greater O2 content, and so on.

He cites numerous academic papers and articles to support his arguments, but I'm not sure he's even read them, as most of them completely contradict what he is saying, and that even after gender transition and hormone suppression, trans women still outperform cis women by on average 9% (to take one example from Harper et al, 2021). 9% may not sound much but it's an absolute gulf in athletics, e.g in 800m, it's the difference between 1 minute 55 seconds and 2 minutes 5 seconds; one would win almost any Olympic women's final and the other wouldn't even get beyond the initial heats).

The guy who made this video had determined before the outset to "debunk" claims that trans women retain their born advantages in athletic performance following transition, but on investigation has presented evidence that they actually do retain such advantages. I don't know if he doesn't realise this due to his ideological blindness or he's being plainly disingenuous, but it's a bit of a fail all round really.

I have watched this video now, although I have to admit my retention of it probably wasn't that high. But he's basically trying to debunk a specific paper, pointing out flaws in specific claims made by the paper. But even if we go along with all of that and wipe that paper out of existence, the default position isn't that trans women and cis women can compete equally. You need positive evidence rather than a lack of negative evidence.

He does talk about bone density though actually and lung capacity etc., so I'm not sure it's quite as bad as you say Jim. But everything I said in my previous post on the subject still stands.

[Gavin Chipper]

The Slovenia hype train is dead

Shame, but are either of these two left in the running?

Have gone big on Slovakia bandwagon too at 24/1.

I went for Slough.

[Gavin Chipper]

I did read some layman's pieces by and listened to a pod cast interview with Harper to better understand and she still comes down on the side of allowing trans athletes (maybe that's why video does too). She is definitely more nuanced and not always in certain elements of the trans community's good books. The podcast is worth a listen (probably too long for Gav though) https://www.outsports.com/platform/amp/ ... e-research

I would certainly be closer to Harper's position. I think we'll see rules changes go back and forth as more data comes in. I definitely think though that some of the bans you see particularly in the states and particularly in the case of kids are ludicrous and we should be more if not totally inclusive at the recreational and kid level. Once we get into elite sports competitions that's when tougher questions need to be asked.

I'd also like to see much more mixed stuff. I reckon you could have mixed football. Maybe not competition level but as exhibition matches to start with. See what it's like.

I listened to most of that podcast but started skipping bits slightly beyond halfway because I think there was very little there for our discussion and I did find it a bit tedious. Early on Harper said that trans women do have certain advantages, but then stressed the disadvantages as well. But this is largely waffle. With e.g. a track race, your performance is on a simple one-dimensional scale - time. So it's all about whether there is a net advantage and she didn't discuss that. It's irrelevant that you can separate the net advantage/disadvantage into lots of little gains and losses. Is there a net advantage? Yes or no? She seemed to imply that there would be when talking about advantages, but then stuck on the bit about disadvantages afterwards just to muddy the waters.

More mixed sports is a reasonable idea, but you still hit the same problems. If you have to have a certain number of men and women, then the question of advantages for trans women comes up again.

[Gavin Chipper]

There's this article on the BBC about faster track and shoes. Interestingly, Karsten Warholm was complaining about Rai Benjamin's shoes despite having special shoes himself:

But after winning gold on Tuesday, Warholm criticised runner-up Benjamin's Nike footwear - and said he was working with Puma and the Mercedes F1 team on his own shoe.

"He had those things in his shoes, which I hate," added Warholm. "I don't see why you should put anything beneath a sprinting shoe. I think it takes credibility away from our sport."

[Rhys Benjamin]

The Chinese have taken all the sweets again in the diving… at least Tom was best of the rest and well clear of Bondar.

[Marc Meakin]

GB 4th, above par performance.
Always glad to be above Australia.
Matching our 2012 haul with 3 minor eticmedal hopes pulling out of the Athletics.
Jade Jones shock defeat and the shooting medal hope getting covid.
National Lottery funding still instrumental in our fantastic achievements
Btw Irelands boxing gold this morning moves them up to joint 38th

[Conor]

Japan doing really well to come 3rd. It does seem like the host nation tends to do better than they normally would. And this time it can't be down to home support. I'm guessing some events confer some inbuilt home advantage (familiarity with the track/venue, or conditions) but mostly is because they get more qualifiers, and because more athletes know well in advance they are likely to compete they'll put it more focused training.

[Phil H]

Japan doing really well to come 3rd. It does seem like the host nation tends to do better than they normally would. And this time it can't be down to home support. I'm guessing some events confer some inbuilt home advantage (familiarity with the track/venue, or conditions) but mostly is because they get more qualifiers, and because more athletes know well in advance they are likely to compete they'll put it more focused training.

The factors you mention will all contribute for sure, but I had always assumed it was mainly because host nations tended to invest a lot more than usual in funding athletes, coaching, facilities and so on.

[Gavin Chipper]

Japan doing really well to come 3rd. It does seem like the host nation tends to do better than they normally would. And this time it can't be down to home support. I'm guessing some events confer some inbuilt home advantage (familiarity with the track/venue, or conditions) but mostly is because they get more qualifiers, and because more athletes know well in advance they are likely to compete they'll put it more focused training.

The factors you mention will all contribute for sure, but I had always assumed it was mainly because host nations tended to invest a lot more than usual in funding athletes, coaching, facilities and so on.

I tend to think that too. If I'm a top athlete in my sport then Olympics or no Olympics, I'm doing the training.

[Jon O'Neill]

Japan doing really well to come 3rd. It does seem like the host nation tends to do better than they normally would. And this time it can't be down to home support. I'm guessing some events confer some inbuilt home advantage (familiarity with the track/venue, or conditions) but mostly is because they get more qualifiers, and because more athletes know well in advance they are likely to compete they'll put it more focused training.

The factors you mention will all contribute for sure, but I had always assumed it was mainly because host nations tended to invest a lot more than usual in funding athletes, coaching, facilities and so on.

I think this has to be the case. You could test it by looking at the performance of host nations at the subsequent Olympics, where investment in sporting infrastructure will still be having a fairly large effect, whereas the focused training will have largely worn off.

[David Williams]

Japan doing really well to come 3rd. It does seem like the host nation tends to do better than they normally would. And this time it can't be down to home support. I'm guessing some events confer some inbuilt home advantage (familiarity with the track/venue, or conditions) but mostly is because they get more qualifiers, and because more athletes know well in advance they are likely to compete they'll put it more focused training.

The factors you mention will all contribute for sure, but I had always assumed it was mainly because host nations tended to invest a lot more than usual in funding athletes, coaching, facilities and so on.

I think this has to be the case. You could test it by looking at the performance of host nations at the subsequent Olympics, where investment in sporting infrastructure will still be having a fairly large effect, whereas the focused training will have largely worn off.

So happens that I read only yesterday that the UK in Rio was the only country that has ever got more medals at the Olympics following the one they hosted.

[Gavin Chipper]

Japan doing really well to come 3rd. It does seem like the host nation tends to do better than they normally would. And this time it can't be down to home support. I'm guessing some events confer some inbuilt home advantage (familiarity with the track/venue, or conditions) but mostly is because they get more qualifiers, and because more athletes know well in advance they are likely to compete they'll put it more focused training.

The factors you mention will all contribute for sure, but I had always assumed it was mainly because host nations tended to invest a lot more than usual in funding athletes, coaching, facilities and so on.

I think this has to be the case. You could test it by looking at the performance of host nations at the subsequent Olympics, where investment in sporting infrastructure will still be having a fairly large effect, whereas the focused training will have largely worn off.

Difficult to control for all the variables though.

[Mark Deeks]

The Slovenia hype train is dead

Close, mind. Shortened from 50/1 pre-tournament to 4/1 by the time of the semis. I'll take it!

[Marc Meakin]

The Slovenia hype train is dead

Close, mind. Shortened from 50/1 pre-tournament to 4/1 by the time of the semis. I'll take it!

Would a Japan double in the men's Softball and Baseball have better odds?