Olympics 2020

[JackHurst]

Another thing which I find a bit weird about the Olympic format is how they have to shoehorn the Gold/Silver/Bronze format into knockout tournaments (e.g. for al the combat sports, racket sports, team sports etc). Surely the person who gets gold is the best, but then silver doesn't necessarily have a claim to be better than bronze if they were in opposite halves of the draw. In that case, then they both won and lost the same amount of games, and both lost to the gold medallist. Silly.

[Marc Meakin]

I dunk on the Olympics a lot and I still think there's lots to be critical about it but that moment at the high jump when they shared the gold was fantastic.

I actually thought it was a bit bizarre that they got the choice. You'd think there would be a set procedure.

I agree it's completely bizarre that they are allowed to get a gold medal each. Particularly when you compare to the golf this morning where they made 7 people go into a play off for BRONZE!

"You can share golds, but you can't share bronzes"

I suppose there will always be edge cases resulting in a situation where you can't distinguish competitors, but it definitely feels very dumb that the long jump works in a way where they can choose to share the medal.

Tbf this is the first time since 1912 so it's hardly a precedent.
I think there have been a few dead heats in the past in athletics but minor medals I think

[Gavin Chipper]

Another thing which I find a bit weird about the Olympic format is how they have to shoehorn the Gold/Silver/Bronze format into knockout tournaments (e.g. for al the combat sports, racket sports, team sports etc). Surely the person who gets gold is the best, but then silver doesn't necessarily have a claim to be better than bronze if they were in opposite halves of the draw. In that case, then they both won and lost the same amount of games, and both lost to the gold medallist. Silly.

I've always thought that losing finalist isn't the same as second place as well.

Also a player/team underperforming in a later round kind of screws over all the opponents they beat, as a lesser player/team could end up winning the whole thing, arguably like France did in the 1998 World Cup. But that's a separate thing.

[Marc Meakin]

Laurel Hubbard is likely to make history as the first trans gold medal winner in the weightlifting.
But if I was a woman competing against her I would be a bit pissed off as she has gone through male puberty surely giving her an unfair advantage.

[Phil H]

Elaine Thompson runs 21.66 in the 200m semi-final. 21.60 or better in the final, which now looks within reach, would give her the "non-FloJo" record in both 100 and 200m.

[Gavin Chipper]

Been watching the BBC this afternoon. I was expecting to see the women's 5000m and men's steeplechase final but they both got bumped for stuff no-one cares about - e.g. horses jumping over obstacles. I'm surprised team GB don't take all the golds in the horse stuff. Where do the other countries get their Tory-voting Brexiteers from?

They've just shown the final third or so of the 5000m final as an afterthought and now they've just shown the final 100m straight of the steeplechase.

Dickheads.

[Ian Volante]

Laurel Hubbard is likely to make history as the first trans gold medal winner in the weightlifting.
But if I was a woman competing against her I would be a bit pissed off as she has gone through male puberty surely giving her an unfair advantage.

Not sure what odds you were looking at!

This tweet links to an interesting perspective on the discussions around Hubbard. https://twitter.com/AnxietySugar_/statu ... 7890099229

[Gavin Chipper]

Laurel Hubbard is likely to make history as the first trans gold medal winner in the weightlifting.
But if I was a woman competing against her I would be a bit pissed off as she has gone through male puberty surely giving her an unfair advantage.

Not sure what odds you were looking at!

This tweet links to an interesting perspective on the discussions around Hubbard. https://twitter.com/AnxietySugar_/statu ... 7890099229

Just a rant against everyone and no-one.

[Jon O'Neill]

Laurel Hubbard is likely to make history as the first trans gold medal winner in the weightlifting.
But if I was a woman competing against her I would be a bit pissed off as she has gone through male puberty surely giving her an unfair advantage.

Not sure what odds you were looking at!

This tweet links to an interesting perspective on the discussions around Hubbard. https://twitter.com/AnxietySugar_/statu ... 7890099229

It's an interesting perspective, but totally irrelevant. Even if she's right it's not like the clash between fairness and inclusivity is not an absolutely huge issue in women's sport (and only going to become more of one...)

My opinion is that the fairness of the competition cannot be sacrificed for inclusivity. In a way it would've been good if Hubbard had won gold because it would've crystallised the need for this issue to be addressed in a fairer way sooner rather than later. Kicking the can down the road (a bit like the IOC and other relevant authorities have done with DSD advantage in the sprinting, where DSD athletes are banned in 400m but allowed in 100 and 200m...) feels very unsatisfactory.

[Gavin Chipper]

Laurel Hubbard is likely to make history as the first trans gold medal winner in the weightlifting.
But if I was a woman competing against her I would be a bit pissed off as she has gone through male puberty surely giving her an unfair advantage.

Not sure what odds you were looking at!

This tweet links to an interesting perspective on the discussions around Hubbard. https://twitter.com/AnxietySugar_/statu ... 7890099229

It's an interesting perspective, but totally irrelevant. Even if she's right it's not like the clash between fairness and inclusivity is not an absolutely huge issue in women's sport (and only going to become more of one...)

My opinion is that the fairness of the competition cannot be sacrificed for inclusivity. In a way it would've been good if Hubbard had won gold because it would've crystallised the need for this issue to be addressed in a fairer way sooner rather than later. Kicking the can down the road (a bit like the IOC and other relevant authorities have done with DSD advantage in the sprinting, where DSD athletes are banned in 400m but allowed in 100 and 200m...) feels very unsatisfactory.

I had to look up DSD. Difference in Sex Development in seems (Edit - maybe Disorders actually). I did a quick Google and found this. I didn't realise that the ban was specifically for 400m through to the mile. I know at the Rio Olympics in 2016, people commented on the 1-2-3 in the 800m race. It might just be coincidence, but that distance seems to be the "sweet spot" so maybe they just decided it didn't matter for distances too far away from that.

[Gavin Chipper]

I saw some of the weightlifting today, and this isn't just me being rude, but does it help being morbidly obese? I was wondering if the extra weight comes with free extra muscle, the converse how when you're weightless in space you automatically lose muscle despite your best efforts. Also maybe the agility you lose is less important in weightlifting than it might be in other sports requiring high amounts of strength.

[Marc Meakin]

It's all moot as she had 3 failures.
Im guessing the oestragen she has to take has probably cost her

[Gavin Chipper]

In a wider sense, you could argue that fairness of competition is meaningless. You can have all these rules to make sure people don't have elevated testosterone levels etc., but success in athletics is largely determined by your genetics anyway, certainly at the top end where you can't expect to gain an advantage by just training harder (someone with average genetics can easily finish first at parkruns though). So what counts as a fair advantage and what counts as an unfair advantage when it's all just what you're born with?

[Callum Todd]

I saw some of the weightlifting today, and this isn't just me being rude, but does it help being morbidly obese?

If the weightlifting you saw was the women's heavyweight (the one with Hubbard in it and where GB won silver) then that was a category for women weighing over 87kg. At that weight, women shorter than 5"8 (so most women) are considered obese. So if nothing else (I'm not sure if having more body fat helps with weightlifting. I think it probably does to an extent but I can't qualify that with any scientific data; it's just a hunch), being obese certainly helps you be registered as a heavyweight.

[Tim Down]

In a wider sense, you could argue that fairness of competition is meaningless. You can have all these rules to make sure people don't have elevated testosterone levels etc., but success in athletics is largely determined by your genetics anyway, certainly at the top end where you can't expect to gain an advantage by just training harder (someone with average genetics can easily finish first at parkruns though). So what counts as a fair advantage and what counts as an unfair advantage when it's all just what you're born with?

You could extrapolate that to argue for having a single open category and no dedicated women's division in every sport.

[Rhys Benjamin]

My view, and it has been for many years, is a third category for "trans and non-binary", since more trans/n-b people will compete in due course. You could even go further and have more categories - post-op FTM & MTF, pre-op / non-binary AMAB & AFAB, etc.

[Marc Meakin]

My view, and it has been for many years, is a third category for "trans and non-binary", since more trans/n-b people will compete in due course. You could even go further and have more categories - post-op FTM & MTF, pre-op / non-binary AMAB & AFAB, etc.

I think maybe have their own Olympics

[Gavin Chipper]

In a wider sense, you could argue that fairness of competition is meaningless. You can have all these rules to make sure people don't have elevated testosterone levels etc., but success in athletics is largely determined by your genetics anyway, certainly at the top end where you can't expect to gain an advantage by just training harder (someone with average genetics can easily finish first at parkruns though). So what counts as a fair advantage and what counts as an unfair advantage when it's all just what you're born with?

You could extrapolate that to argue for having a single open category and no dedicated women's division in every sport.

Or go the other way and have everyone in their own individual category and golds all round.

Edit - But ultimately it's about the perception of fairness (for us plebs watching) rather than actual fairness, because you'd end up tying yourself up in logical and philosophical knots if you took it too far.

[Gavin Chipper]

Just got the diving on. There's a British guy called Jack Laugher - but it's pronounced "Law"! I think someone's having a giggle.

I suppose it's like when people are called Death but they put a sneaky apostrophe in to make it De'ath.

Edit - or Bucket. "Law residence. Lady of the house speaking."

[Jon O'Neill]

I saw some of the weightlifting today, and this isn't just me being rude, but does it help being morbidly obese? I was wondering if the extra weight comes with free extra muscle, the converse how when you're weightless in space you automatically lose muscle despite your best efforts. Also maybe the agility you lose is less important in weightlifting than it might be in other sports requiring high amounts of strength.

Have you ever seen World's Strongest Man?

Of course there is an agility aspect in Olympic weightlifting but it's massively outweighed by the strength aspect.

Basically the answer is yes, it's an advantage. Or, to flip it, it's a disadvantage to attempt to build the requisite muscle to compete at the top level without getting fat.

In a wider sense, you could argue that fairness of competition is meaningless. You can have all these rules to make sure people don't have elevated testosterone levels etc., but success in athletics is largely determined by your genetics anyway, certainly at the top end where you can't expect to gain an advantage by just training harder (someone with average genetics can easily finish first at parkruns though). So what counts as a fair advantage and what counts as an unfair advantage when it's all just what you're born with?

I disagree that fairness is meaningless. I think what you are getting at is that the characteristics we value in any given sport are arbitrary, which I will give you. But rigorously ensuring that the sport is a competition where we find the people who have achieved those characteristics is a very worthwhile endeavour.

[Jon O'Neill]

World records are tumbling. In the 400m hurdles, the previous world record (which was broken last month after 29 years) was broken again - by 0.75 seconds! The silver medallist broke the old WR by 0.5 seconds. The bronze medallist broke the WR that had stood until last month as well.

This example of a WR getting trashed stands out but the running events feel like the swimming events of the mid-2000s when the buoyant suits came about and changed the game. Is it:

a) just statistical variance?
b) natural progression of athletes?
c) the shoes?
d) that a year off of competing has allowed more efficient training?
e) a year off of competition testing has allowed more efficient drug taking?

I'm going for 75% (c) and 25% (e).

[Phil H]

World records are tumbling.

Maybe the track as well - the shoes must make some difference, but it's not as if records have been getting broken every week this season.

Is this year really such an outlier though? We had two world records in Rio; the seventh-placed athlete behind Rudisha when he set his 800m world record in 2012 would have won gold in 2008 with his time; and Bolt is an obvious recent example of another outstanding athlete raising the standard for everyone else in his event.

If recent history is anything to go by, perhaps one of the stand-out performers from this year will eventually be found to have been doping, but not the majority.

[JimBentley]

My opinion is that the fairness of the competition cannot be sacrificed for inclusivity. In a way it would've been good if Hubbard had won gold because it would've crystallised the need for this issue to be addressed in a fairer way sooner rather than later. Kicking the can down the road (a bit like the IOC and other relevant authorities have done with DSD advantage in the sprinting, where DSD athletes are banned in 400m but allowed in 100 and 200m...) feels very unsatisfactory.

I completely agree. The current rules on M -> F transgender athletes are ludicrously unfit for purpose; aside from all the retained advantages of going through a male puberty, all a trans athlete needs to do to be eligible to compete is ensure that their serum testosterone is below 10 nanomoles/litre. The normal range of testosterone levels in women - even elite athletes, who might be expected to have higher levels - is 0.12-1.78 nmol/litre, so a trans athlete is allowed to have five times (!) the upper boundary, with all the strength and speed advantages that higher testosterone brings. How this figure was decided upon is beyond me, it seems to have just been plucked out of the air without looking at the physiological ranges at all.

Yes, it would be nice if everything could be inclusive and lovely, but the way it's being done at the moment is making it unfair for the vast majority (for want of a better term, cis women) to accommodate a tiny minority (M -> F trans women).

[Jon O'Neill]

Yeah, the track should definitely be on my list above. I will revise my % weightings at some point.

With that Rudisha race, 2nd place was still 0.6 behind the old WR, so yes the field jumped ahead a lot (or the track got easier) but in the grand scheme of things it wasn't quite the quantum leap that has happened in the 400m hurdles.

[Gavin Chipper]

I'm a bit busy for the next few hours, but I'm looking forward to joining in the discussion.

[Mark James]

Interested on people's take on this video:

https://youtu.be/6VtjgZF9RE8

[Fred Mumford]

the seventh-placed athlete behind Rudisha when he set his 800m world record in 2012 would have won gold in 2008 with his time

I would say the 800m is the shortest of the "tactical" races though, so speed comparisons aren't quite as relevant - sometimes the big finals do have quite slow times as a result.

[Marc Meakin]

the seventh-placed athlete behind Rudisha when he set his 800m world record in 2012 would have won gold in 2008 with his time

I would say the 800m is the shortest of the "tactical" races though, so speed comparisons aren't quite as relevant - sometimes the big finals do have quite slow times as a result.

800 is always my favourite race.
Kelly Holmes in Athens was probably my favourite Olympic 800m of all time although Alberto Juanterino comes close.
Still the only man to win the 400m and 800m in the same games

[Ian Volante]

World records are tumbling. In the 400m hurdles, the previous world record (which was broken last month after 29 years) was broken again - by 0.75 seconds! The silver medallist broke the old WR by 0.5 seconds. The bronze medallist broke the WR that had stood until last month as well.

This example of a WR getting trashed stands out but the running events feel like the swimming events of the mid-2000s when the buoyant suits came about and changed the game. Is it:

a) just statistical variance?
b) natural progression of athletes?
c) the shoes?
d) that a year off of competing has allowed more efficient training?
e) a year off of competition testing has allowed more efficient drug taking?

I'm going for 75% (c) and 25% (e).

Certainly in interesting idea that lockdowns may have enabled a short period of impunity with regard to taking a short course of something like HGH which may enable quick physical benefits while being undetectable quickly enough. Pure speculation of course.

[Phil H]

Interestingly enough, every athlete in this year's 800m women's final ran a better time than the same-placed athlete in 2016, when the DSD rules weren't in operation. So perhaps a point against the need for such rules, but also a point towards doping suspicions?

[Mark Deeks]

You guys might want to throw a few quid on Slovenia winning the men's basketball.

Too late to get in on this now, but Slovenia have walked to the semis thus far. It's about to get tougher, as they'll have to beat France and the USA, the only two teams better than them, so you might want to check your cash-out price. Or, stay in and LIVE LA VIDA LOCA

[Sam Cappleman-Lynes]

Fans of competition climbing have known for a long time that the scoring system in the Olympic format is stupid, but the men's qualification today really hammered the point home.

Bassa Mawem of France is a competitive speed climber. He won the speed climbing portion by a clear margin with a time that would have been a world record a few months ago. He then finished 18/20 in the bouldering (failing to reach the top on a single boulder) and 20/20 in the lead climb (reaching only the 7th hold; the 19th placed climber reached the 25th).

The scoring method is to _multiply_ your three ranks to produce an overall score. This means he qualifies in 7th place, and in fact would have done so even if he finished dead last in both bouldering and lead. What's more, if the 8 finalists achieve exactly the same relative positions to each other in Thursday's final as in qualification today, he will climb to 5th.

I don't think any scoring method which allows you to finish 5th overall while only being able to reach a competitive standard in one of the three disciplines is really fit for purpose.

[JackHurst]

Fans of competition climbing have known for a long time that the scoring system in the Olympic format is stupid, but the men's qualification today really hammered the point home.

Bassa Mawem of France is a competitive speed climber. He won the speed climbing portion by a clear margin with a time that would have been a world record a few months ago. He then finished 18/20 in the bouldering (failing to reach the top on a single boulder) and 20/20 in the lead climb (reaching only the 7th hold; the 19th placed climber reached the 25th).

The scoring method is to _multiply_ your three ranks to produce an overall score. This means he qualifies in 7th place, and in fact would have done so even if he finished dead last in both bouldering and lead. What's more, if the 8 finalists achieve exactly the same relative positions to each other in Thursday's final as in qualification today, he will climb to 5th.

I don't think any scoring method which allows you to finish 5th overall while only being able to reach a competitive standard in one of the three disciplines is really fit for purpose.

Oh wow that's so stupid.

[Fred Mumford]

Awful. In skiing they changed the World Cup rules in the late 1970s to stop Ingemar Stenmark becoming the overall champion on the grounds that he didn't compete in downhill - but at least he was utterly dominant in the other 2 disciplines. This takes the biscuit though.

[Thomas Cappleman]

Just looked through to see what would happen if the scores were added instead. Mavem would be 4th last, only beating those who had no top half results at all. Interestingly, the other current qualifiers would all still qualify in a very similar order, with the guy in 12th moving up to 8th. The top 3 also would be the same, with 3rd going up to 1st, and the top 2 both moving down a place.

So as a solution for how to combine 3 different disciplines in 1 (from what I gather this was a horrific hodgepodge anyway, forced by only being allowed 1 set of medals per gender), it's not that bad. To get the top placings you need some degree of competitiveness across the 3. The main issue is that the difference between 1st and 2nd is massive compared to any other gap between consecutive placings. It's then arguable where you want the balance to be - being gold medal standard in one of the disciplines feels like it should have some reward over what a simple average of placings gives, but not that much.

[JackHurst]

...

So as a solution for how to combine 3 different disciplines in 1 (from what I gather this was a horrific hodgepodge anyway, forced by only being allowed 1 set of medals per gender), it's not that bad. ..

100% The main issue here is that climbing only gets one set of medals per gender. Going from not being in the olympics at all to having one medal is an improvements, but it's still a piss take when you think about it in the context of all the other sports that get 5+ gold medals to dish out per gender.

[Mark James]

I watched a bit of the climbing. The music was really annoying. If I was a climber i think it would distract me. Are they allowed to request it be shut off?

[Sam Cappleman-Lynes]

Music is a standard at all the IFSC contests where they usually have a live DJ. And most climbing centres have music playing too. I think they're used to it.

[Gavin Chipper]

I saw some of the weightlifting today, and this isn't just me being rude, but does it help being morbidly obese?

If the weightlifting you saw was the women's heavyweight (the one with Hubbard in it and where GB won silver) then that was a category for women weighing over 87kg. At that weight, women shorter than 5"8 (so most women) are considered obese. So if nothing else (I'm not sure if having more body fat helps with weightlifting. I think it probably does to an extent but I can't qualify that with any scientific data; it's just a hunch), being obese certainly helps you be registered as a heavyweight.

There'd be no point in putting on weight just to go in a higher weight division though would there?

I saw some of the weightlifting today, and this isn't just me being rude, but does it help being morbidly obese? I was wondering if the extra weight comes with free extra muscle, the converse how when you're weightless in space you automatically lose muscle despite your best efforts. Also maybe the agility you lose is less important in weightlifting than it might be in other sports requiring high amounts of strength.

Have you ever seen World's Strongest Man?

Of course there is an agility aspect in Olympic weightlifting but it's massively outweighed by the strength aspect.

Basically the answer is yes, it's an advantage. Or, to flip it, it's a disadvantage to attempt to build the requisite muscle to compete at the top level without getting fat.

I used to watch it, and while they were a bit on the fat side, these weightlifters looked fatter. But anyway, I did some Googling as well, and found e.g. this:

The way you get stronger and build muscle is by putting on mass. This means you have to eat at a caloric surplus everyday in order to fuel the growth, development, and healing of your muscles.

If you do not eat enough, you cannot increase muscularity, and eventually cannot even maintain it. This is because muscles are insanely dense and require more 'food' to sustain. If you don't, and your body starts 'burning' calories, it will burn some readily available fat first, but then eventually begin breaking down excess muscle tissue because it 1) gives more fuel for your body, and 2) is harder to maintain, so it'll burn it off to get you back to an equilibrium based off of what you're eating.

Since these competitors are trying to be as strong as possible, they do not balance their surpluses with diets, because dieting will cost them strength and physical muscle in the process. They eat big, lift big, get big. They don't want to lose any muscle. Ever.

I can personally say that you will lose noticeable amount of your peak strength if you go on a diet in order to lower body fat and get "ripped". For me, I lost roughly 10-15% of my peak lifting after dieting and losing about 30lbs (from 182lbs at 24% BF to 153lbs at 13% BF). 10-15% for me is not much. But if those competitors did that, they would basically lose their ability to compete in Strongman comps. They would probably sacrifice up to a quarter of their lift numbers unless they used steroids in order to counteract the potential loss of muscle.

Moving on:

In a wider sense, you could argue that fairness of competition is meaningless. You can have all these rules to make sure people don't have elevated testosterone levels etc., but success in athletics is largely determined by your genetics anyway, certainly at the top end where you can't expect to gain an advantage by just training harder (someone with average genetics can easily finish first at parkruns though). So what counts as a fair advantage and what counts as an unfair advantage when it's all just what you're born with?

I disagree that fairness is meaningless. I think what you are getting at is that the characteristics we value in any given sport are arbitrary, which I will give you. But rigorously ensuring that the sport is a competition where we find the people who have achieved those characteristics is a very worthwhile endeavour.

Well, I suppose my point is this:

Would it be fair if there weren't separate male and female competitions and everyone was lumped together? The obvious answer is "no", because the females wouldn't be able to compete. But:

Is it fair that if I wanted to race marathons I would have to be in the same category as Eliud Kipchoge? I (along with almost everyone else) would also not be able to compete with Kipchoge. So arguably it's unfair for the same reasons. It's just not so obviously unfair on the surface. It's not so visible that there are physical genetic differences that mean that most people could not compete at a high level. But the differences are there, as they are with men v women.

As an intermediate situation, would it be fair if there were no weight categories in weightlifting? All men would compete together and all women would compete together. What counts as a "fair" advantage or an "unfair" one? There are no height categories in high jump, but unless you are tall enough to reach the top of the Eiffel Tower, you're not going to be successful. I see this as comparable to weightlifting and boxing with their weight categories, and yet those two cater for size differences and high jump doesn't.

I'm not saying anything needs to change, but just that if you go too deep into it, I think it can become meaningless. The main thing is that we have something we can watch and consider to be fair as long as we don't think too hard about it.

[Gavin Chipper]

Interested on people's take on this video:

https://youtu.be/6VtjgZF9RE8

It's very long! And while I might have another look at another time, do you have a brief summary of the goings on?

[Gavin Chipper]

the seventh-placed athlete behind Rudisha when he set his 800m world record in 2012 would have won gold in 2008 with his time

I would say the 800m is the shortest of the "tactical" races though, so speed comparisons aren't quite as relevant - sometimes the big finals do have quite slow times as a result.

Interestingly enough, every athlete in this year's 800m women's final ran a better time than the same-placed athlete in 2016, when the DSD rules weren't in operation. So perhaps a point against the need for such rules, but also a point towards doping suspicions?

But as Fred says...

[Jon O'Neill]

The way you get stronger and build muscle is by putting on mass. This means you have to eat at a caloric surplus everyday in order to fuel the growth, development, and healing of your muscles.

If you do not eat enough, you cannot increase muscularity, and eventually cannot even maintain it. This is because muscles are insanely dense and require more 'food' to sustain. If you don't, and your body starts 'burning' calories, it will burn some readily available fat first, but then eventually begin breaking down excess muscle tissue because it 1) gives more fuel for your body, and 2) is harder to maintain, so it'll burn it off to get you back to an equilibrium based off of what you're eating.

Since these competitors are trying to be as strong as possible, they do not balance their surpluses with diets, because dieting will cost them strength and physical muscle in the process. They eat big, lift big, get big. They don't want to lose any muscle. Ever.

I can personally say that you will lose noticeable amount of your peak strength if you go on a diet in order to lower body fat and get "ripped". For me, I lost roughly 10-15% of my peak lifting after dieting and losing about 30lbs (from 182lbs at 24% BF to 153lbs at 13% BF). 10-15% for me is not much. But if those competitors did that, they would basically lose their ability to compete in Strongman comps. They would probably sacrifice up to a quarter of their lift numbers unless they used steroids in order to counteract the potential loss of muscle.

Or, to flip it, it's a disadvantage to attempt to build the requisite muscle to compete at the top level without getting fat.

That's what I said - but in a lot fewer words.

Well, I suppose my point is this:

Would it be fair if there weren't separate male and female competitions and everyone was lumped together? The obvious answer is "no", because the females wouldn't be able to compete. But:

Is it fair that if I wanted to race marathons I would have to be in the same category as Eliud Kipchoge? I (along with almost everyone else) would also not be able to compete with Kipchoge. So arguably it's unfair for the same reasons. It's just not so obviously unfair on the surface. It's not so visible that there are physical genetic differences that mean that most people could not compete at a high level. But the differences are there, as they are with men v women.

As an intermediate situation, would it be fair if there were no weight categories in weightlifting? All men would compete together and all women would compete together. What counts as a "fair" advantage or an "unfair" one? There are no height categories in high jump, but unless you are tall enough to reach the top of the Eiffel Tower, you're not going to be successful. I see this as comparable to weightlifting and boxing with their weight categories, and yet those two cater for size differences and high jump doesn't.

I'm not saying anything needs to change, but just that if you go too deep into it, I think it can become meaningless. The main thing is that we have something we can watch and consider to be fair as long as we don't think too hard about it.

This is just a semantic issue. Once the sport is defined and you have your protected categories (e.g. the women category in pretty much all sports, Flyweights in Boxing, 45kg in Weightlifting etc.) then fairness has to be rigorously maintained.

The determination of those categories is arbitrary, and you are considering that to be unfair. That's a different issue of fairness, although not necessarily invalid. You might think it's unfair that there's no category in the marathon for pedantic 5' 4" jumper-wearing North Essexians with a penchant for alternative bread selections in a curry house. I personally would watch that category but I'm not sure that the gold medal would mean quite as much as the open category. Although I would still value it higher than dressage.

[Gavin Chipper]

World records are tumbling. In the 400m hurdles, the previous world record (which was broken last month after 29 years) was broken again - by 0.75 seconds! The silver medallist broke the old WR by 0.5 seconds. The bronze medallist broke the WR that had stood until last month as well.

This example of a WR getting trashed stands out but the running events feel like the swimming events of the mid-2000s when the buoyant suits came about and changed the game. Is it:

a) just statistical variance?
b) natural progression of athletes?
c) the shoes?
d) that a year off of competing has allowed more efficient training?
e) a year off of competition testing has allowed more efficient drug taking?

I'm going for 75% (c) and 25% (e).

Obviously we discussed this a bit off forum but yes, the 400m hurdle race was a real eye-opener.

I think it is partly (a). Sometimes by chance you get an event that gets a load of good competitors all at once. Statistically, it has to happen. There are loads of events and there's always going to be some pecking order of which events happen to have have better athletes relative to what you'd expect. And one event always has to come out top. Maybe it's the men's 400m hurdles right now.

I was watching some of the BBC coverage and they were talking about it being possibly a fast track at Tokyo, as well as there being shoe development.

With the drugs, yes, always be suspicious of everyone, but it shouldn't have a bigger effect on the 400m hurdles than anything else. Having said that, there have been world records and other fast times generally this year and last. The men's 5000m and 10,000m records went last year to Joshua Cheptegei. Interestingly he only won silver in the 10,000 though. The women's 5000m record went last year, and the 10,000m record went this year. Twice. And although 100m and 200m records don't happen for women these days, two runners have beaten all the previous non Flo-Jo times at 100m this year, including Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, who probably has most of her success behind her at the age of 34. It's happened for two runners over 200m as well.

But the 400m hurdles is still an outlier in terms of improvement. And thinking about it, I don't actually think shoes should have a bigger effect there. A bit of extra rebound energy probably won't add that much to you hiking your leg over a hurdle. But I do think that it's probably a "soft" event, in that its competitors are probably largely athletes that haven't quite made the mark at flat running meaning more room for improvement. If Michael Johnson or Wayde van Niekerk had devoted their careers to it, maybe the record would be much lower even than this. Also, it's technically harder than just running, so there is likely to be greater variance in the times. Fully nailing a race is likely to mean a bigger difference than over 400m flat.

Karsten Warholm's record over 400m is 44.87s, which isn't exactly world class. His new record for 400m hurdles is 45.94 seconds. This year, he's nearly halved the gap between his hurdle time and his flat time. Obviously I don't think 44.87 is representative as he doesn't compete over 400m. But whatever he can do on the flat (and it's not going to be under 43) he's taken a big proportion off the gap. It's too much for special hurdling shoes to have made the difference I think is where I was going with that.

But anyway, my conclusion is that the improvements of Karsten Warholm and Rai Benjamin are outliers not explained by shoes or drugs when compared to other events. A bit of a statistical fluke along with it being a soft event with more room for improvement and the technical aspect bringing greater performance variation seem to be the best explanations. Sure, drugs and shoes too if you want (and the track), but that's for all events, not for the difference between this event and others.

[Gavin Chipper]

That's what I said - but in a lot fewer words.

Yeah, I wasn't particularly disagreeing.

This is just a semantic issue. Once the sport is defined and you have your protected categories (e.g. the women category in pretty much all sports, Flyweights in Boxing, 45kg in Weightlifting etc.) then fairness has to be rigorously maintained.

The determination of those categories is arbitrary, and you are considering that to be unfair. That's a different issue of fairness, although not necessarily invalid. You might think it's unfair that there's no category in the marathon for pedantic 5' 4" jumper-wearing North Essexians with a penchant for alternative bread selections in a curry house. I personally would watch that category but I'm not sure that the gold medal would mean quite as much as the open category. Although I would still value it higher than dressage.

Well, I wasn't saying I considered the arbitrariness to be unfair, just that fairness can become a logical black hole. But the protected category of women can be subject to different definitions of woman and as long as it's rigorously defined then you could argue that any definition is fair.

Edited to shorten post.

[Gavin Chipper]

My opinion is that the fairness of the competition cannot be sacrificed for inclusivity. In a way it would've been good if Hubbard had won gold because it would've crystallised the need for this issue to be addressed in a fairer way sooner rather than later. Kicking the can down the road (a bit like the IOC and other relevant authorities have done with DSD advantage in the sprinting, where DSD athletes are banned in 400m but allowed in 100 and 200m...) feels very unsatisfactory.

On the DSD thing, Christine Mboma won silver at the 200m after having to move from the 400m because of elevated testosterone. Probably a good thing in the long run as it draws attention to it.

[Fred Mumford]

I don't suppose the track surface is the same as used in the Tokyo world championships of 1991? There was controversy about it at the time, to the extent of a newspaper sports headline saying "Tokyo records tarnished forever". I don't think Beamon got his record back though.

[Gavin Chipper]

I don't suppose the track surface is the same as used in the Tokyo world championships of 1991? There was controversy about it at the time, to the extent of a newspaper sports headline saying "Tokyo records tarnished forever". I don't think Beamon got his record back though.

I don't think it is the same. Beamon's record was at altitude of course. I've often wondered why, if that's legal, they don't go to altitude all the time to set sprinting and jumping records.

[Fred Mumford]

Beamon's record was at altitude of course

Damn right - in that famous head-on photo, he looks about six feet off the ground. Definitely helped.

[Jon O'Neill]

Well, I wasn't saying I considered the arbitrariness to be unfair, just that fairness can become a logical black hole. But the protected category of women can be subject to different definitions of woman and as long as it's rigorously defined then you could argue that any definition is fair.

Ok, true. I'll try to expand.

So I guess we have to go back a step and define why "women" have a protected category at all. Let's take 100m sprint as an example of an event. The ideal characteristics for that sport might be, roughly in order:

- high ratio fast:slow twitch muscle fibres
- muscle mass
- strength:weight ratio
- reaction speed
- running technique
- mental strength

The reason we have a protected category for women is that male hormones are hugely overpowered in the top 3 of those characteristics. 50% of the population of the world would be instantly ruled out of competing at the top level of despite being at an elite level across the ideal characteristics, with the sole exception of not being male. Being male is not one of the characteristics in my list. Therefore, our rigorous definition must exclude the advantage of being male, to be fair to the 50% of the population who would otherwise be effectively ruled out of competing.

Obviously male/female is not binary and exists on a spectrum, and there's also DSDs which are somewhat of a grey area, so there is a decision to be made about where to draw a line, and inclusivity should be considered here. But going through male puberty seems pretty unambiguously to give an athlete a substantial part of the advantage of being male. Hormone treatment does not remove this advantage. Of course, this needs a citation, but I don't think it's really controversial to say that.

[JimBentley]

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.

[JimBentley]

Kicking the can down the road (a bit like the IOC and other relevant authorities have done with DSD advantage in the sprinting, where DSD athletes are banned in 400m but allowed in 100 and 200m...) feels very unsatisfactory.

It's completely bizarre. The period in which the Eastern bloc female athletes dominated track and field showed that artificially elevated andogen levels conferred a greater advantage in sprinting than in any other distances. It seems as though the IOC just came up with a ruling to rule out the African athletes dominating the 800m at the time and because there were no DSD athletes dominating in any other distances then the ruling didn't need to be applied across the board. Which it plainly does.

[Phil H]

Before this year, the under-18 record for men's 200m was Usain Bolt's 20.11 - although, confusingly, his 19.93 at age 17 isn't counted as an under-18 time because he turned 18 later that year.

However, Erriyon Knighton has now run faster than 20.11 seven times, including two times quicker than 19.93 and one equal to it, while still under-18 both in athletics and generally.

[Gavin Chipper]

Well, I wasn't saying I considered the arbitrariness to be unfair, just that fairness can become a logical black hole. But the protected category of women can be subject to different definitions of woman and as long as it's rigorously defined then you could argue that any definition is fair.

Ok, true. I'll try to expand.

So I guess we have to go back a step and define why "women" have a protected category at all. Let's take 100m sprint as an example of an event. The ideal characteristics for that sport might be, roughly in order:

- high ratio fast:slow twitch muscle fibres
- muscle mass
- strength:weight ratio
- reaction speed
- running technique
- mental strength

The reason we have a protected category for women is that male hormones are hugely overpowered in the top 3 of those characteristics. 50% of the population of the world would be instantly ruled out of competing at the top level of despite being at an elite level across the ideal characteristics, with the sole exception of not being male. Being male is not one of the characteristics in my list. Therefore, our rigorous definition must exclude the advantage of being male, to be fair to the 50% of the population who would otherwise be effectively ruled out of competing.

Obviously male/female is not binary and exists on a spectrum, and there's also DSDs which are somewhat of a grey area, so there is a decision to be made about where to draw a line, and inclusivity should be considered here. But going through male puberty seems pretty unambiguously to give an athlete a substantial part of the advantage of being male. Hormone treatment does not remove this advantage. Of course, this needs a citation, but I don't think it's really controversial to say that.

Sure, but this does seem to be mostly about it being convenient to categorise into male and female. Women can't compete against the top men in 100m and they're also a convenient ready-made class, so we can separate them off. Lots of other people also can't compete against the top men, but they're not so easily defined into categories. And that's fine, but I don't think it's really fairness, just something that looks like it.

Edit - Imagine if hypothetically there was this supercomputer that could quickly analyse everyone's genome and say whether they were in the top half or bottom half of the population genetically. We could categorise by that. But then all the finalists in the women's 100m would almost certainly find themselves in the top half and not be able to become professional sprinters. Dave Smith from down your road, on the other hand, might find himself right at the top of the second half and could become an Olympic champion. I think this categorisation would be incredibly weird and no-one would be on board with it, but I don't think it's a matter of fairness.

[Mark James]

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.

Thanks Jim. I had a feeling the intro wouldn't go down too well alright. For what it's worth I read the Harper paper myself although I don't have the best head for academic charts and graphs, so whether I can say I understood it would be another thing (I get the conclusion that trans retain strength but don't know to calculate the 9% for example). I would be pretty sure the video maker has read it and maybe he's in the same boat as me in terms of understanding it. From other stuff I've seen him do though I reckon he has a better understanding of that kind of academic language than I do but no doubt he has his biases (don't we all). I think he has done some debates on the subject on his channel which I will try and listen to to see if he addresses any of the criticisms.

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.

[Rhys Benjamin]

Anyone else watch the skateboarding overnight? Thought it was all a bit noughties for me.

[Marc Meakin]

Anyone else watch the skateboarding overnight? Thought it was all a bit noughties for me.

Noughties? Try early 80's

[Gavin Chipper]

By the way, the women's 400m hurdles went similarly to the men's (two under the world record and third place under what was the world record a few weeks ago) so maybe that event has benefited more from certain things - whether, shoes, track or whatever else.

[Gavin Chipper]

I might have a go at that video and podcast, but a while ago I did also watch this programme with Martina Navratilova looking into the advantages of trans athletes.

[Mark James]

I might have a go at that video and podcast, but a while ago I did also watch this programme with Martina Navratilova looking into the advantages of trans athletes.

Can't watch iplayer in my region unfortunately. In the podcast Harper mentions having long conversations with Navratilova. The podcast host isn't impressed with Martina and the group she is aligned with but Harper seems to be a bit more forgiving despite their disagreements.

[Gavin Chipper]

I might have a go at that video and podcast, but a while ago I did also watch this programme with Martina Navratilova looking into the advantages of trans athletes.

Can't watch iplayer in my region unfortunately. In the podcast Harper mentions having long conversations with Navratilova. The podcast host isn't impressed with Martina and the group she is aligned with but Harper seems to be a bit more forgiving despite their disagreements.

It's not available anyway at the moment - the link was really just to show what the programme was. But from what I remember it's wasn't really just a Martina Navratilova opinion piece programme. It was a more balanced BBC documentary which had her presenting it because she'd been in the news about some of the comments she'd made.

But anyway, I'll probably try and find the time to look at the video and podcast, but my general view has been that you'll never find a proper satisfactory balance so that trans women can compete in the female category. You can only really base what measures need to be taken (e.g. hormone-reducing drugs etc.) on statistical evidence. It's far too complex an issue to prove from first principles. And I don't think you'll ever really get enough statistical evidence. Even if you can show that average performance for trans women and cis women basically match, the shapes of the distributions are still likely to be different, and it's only the outliers that are really relevant because it's the outliers that win medals. And by their very nature, outliers give you limited statistical data.

A lot of people say it's a fuss about nothing because if there was such an advantage then trans athletes would be dominating, and they're not. But it only takes one person in one event. Let's say a trans woman in her early 20s starts to dominate the 100m sprint and is untouchable for 15 years or so. I think a lot of people would consider female track and field athletics to be severely damaged. Of course, they might then tweak the rules (about hormone levels or something), but really they'd be making it up as they go along based on a sample size of one, because proper statistics don't cover it.

And ultimately, I don't think it's the right thing to do to try and force this equivalence. You wouldn't race cheetahs against bears but put the cheetahs on some slowing drugs to make it a race. You'd have separate races. Socially it might be nice to accept trans women as women and not question their choices, but athletics is more about biology and I don't think it should be bound by the same social niceties. We have separate women's categories because of the biological differences that make them unable to compete with men at physical sports, not because of what they consider their identity to be. In the field of sports, I don't think we should be conflating these two things.

But I can change my mind in the face of compelling argument/evidence. (That's what Elliott always says isn't it?)