fast but what else? wrote:
excuse me but who exactly made the the fact based determination that she made a "ridiculous claim".
Rational people.
fast but what else? wrote:
This is a decision that affects women.
And men.
fast but what else? wrote:
She was pointing out that the change from 1500m to mile will have a much lesser effect in gaining interest for the women's event as it will for the men.
She claimed that women don't have an equivalent sub-4 barrier in the mile as men do in the mile, implying that the NCAA should therefore not switch from putting on 1500s to putting on miles.
And it's a bad argument for several reasons.
Do women have an analogous sub 4 barrier in the 1500 as men do in the mile? Her implication is yes, and it's the sub 4 1500.
Only one woman has ever broken 4 minutes in the 1500 while competing as a college athlete - Jenny Simpson in 2009, and only by one tenth of a second, and it was in a professional race, not an NCAA race. No woman has ever run under, or even gotten close to running under 4 minutes in an NCAA race. Here is the top-10 all time performers list for collegiate women over 1500m:
3:59.90............Jenny Simpson (Colorado)................06/07/09
4:06.19............Hannah England’ (Florida St).............06/14/08
4:06.67............Sally Kipyego’ (Texas Tech)................06/14/08
4:06.75............Tiffany McWilliams (Mississippi St).....06/14/03
4:06.87............Emma Coburn (Colorado)...................05/17/13
4:07.50............Sarah Brown (Tennessee)....................06/14/08
4:07.69............Lena Nilsson’ (UCLA)...........................05/24/03
4:08.26............Suzy Hamilton (Wisconsin)..................06/02/90
4:08.54............Brie Felnagle (North Carolina)..............05/17/08
4:08.90............Susan Kuijken’ (Florida St)...................05/02/09
In the history of woman's collegiate athletics, the fastest a woman has run in NCAA competition is 4:06.19, which is more than 1.65 seconds per lap slower than needed to sneak under 4 minutes.
There is no special draw to seeing women run 1500m in collegiate competition because no one is close to breaking 4 minutes in collegiate competition. And no one has ever been close.
Another reason why this is a bad argument is that she hasn't given a reason why women should be given consideration over men. Now, as I wrote above, there is no special draw to see women run 1500m rather than a mile. In fact, when comparing the amount of people interested in seeing women run a 1500 with the amount of people interested in seeing women run a mile, there is reason to believe that more people would be interested in seeing women run a mile.
Indeed. Sports Illustrated writer Chris Chavez posted a poll asking people what race they would rather see at the NCAA T&F championships. Over 1200 people voted. 57% voted in favor of seeing the mile. 43% voted in favor of seeing the 1500.
The poll can be found here:
https://twitter.com/ChrisChavezSI/status/677921206046212098So you have empirical evidence that people are more interested in seeing the mile, rather than the 1500, run in NCAA competition.
She hasn't made a compelling argument for her position.
And neither have you.
fast but what else? wrote:
She started a conversation about how a major decision within her sport will impact women.
And she didn't make a compelling case for her position.
fast but what else? wrote:
She was met with multiple responses both in this thread and on twitter calling her "crazy" and emotionally unstable. Go look for yourself.
Are you new to these forums?
That's par for the course.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_disinhibition_effectfast but what else? wrote:
Whether you agree with her opinion or not, the tone and sentiment of the backlash she has received speak volumes about the running community as a whole.
Nope.
See above.