Renato Canova wrote:
Excuse me, but you are completely out of every physiological and morphological knowledge.
Men (not trained) have very much more muscle strength, due to the hormonal and morphological differences.
This means that ALWAYS in the events where the muscle strength is the bsic quality, the average men are stronger than the average women, and the same happens at top athletic level. This means that never we can see top women jumping high or long like top men, never we can see a woman compete with a man in throwing, and never we can see the best women running fast like the best men.
Endurance is something different. The percentage of difference about the best performances in running, between men and women, decreases when the distance is longer. This fact is based on morphological differences : less weight, better natural aerobic level (compared with the muscle power they can develop), and, in many cases, better psychological focus.
Women are normally more elastic, and the cost of running is lower than men, at the same percentage of the personal maximal speed.
Your belief about doping (EPO) is simply ridiculous, and clearly show how you continue to speak about something you absolutely don't know. The main reason of the big improvement in Marathon is the professionalism in training, that years ago didn't exist for these distances (otherwise, never could happen that an athlete like Emiel Zatopek, already able running 5000m in 13'57" and 10000m under 29', performances still not reached by the best women, could win Olympic marathon in 2:24', a performance that now is absolutely common for about 100 women every year).
So, we can say that now there is SPECIFIC training for the marathon, and the marathon runners are SPECIALIST of the event, while 60-40 years ago there were top athletes RUNNING some marathon, with the preparation of shortest distances.
Specific, and not General Training, is the key for the improvements in every event, and you need to understand the big difference between RUNNING (that is what the most part of posters in LR do) and TRAINING, that is the answer to well determined and specific stimuli.
Don't bother with him, Renato. He never admits he is wrong even when it is clearly shown to him.