Even halfway through the race the main pack is running 6-8 wide on the corners. For most runners it's basically a quarter mile sprint and then you're just stuck in a pack the rest of the race. Moving it up to 10k would allow for some separation and a lot more racing in the last couple miles.
I'm not buying the argument that you can't field a competitive women's team without a bunch of middle distance runners. The women have 50% more scholarships than the men, that means they should be able to recruit more distance specialists. The coaches are the wrong people to ask because, like most people, they are resistant to change and they've built their teams for the current distance. But everyone would be in the same boat moving forward and I think in the end it would benefit the sport as a whole.
We already have a dichotomy of track schools vs xc schools. Increasing the distance exacerbates this problem. If you move women up to the 10k you will have schools go all in on their cross teams and leave a void on the track. There will eventually be a some schools who otherwise might have had at least a somewhat competitive regional team at 6k decide it's just not worth it and send what is akin to a JV squad while their milers look ahead to the DMR indoors.
You are also assuming there are a lot more distance specialists out there who aren't being recruited. I'm not sure that's actually the case. The talent pool already falls off very quickly--plenty of mid-majors aren't that much better than your local D3 / NAIA school.
The segregationists of today will find themselves on the wrong side of history, and they will have no one to blame but themselves.
I honestly have no idea if you are joking (I do hope that you are), but here is the problem with that analogy:
Segregationists (or men who organized marathons decades ago, for example) decided who could do what, when, and where. They were on the wrong side of history. Two things were true; 1) someone wanted something, 2) they worked to prevent it.
I don't see any evidence that anyone is preventing women from doing what they want to do in this case, because nobody has proven that the women WANT this.
If someone could show us that a poll or survey was done and the participants want this, and it is an external group (white, male policy-makers, for example) that is preventing it, then we could have that discussion.
The reasoning for the rejection is largely foolish. For instance, the NCAA writes:
"With the current race distances for men and the current race distances for women, you have similar amounts of competition time spent running per gender."
Women finish at the D1 level in 19:27 to on the order of 21-22, whereas men finish close to 29-32. If women ran 10k, the times would be on the order of 32-37, which is closer than the current difference.
The competition committee also points out in their defense that the men and women use different implements, have different hurdle heights, "etc." But they pass over in silence the fact that men and women now run exactly the same distance on the track for every non-multis event except for the 100/110 hurdles. Specifically, they both run 5000m and 10000m. The only real drawback to moving the women's race from 6k to 10k is that you'd lose some of the shorter distance runners, but that's already happened for the men. A way to resolve that problem--especially to get more 800m runners in xc--would be to have a short course (4k or 5k) race like they used to at World's. However, that would split up the competition or lengthen the # of days at NCAA champs.
Lastly, the reasoning involving finish line spread isn't an issue for the men at 8k--not that I favor reducing the champs length--if it were, they wouldn't run 8k all season long until regionals.
It is not an analogy. It is literally segregated into Men's and Women's events.
Throughout history people have thought that a system was good when it was all they knew, or they got some special trivial benefit from it. Same is true today as shortsighted as it is.
It is not an analogy. It is literally segregated into Men's and Women's events.
Throughout history people have thought that a system was good when it was all they knew, or they got some special trivial benefit from it. Same is true today as shortsighted as it is.
Oh, I see. You aren't talking about race length (the subject of this thread). You are talking about the separation of men from women for the purposes of competition.
No idea why you addressed that to me.
I wish you the best in the effort to integrate men and women into one cross country division. Clearly you are ahead of your time and the rest of us will come along later, once we escape our neanderthal thinking.
I'm not buying the argument that you can't field a competitive women's team without a bunch of middle distance runners. The women have 50% more scholarships than the men, that means they should be able to recruit more distance specialists. The coaches are the wrong people to ask because, like most people, they are resistant to change and they've built their teams for the current distance. But everyone would be in the same boat moving forward and I think in the end it would benefit the sport as a whole.
One of these points is exactly right. The argument made for short races - the mid-D runners can participate and contribute - vs. longer races - they only favor the true distance specialists and so a shallower field is available to contest them - is actually an argument to have men run a shorter race than women. Because American Football takes up many men's scholarships, women's teams/coaches/recruiters can afford to have more true 10k runners than men's teams/coaches/recruiters. Men should be running something shorter so that their 1500 and even 800 runners can contribute. They have a shallower group of runners to choose from due to fewer scholarships available for T&F and XC.
"Make the men's race 10k and you won't have a single school able to field a team of 7! They don't have the depth of scholarship money the women's coaches and teams have! They can't afford to put all of their limited resources into a single event!" ... is an argument nobody is making. Ironic, but they aren't.
The reasoning for the rejection is largely foolish. For instance, the NCAA writes:
"With the current race distances for men and the current race distances for women, you have similar amounts of competition time spent running per gender."
Women finish at the D1 level in 19:27 to on the order of 21-22, whereas men finish close to 29-32. If women ran 10k, the times would be on the order of 32-37, which is closer than the current difference.
The competition committee also points out in their defense that the men and women use different implements, have different hurdle heights, "etc." But they pass over in silence the fact that men and women now run exactly the same distance on the track for every non-multis event except for the 100/110 hurdles. Specifically, they both run 5000m and 10000m. The only real drawback to moving the women's race from 6k to 10k is that you'd lose some of the shorter distance runners, but that's already happened for the men. A way to resolve that problem--especially to get more 800m runners in xc--would be to have a short course (4k or 5k) race like they used to at World's. However, that would split up the competition or lengthen the # of days at NCAA champs.
Lastly, the reasoning involving finish line spread isn't an issue for the men at 8k--not that I favor reducing the champs length--if it were, they wouldn't run 8k all season long until regionals.
I have to admit that I did find some of the rationale for the rejection to be suspect. I would reject it until it is demonstrated that women actually want it.
Regardless, if having "race time" be closer to equal (which we obviously ignore in every track race from 100 to 10,000 meters), a better solution would be to have the women run 8k and the men run 10k.
If you poll the coaches they'll say they don't want change - but that's because they've already invested in the current system.
If you poll the runners they'll also say they don't want change - but that's because you'd be polling a bunch of middle distance runners.
The people you need to ask are all the long distance specialists who just missed making the team, or who didn't get a scholarship and went to a school without a decent running program for financial reasons. Those women might have a different opinion on the ideal race distance. Distance runners are already undervalued because they can't score as many points at track meets, making cross country a middle distance event makes them even less valuable.
Oh, I see. You aren't talking about race length (the subject of this thread).
I wish you the best in the effort to integrate men and women into one cross country division. Clearly you are ahead of your time and the rest of us will come along later, once we escape our neanderthal thinking.
You are making good progress! If everyone is in the same race, then they will be racing the same distance. I assume you are replying in good faith. If not, you ironically sound exactly like people of the past trying to justify untenable positions.
Even going back to when I was racing in college in the 1980's, I didn't understand why men and women raced difference distances in XC. A 10k/5k/steeple/1500m on the track is the same for everybody. In middle school and high school, boys and girls race the same distance in XC. Road races, a 5k is a 5k and marathon is a marathon, and everybody races the same distance. Why is college XC an outlier? Tradition? If so, that's not a good answer.
I'd love to see college XC have a long race at 10k and a short race at 3k or 4k for both genders. Instead of scoring a single team (7 race and 5 score), each race would have either 5 race and 4 score, or 4 race and 3 score. Just like Track, a coach could choose to race an athlete in both races or just one race. The team champion is determined by adding up the scores from both races.
I love the 10k distance that D1 and D2 men have raced at championship races for decades. I think women would have just as compelling races at 10k as they do at 6k. I'm also intrigued by the idea of shorter XC races, 3k or 4k, that might appeal more to middle distance runners. Racing a 3k, there would be a huge strategy around getting out fast on a lot of courses.
Fine, we'll have a 5k and a 10k. That way the 800 and 1500 runners can strut and preen and pretend they did something, while the 10k runners will determine the true champions who fulfill the true purpose of the sport.
Yes, the men's field strings out a little more, but either way you are putting 25 runners across the line in 10 to 13 seconds as the main pack comes in.
This "problem" would be reduced by lengthening the women's race but made worse by shortening the men's (as this petition called for).
Either way, do we have a complaint from race officials that they can't handle the chute or that they get the results wrong because of athlete density?
We don't need a solution if there is no problem.
To 4th wave feminist types, there is ALWAYS a problem with everything.
For men it should be 15k and women it should be 12k. It’s ridiculous that they don’t run longer than the 10k on a track. It would make America more competitive on the world XC stage. They can still run their little 8 and 6ks in invites.