2:22 was debatable, but 2:47 is way too soft

Even if your jibberish made sense, it would be worthless. What purpose is there in even paying attention to how a female standard compares to a male standard? Why would you care? How does it change your world? It takes an incredibly insecure male to feel like they are being cheated by a female standard.

More men got their way paid to the Marathon Trials than women. Yet still some insecure needle dick feels cheated? The biggest inequity in the trials was how many more men got their expenses taken care of.

Male Chauvinist Idiot wrote:

Even if your jibberish made sense, it would be worthless. What purpose is there in even paying attention to how a female standard compares to a male standard? Why would you care? How does it change your world? It takes an incredibly insecure male to feel like they are being cheated by a female standard.

More men got their way paid to the Marathon Trials than women. Yet still some insecure needle dick feels cheated? The biggest inequity in the trials was how many more men got their expenses taken care of.

I agree with the part of your post that states that women were cheated since less women received funding. Who knows why womens running is less competitive, but I agree with many other posters that the best way to remedy this is to continue to encourage women's participation. I'm fine with a softer standard to allow more participation, but I also agree with the OP observations that a 2:47 is inherently an easier performance standard.

2tonbrik wrote:

Yes it can.

No you can't. A method you can use, despite any flaws, is better than one you can't use at all.

Once again Jaguar1, you feel the need to try and apply concepts of population statistics where they are inappropriate. I simply proposed a method of analyzing gender performances which entails comparing a performance to the respective genders WR. This concept assumes that the WR represents the best standard we have for a physiologic ceiling. This method of analysis does not base itself on population statistics, so why do you continue to try and debunk this method by saying it violates concepts of population statistics? Its one thing to say the method is not as accurate as yours, but to state that it is invalid based on inapplicable concepts show that you don't have a fundamental understanding for the argument.

Just stop. You sound more like a jackass with every post.

Pete Rose wrote:

Mr. Hanson is not guilty yet. Only if someone actually takes him up on this bet does he become guilty. I am certain that won't happen.

I think Mr. Hanson knows some inside info not only on some "B" Qualifiers but also on some "A" Qualifiers. Is someone hurt? Will an "A" qualifer fail a drug test? he must know something to put $5000 down.

My next reaction is....

Does he have any "A" qualifiers and if so will they take a dive for a "B" teammate to let them in the top 15 so their coach wins 5 grand. Will he be holding anyone out of the race. If so how much of a percentage does the runner get?

If you do win money dont forget to pay taxes on it Mr. Hanson.

This post says it all!!Why are you even bothering to compare the male and female standards and participation - they are different events! leave it out that, one has absolutely not relation to the other

Male Chauvinist Idiot wrote:

Even if your jibberish made sense, it would be worthless. What purpose is there in even paying attention to how a female standard compares to a male standard? Why would you care? How does it change your world? It takes an incredibly insecure male to feel like they are being cheated by a female standard.

More men got their way paid to the Marathon Trials than women. Yet still some insecure needle dick feels cheated? The biggest inequity in the trials was how many more men got their expenses taken care of.

He doesn't have any "A" qualifiers. Otherwise his bet would look really really shady.

Again though, his girls have proved over the half-marathon distance that they are "A" qualifier quality.

With all due respect to Mr. Hanson, this is big time sucker bet. The Hansons will probably have 3 athletes in the top 10. I guarantee that they will have all of those 3 in the top 15. Don't contribute to Mr. Hanson's bank account.

I have a couple of points to make about the improper use of statistics here. Many of the comparisons between the men's and women's standard make the statistical assumption that both men's and women's marathon performances follow a standard normal distribution (the bell curve), which is quite obviously not the case. As many of you have so subtly and delicately pointed out, there is not the depth at the highest levels of the elite women's field that there is for the men. All assumptions as to why this is the case aside (ranging from valid points that women don't have the same marathon history--first Olympic marathon in 1984--to the inherent laziness of women), it is, empirically, the case.

Because of this positively skewed distribution on the women's side, comparisons between the men's and women's A and B standards cannot follow either a straight linear comparison (i.e. men's standards x or y minutes slower than the world record, so therefore the same should be true for women), or a slightly better but still incorrect use of percentage differences (i.e. men's standards x and y % slower than the WR, so therefore the same should be true for men). The best way to EQUATE the two standards is to simply see how many athletes of each gender qualify for each standard. If more men than women make the A standard, then to EQUATE the two one must either make the men's standard tougher or the women's standard "softer." If more women make the B standard (in 2008, the total fields were not that far off in number: about 140 vs. 166, I think I read in one of the posts), then one would have to drop the women's standard slightly to result in equal field sizes.

That being said, the whole questions seems odd. Why compare the men's and women's standards at all? A better question is: what is the goal of running the Olympic Marathon Trials? The men may have a different answer than the women. Possible reasons are: 1)to choose the Olympic team, 2)to set high standards for elite status, 3)to make money for any number of parties, or 4)to encourage participation at the highest levels. Depending on the answer to that questions, the field sizes will vary.

One final point: why are we comparing the women's standards by using the men's standards as the "gold standard," meaning that the men's standards are the proper way to set time cut-offs for the Trials. Why are we not comparing the men's standards to the women's standards?

Kevin Hanson wrote:

This is for all of you that feel like the B standard women do not belong in this race.

In the men's trials, the top B Standard qualifier finished in 15th place (Steve Sundell). I am not including guys that qualified with a 10k time.

I am willing to bet $100 that the top B Standard female qualifier will finish better than that. Meaning that the B standard female qualifiers will play more of a factor than the B qualifier men did.

I am only willing to accept the first 50 takers. If I am wrong I am not willing to lose more than $5,000.

So here you go gentleman. It is easy to slam others anonymously on a message board. Put your money where your mouth is and man up.

Kevin Hanson

Hansons-Brooks Distance Project

hansonsrun@aol.com

Great call Kevin. I guess you did have a little inside knowledge as all 3 of your B qualifiers were in the top 15.

2tonbrik wrote:

A lot of debate is occuring on this thread due to a lack of agreement among posters as to what should be considered the gold standard for which relative qualifying standards should be compared to. If you state that 2:47 is soft relative to 2:22, then you need to clearly state what time standard you are using to make this conclusion.

As others have suggested, I feel a logical choice would be the respective world records for each gender.

Normally I'd agree with you, but the Women's WR is such a huge outlier that it skews the numbers. I think that going a little deeper will give more accurate results.

The 10th fastest times by a man and a woman are separated by about 14 minutes. 50th fastest are separated by about 16 minutes. Same for 100th fastest. The 500th fastest times are separated by about 18 minutes as are the 1000th fastest times.

The gap (probably) continues to widen as the times slow, but I'll stick with 18 minutes, which puts the women's standard at 2:40. I have spoken.

joking aside... wrote:

Yeah a job and a sub-2:19 marathon is ok.

A job, a sub-2:19, and a family is really tough. Unless your wife is cool raising the kids entirely on her own.

Duh, so wait to have kids. If the goal of qualifying for the OT is that important to you then your wife should be understanding and supportive enough to put off having kids for a couple of years. Having kids and the additional bills and demands on personal time that come with them is a dumb choice that is counterproductive to your running goals if you haven't met the OT qualifier before they arrive. Having kids is actually pretty easy to avoid. Having a job, not so much unless mom & dad let you take up residence in the basement.

Why should the standards be "equal"? What is so not "equal" about the standards in terms of their purpose?

If the women's standard is supposedly so "soft" then why don't you take a majority of the 2:20:01-2:22:00 men and grow their hips by several inches, put implants into their chests, and take away a large amount of their testosterone and see how they do at running 2:47. Elite male ectomorphs are much, MUCH more similar physiologically than the women are. Have you ever seen any guy built similarly to someone like Kate O'Neill or Turena Johnson-Lane running as close to his top peers? That's not to pick on Ms. O'Neill or Ms. Johnson-Lane, either, as I have great respect for them and consider them to be at least as tough as any male US distance runner. All the guys trying to make the case here that the women's standard is somehow "soft" are short-sightedly ignorant.

It wasn't too soft for Tera Moody.

So when does the USATF take their next "meeting" (vacation) to Hawaii so they can change the women's standard when no one is looking? They wouldn't want to actually get the opinion of anyone involved in the process like they did to the men. I would expect some surprise annoucement anyday that says they changed the standard to 2:44.

The women are run by Elizabeth Phillips and that is not how she operates. I am sure that the womens standard will be adjusted to 2:46 or so, but it will not be done behind closed doors, like the men. That was a Glenn Latimer decision on the mens side.

it all depends wrote:

The women are run by Elizabeth Phillips and that is not how she operates. I am sure that the womens standard will be adjusted to 2:46 or so, but it will not be done behind closed doors, like the men. That was a Glenn Latimer decision on the mens side.

I guess we shall see won't we.