Women now better than men at OT Trials

edward teach wrote:

the standards are set to the olympic standards. You could argue that the women's standard should be faster, but its set pretty weak to allow for women from countries where they are discriminated against or sport isn't seen as a woman's role to qualify. Places like the stans, some of eastern europe, the middle east.

This was what I always thought caused the discrepancy. Clearly the IAAF standard is weak for the US, which has more opportunities for women than much of the developing world. This puts USATF in the position of needing to decide whether they should bar someone with the IAAF standard from participating in the trials when a marathon field doesn't have the same restrictions as the track (aka more rounds). If you hit the IAAF standard, surely you belong in the trials for your country.

uhhhhhhhhhhh wrote:

I know this is a troll but one mistake I have seen a lot on here is that people think the difference between men and women is linear, whereas the actual difference is closer to exponential. One reason for this is that the top women have straighter bodies (i.e. bodies shaped more like men) that give them an advantage over the rest of the women. The men have no such advantage.

You are an idiot. Everyone has different bodies. Don't you think there are some physical advantages held by the top men?

No. Women's standards are a joke. 2:44 is a regionally elite time for a female and would win most marathons, while a guy running 2:18 could find himself not even placing in his age group. If they are going to require men to run truly elite times, they need to require it of the women too. Sub 2:40 seems fair.

2/10

Giant Johnson wrote:

Xenostreams wrote:

Therefore you can say that women "wanted it more" this year.

Oh, they definitely did. ;)

womenaresmarter wrote:

Women are better than men at everything

I've said before that women are more carved out for success in the modern world than men are. This is because they work at it more. For example, for a given woman, the men who get the same academic results as her study 1/2 as much.

If you want academic equality and women are viewed as smarter, then there should be a different grading system for men. In the workplace if a man and a woman were competing for a promotion, I would think the one who performs better should get it, right? Then why is it that a women in a road race can earn as much as a man, yet her time is two minutes slower and there were 35 men ahead of her and yet 25 of them didn't get any money.

quote]Cicirunner wrote:

Women's qualifying standards are easier, but then again, who cares? Only the top 3 make it to the Olympics, and if you're on the cusp of qualifying, then chances are you're just running for the "experience" and have no shot at actually making the team.[/quote]

Actually, WOMEN should care. What the standards say is women are NOT as good as men so their standards should be lower.

Clearly this is NOT the case, but women will not get better if their standards are soft and are not advancing at the pace the rest of the world is. I'm willing to bet that if the B standard was 5 minutes faster 90% of the women who qualified between 2:40-45 would have risen to the challenge and done what it would take.

The men's standard increased for 2012 and we saw more men running faster.

It would nice to see more women and women's coaches asking for comparative standards. "Hey, we are just as tough as guys. We don't need a soft B standard anymore to support development. We need to be challenged as much as guys are."

If women are as tough as men, then they don't need softer standards. Simple.

I have a couple of female friends in my running clubs in their 30's who just broke 3 in the Marathon and as a result are now dreaming big (Trials 2020). Improving another 12-15 min from their 2:55/2:58 times is not impossible and serves as a real motivator. Keep in mind that these women are now considered national class and if they qualify for the trials (even if B), they are among the best of the best in the country.

I'm pretty sure Joan is 57-58 and that she ran in the 2:50's so would not have qualified....that is an amazing time for her age. There's a large portion of men that qualified by hitting the half standard....not sure if it's easier for them to put in half training rather than full? Not many women relative to men qualified by the half trial...I don't think under 6:18 pace for a marathon is slow by any means....I think there may be some research on this but could it be possible that women start to excel the longer the distance goes? Personally people have been comparing top WR marathon times...I'm not totally convinced those times are clean though I want to be but..maybe they are...220's /218s is believable obviously for our hardworking clean top 3. I guess point is I think the standards are fair if we want to keep things legit.

The 2:45 mark for women is comparable to the 2:30 mark for men. Both are strong sub-elite times, but the problem is there are a lot more men who are interested in hitting 2:30 than women interested in hitting 2:45. There is probably an equal sized pool of talent in both genders that could hit those marks but because there are so many more men training to break 2:30, if they made that the men's B standard, the field would be in the thousands. You'd have the guys who are already there and then you'd have all of the guys in the 2:30's who would now have a reason and the extra motivation to break 2:30. Either way, a 2:30 male runner and a 2:45 female runner are going to finish miles behind the top 3 so it doesn't really make a difference. The soft 2:45 B standard for women is there just so they can fill out the field. It would look a little silly if there were only ten women toeing the line in LA.

same is same wrote:

Then why is it that a women in a road race can earn as much as a man, yet her time is two minutes slower and there were 35 men ahead of her and yet 25 of them didn't get any money.

This.

Running is a professional sport and it should distribute prize money (=pay) in a professional manner, like any other profession.

.

Imagiine in the workplace if a one worker was more productive than another and yet the less productive worker was paid considerably more money purely because the less productive worker was a woman.

This ridiculous state of affairs exists in distance running, It is perhaps the most extreme form of unjust affirmative action in any profession.

Maybe 225 is comparable to 245 maybe...but at 230 you'd see 3-4x as many men qualified. You have to keep in mind they just changed the standards...guys were trying to get under 218/219. If they had just kept the std the same you'd have more men running not a ton more but enough that talented runners aren't standing in the crowd....I think some prob stopped training with the more aggressive std at the start of the qualifying period or maybe if they knew it was going to change back they would have planned their race tactics for that time.

Xenostreams wrote:

This just in:

http://www.runnersworld.com/olympic-trials/the-2016-olympic-marathon-trials-whos-in-and-whos-out

Women: 246

Men: 210

What do you think: Women wanted it more or men were not trying hard enough?

Anyway, nice job, ladies.

Title 9

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