How To Solve Cross Country's Gender Equality Problem (According to flotrack)

Why don't the men start running 6k instead? Why to we treat 10k like it's inherently better?

i hope you're joking... women just need to accept the fact that they are born physically inferior to men! yes they can accomplish just as much if not more in many other areas of society, but in athletic events, men will always rule because of that T.

Same distance like Olympics. Same course. Make it simple. Then someone can look at the times and say what place in the men's race the first woman would have finished.

Tom

Bigballer wrote:

They already both run the 10k outdoors, so I don't see why women wouldn't be able to handle the 10k in the fall.... The real issue with NCAA XC is the having to run two (essentially all out) 10ks two weekends in a row. Would just make more sense to keep everything 8k, especially considering that's the distance that run in the regular season. On that note, the physiological toll of running a 10k varies on the region due to weather. If you look at this years NCAA results you'll notice that for the most part teams from the NE region underperformed at nationals, arguably their performance was hurt by the fact that their race was held in freezing temperatures, in contrast to the modest temperatures of the west regional.... not necessarily something that should change, but rather just food for thought.

Yes, they both run 10k in track. In 2017 the #500 Woman was 7:07 slower than the NCAA leader, while the #500 Man was 4:18 slower than the NCAA leader.

Personally, I've never seen a race where 6k wasn't long enough to be decisive for the ladies. I do think men could come down to 8k though.

i think the answer is simple. have both genders run 8k throughout the season. easier for meet operators. easier for athletes (vs men changing distances).

both running 10k is too long to do repeatedly throughout the season, imo.

Why is this so hard?

Just do them both at 8k. Only one course to set up. Easy peasy.

Justdoit, wrote:

Why is this so hard?

Just do them both at 8k. Only one course to set up. Easy peasy.

EXACTLY!!!!!

1 course, 1 race, women get a 3 minute head start!!!!!

It was from Flo, so didn't read. But, I have opinions. Some say the best opinions.

Yes, equalize the distances... by decreasing the distance to 5K for both men and women.

10k is stupid. 6k is not an integer multiple of 5000, so no good.

800 dude wrote:

In the early days of women's collegiate athletics, when a lot of teams were pretty small, it was easier to field a decent team if you could get contributions from middle distance runners and underclassmen. The argument for men and women running the same distance isn't really an argument about equality, since neither 6k nor 10k are inherently better, and the different distances are a product of history unrelated to sexism. Instead, the argument seems to be all comes down to the symbolism, ignoring the history and the fact that there are pros and cons to both distances. If you ask the actual athletes, I'm sure 75% of women would rather continue racing 6k. But instead of taking the preferences of athletes into account, some people would rather use them as pawns to advance a political agenda.

Spot On. How about asking the athletes who have to run the distance. I don't think the difference in distance has anything to do with toughness. I think given a poll you would find the ladies would like to stay at 6k. As for entertainment, I think a women's 6k and mens 8k are the best distances. I would be interested in a poll for men and women on the ideal distance they would want to run. At what point to words lose meaning. If a poll found that NCAA women preferred 6k cross you would still have people saying the difference in distance is a product of sexism. People try so hard to live a miserable life instead of a happy one.

TJH wrote:

Is XC the only sport that changes the length of the contest for the championships??

Baseball has best of one, best of five, then best of seven rounds for the playoff.

NHL hockey and NBA basketball in the past used best of 3 or best of 5 rounds before the best of 7 finals

WNBA playoffs currently switch from single elimination for the first two rounds then best of five for last two.

MLS goes from single elimination, to two game home-away agreggate goals, back to a single game championship

Olympics track has heats in most events. Regular season usually doesn't have a qualifying round.

Also, most importantly, the distance for women's xc is 6k and men's is 10k. The reason the regular season is shorter is because coaches/athletes are scared to run the full distance a bunch of times. There is no NCAA rule that says each meet can't be 6k and 10k respectably.

Justdoit, wrote:

Why is this so hard?

Just do them both at 8k. Only one course to set up. Easy peasy.

This sounds too logical and makes too much sense.

Why is it easier to maintain a team of guys? Why do women get injured more than men at higher volume? I don’t agree with these statements. Women are smaller than men so they should be better as the distance increases. I would like to just go to 8k all around. If we can’t do that, we should really make it equal by eliminating separate genders since men and women are equal in ability.

Running is the literally the only sport with gender equality for professionals.

The prize pools are the exact same for males and females at every major race and track event.

Find me another professional sport that pays males and females the same for winning championships. Tennis maybe? Does golf even?

Why do people get so upset over this?

The women's 10K is and always has been a terrible race. This is especially true at the college level. The women's 6K XC produces thrilling races that can be won by middle distance or long distance runners. It's a better race than the men's race in terms of unpredictability.

Equal but not wrote:

Why is it easier to maintain a team of guys? Why do women get injured more than men at higher volume? I don’t agree with these statements. Women are smaller than men so they should be better as the distance increases. I would like to just go to 8k all around. If we can’t do that, we should really make it equal by eliminating separate genders since men and women are equal in ability.

In my experience collegiate men do train at a higher volume, and still have a lower rate of over use injuries.

Elite women get proportionately better relative to elite men as the distance increases, but I do not think the same is true when talking about depth women and men (someone already pointed out the disparity in 10k track rankings).

Once an Expert wrote:

The women's 10K is and always has been a terrible race. This is especially true at the college level.

You do know women can run over 200 miles at a time now don't you? Cross country should be the longest logical distance. It's sole purpose is to train runners to become REAL runners after college when they start doing trail racing and ultras. Only letting them run a little over 3 miles is ridiculous.

The distance should be at least 10k but preferably 12k.

More iz bester wrote:

Considering most of the women fall over right at 6K as they cross the line, this despite 99% of females claiming they are much tougher than guys, I could understand why the NCAA wouldn’t stretch it out to 10K.

That being said, I’d prefer 8860 meters for the women and 10000 for the men. Then the times could be comparable as well.

How insane are you?

They (not all do by the way) fall over because of a thing called managing your energy. AKA, trying hard to be your best. AKA giving it all you have. AKA leaving it all out there.

If I was coaching, I'd like to see my athletes exhausted at the end of races. Men fall over too but not because they run further.

You must not be a competitor or athlete.

always an expert...... wrote:

Once an Expert wrote:

The women's 10K is and always has been a terrible race. This is especially true at the college level.

You do know women can run over 200 miles at a time now don't you? Cross country should be the longest logical distance. It's sole purpose is to train runners to become REAL runners after college when they start doing trail racing and ultras. Only letting them run a little over 3 miles is ridiculous.

The distance should be at least 10k but preferably 12k.

Name a memorable women's 10K race.

I'll wait.

Once an Expert wrote:

The women's 10K is and always has been a terrible race.

Fact check: True.