If you want to make elite sport a more level playing field, you would have to Give everyone a similar budget and have events split by base ability (similar to fighting weights and the Paralympic categories)
Good thread Covered End. Your solution sounds the best idea.
Just got off the soap box as my feet are aching Decided it was a Score draw in the End. both chizz and Mutterly made valid points. good banter on a serious subject for those involved.
I don't think there is a perfect solution here and if you do nothing it can be deemed to be unfair and if you do something it can deemed to be unfair - but I would specify a maximum tesosterone level women's competitions.
No way can a female runner with 2% Level of Testosterone(the norm) beat a competitor with 10% or more if they have both done the same amount of training. Unless that person is unwell on the day or trips up. (over 800 metres)
Caster Semenya jogged around and didn't have to get out of 1st gear.
a complete and utter joke of a race.
Unlike the callous chizz i feel sorry for the girls in that race.
Every serve of Muttley's was a double fault and he didn't make a single return of serve.
I think using the word just fails to appreciate the complexities in this issue. The problem for me relates to women's sport. It is just as valid and important as men's sport but women compete in most sports at a lower level. So if you are a women's champion you are not the best in the world, thousands of men are better than you. That doesn't lower the importance of women's sport and doesn't make it less interesting, but there is a barrier that lack of tesosterone presents that means you can't have women competing with men on an equal footing, so they don't. For me, the argument I am making only applies to women's sport because we draw that line.
Up until now the difference between a man and a woman has been pretty easy to evaluate. But times change and I would like to see that transgendered women can compete as women. It will be fair as they will have lost the advantage that tesosterone brings. But it will require a tesosterone limit to define the difference between women's and men's sport. It is hard on the South African but I would probably be a star at blind football without having to work as hard as partially sighted or blind players. It isn't my fault I can see! But rules are applied which rightly means I can't compete. I do think the rules in some paralympic sports should be changed so that able bodied athletes can compete. In Blind football, I could play with a blindfold if I wanted. I would be crap, but I could. That would be fair in my eyes.
A long post, but there isn't a short answer here. It is all very complicated and those that make short justifications from both sides of teh argument, don't do the subject jsutice IMO.
Disabled athletes have been banned from able bodied events in the past. Pistorious was barred from competing in able bodied events until he could scientifically prove his blades where not giving him a mechanical advantage over his competitors. This would be a similar situation, except Semenya wouldn't be able to prove that her high testosterone levels weren't giving her an advantage.
As stated by somebody above, this is caused because of the way sport is segregated. We have the men, who are typically the best in any given event, then we give prizes to another group (in this case women) who being unable to compete with the men. That is the route chosen, we give awards to one subset of society and call them the best, apart from the many competitors with a biological advantage with whom they can't compete.
Semenya falls between these two groups, but whether should be allowed to compete in the sub-set or not is down to how the rules that govern eligibility are defined, and that will inevitably change over time. What is clear is that a "normal" female athlete has as much chance of beating Semenya as they have of beating a man. That is why you see the reactions you do, because women's sport is defined by the exclusion of the genetically superior (in sporting terms).
I suppose you can draw parallels with Muttiah Muralitharan the great Sri Lankan spin bowler..
"Murali was born with extraordinary joints – not just the permanent kink in his elbow but also a double-jointed wrist which could rotate virtually 360 degrees and allow him to bend his hand so far back his middle finger touched his forearm. He should have been a contortionist rather than a cricketer."
Has any member of the Sherpa race ever become a pro athlete? Their bodies are adapted to cope with living at high altitudes by processing oxygen from the blood significantly more efficiently than ours can. By rights, when they come down to sea level, where they get more oxygen with every breath than they are used to, they should have a big advantage at many sports.
Should the IOC draft a new set of rules now, just in case?
Has any member of the Sherpa race ever become a pro athlete? Their bodies are adapted to cope with living at high altitudes by processing oxygen from the blood significantly more efficiently than ours can. By rights, when they come down to sea level, where they get more oxygen with every breath than they are used to, they should have a big advantage at many sports.
Should the IOC draft a new set of rules now, just in case?
Has any member of the Sherpa race ever become a pro athlete? Their bodies are adapted to cope with living at high altitudes by processing oxygen from the blood significantly more efficiently than ours can. By rights, when they come down to sea level, where they get more oxygen with every breath than they are used to, they should have a big advantage at many sports.
Should the IOC draft a new set of rules now, just in case?
So, although he probably isn't a good enough skier to trouble the IOC, he won the Mont Blanc "ultramarathon" mountain running race in what is still a record time, 166 km in 20 hours (although other runners without his possible genetic advantage have come close).
Just because he comes from a race of people who have lived and adapted to high altitude for years doesn't mean he has any advantage at altitude over say aperson who has lived at sea level and is descended from those adapted to life at that level does it?
Oh, maybe he should be forced to live at sea level for a period of time to see if any possible advantage can be countered.
Or he could take drugs to limit his high oxygen take up rate at altitude.
Or they could have a specialist Nordic skiing at altitude event in the Winter Olympics.
I do have still a lot of sympathy for @MuttleyCAFC's position as well. If you were a female athlete who just could not build the muscle to compete against another athlete because your testosterone was not high enough, and you couldn't take testosterone supplements because they are performance enhancing, you'd be pretty cheesed off.
Like you would be if you were say an Australian cyclist whose funding was cut and so equipment and training was less good than that of the U.K.
Or competing against countries that have massive state sponsored programmes (probably more historic as this happens to some extent everywhere now) where competitors are groomed and trained from a very early age.
Is an increased testosterone production ability in a female athlete sufficiently different to make an exception and to try and chemically regulate the benefit given?
Just because he comes from a race of people who have lived and adapted to high altitude for years doesn't mean he has any advantage at altitude over say aperson who has lived at sea level and is descended from those adapted to life at that level does it?
Oh, maybe he should be forced to live at sea level for a period of time to see if any possible advantage can be countered.
Or he could take drugs to limit his high oxygen take up rate at altitude.
Or they could have a specialist Nordic skiing at altitude event in the Winter Olympics.
I do have still a lot of sympathy for @MuttleyCAFC's position as well. If you were a female athlete who just could not build the muscle to compete against another athlete because your testosterone was not high enough, and you couldn't take testosterone supplements because they are performance enhancing, you'd be pretty cheesed off.
Like you would be if you were say an Australian cyclist whose funding was cut and so equipment and training was less good than that of the U.K.
Or competing against countries that have massive state sponsored programmes (probably more historic as this happens to some extent everywhere now) where competitors are groomed and trained from a very early age.
Is an increased testosterone production ability in a female athlete sufficiently different to make an exception and to try and chemically regulate the benefit given?
For me, no.
Just on the Sherpa point.
His body is adapted to thinner air than ours. When he comes down to sea level, he is taking in more oxygen with every breath than he would get high up in the Himalayas, because the air is thicker down here. His body should then be able to process the extra oxygen in his bloodstream better. It would perhaps be like an athlete from any other race wearing an oxygen mask while running at sea level. Theoretically.
Sure, I was thinking more that sea level athletes would struggle at altitude more than his increased oxygen intake would benefit him at sea level.
Oh, okay. I don't know how much of an advantage he might have at sea level. For one thing, I don't know if all of the Sherpa "ethnic group" have the adaptation. But certainly for things like marathons, it should help.
I was merely speculating that, if the IOC were to propose rule changes to limit any given ethnic group, it would be extremely controversial, much more difficult to do than for a few women like CS.
Comments
If women feel that they are basically having to compete against men, then it's not right imo.
Like I say seperate races is the way to go.
We have a paralympics. We don't expect disabled to compete against abled bodies.
Your solution sounds the best idea.
Just got off the soap box as my feet are aching
Decided it was a Score draw in the End.
both chizz and Mutterly made valid points.
good banter on a serious subject for those involved.
CL at its best.
She has been born with a endocrine anomaly that through no fault of hers gives her an advantage over other female athletes.
I agree that a solution needs to be found that suits the sport but I think a little more sympathy for the girl in question needs to happen.
Up until now the difference between a man and a woman has been pretty easy to evaluate. But times change and I would like to see that transgendered women can compete as women. It will be fair as they will have lost the advantage that tesosterone brings. But it will require a tesosterone limit to define the difference between women's and men's sport. It is hard on the South African but I would probably be a star at blind football without having to work as hard as partially sighted or blind players. It isn't my fault I can see! But rules are applied which rightly means I can't compete. I do think the rules in some paralympic sports should be changed so that able bodied athletes can compete. In Blind football, I could play with a blindfold if I wanted. I would be crap, but I could. That would be fair in my eyes.
A long post, but there isn't a short answer here. It is all very complicated and those that make short justifications from both sides of teh argument, don't do the subject jsutice IMO.
Or do these rules only apply to women?
Do we then need multiple versions of every race?
As stated by somebody above, this is caused because of the way sport is segregated. We have the men, who are typically the best in any given event, then we give prizes to another group (in this case women) who being unable to compete with the men. That is the route chosen, we give awards to one subset of society and call them the best, apart from the many competitors with a biological advantage with whom they can't compete.
Semenya falls between these two groups, but whether should be allowed to compete in the sub-set or not is down to how the rules that govern eligibility are defined, and that will inevitably change over time. What is clear is that a "normal" female athlete has as much chance of beating Semenya as they have of beating a man. That is why you see the reactions you do, because women's sport is defined by the exclusion of the genetically superior (in sporting terms).
"Murali was born with extraordinary joints – not just the permanent kink in his elbow but also a double-jointed wrist which could rotate virtually 360 degrees and allow him to bend his hand so far back his middle finger touched his forearm. He should have been a contortionist rather than a cricketer."
Should the IOC draft a new set of rules now, just in case?
Oh, maybe he should be forced to live at sea level for a period of time to see if any possible advantage can be countered.
Or he could take drugs to limit his high oxygen take up rate at altitude.
Or they could have a specialist Nordic skiing at altitude event in the Winter Olympics.
I do have still a lot of sympathy for @MuttleyCAFC's position as well. If you were a female athlete who just could not build the muscle to compete against another athlete because your testosterone was not high enough, and you couldn't take testosterone supplements because they are performance enhancing, you'd be pretty cheesed off.
Like you would be if you were say an Australian cyclist whose funding was cut and so equipment and training was less good than that of the U.K.
Or competing against countries that have massive state sponsored programmes (probably more historic as this happens to some extent everywhere now) where competitors are groomed and trained from a very early age.
Is an increased testosterone production ability in a female athlete sufficiently different to make an exception and to try and chemically regulate the benefit given?
For me, no.
His body is adapted to thinner air than ours. When he comes down to sea level, he is taking in more oxygen with every breath than he would get high up in the Himalayas, because the air is thicker down here. His body should then be able to process the extra oxygen in his bloodstream better. It would perhaps be like an athlete from any other race wearing an oxygen mask while running at sea level. Theoretically.
I was merely speculating that, if the IOC were to propose rule changes to limit any given ethnic group, it would be extremely controversial, much more difficult to do than for a few women like CS.