Rating The Best Woman In Each Sport Part 1

[David Sklansky]

Where would the best woman in each of the following sports be ranked if the rankings were unisex?

Tennis

Golf

100 Meters

Marathon

Softball

16 lb Shot Put

[ALawPoker]

I don't have the desire right now to do justice to an actual estimation, but I'll list the sports you give in order, from where the female would rank the highest down to the lowest (this is without looking up times/marks/and inter-sex records, so it's possible that I'm missing something obvious):

Golf

Marathon (only the select demographic of male that trains himself in the marathon has a shot, so this one's high, not as high as golf though imo)

Softball (this is weird, it basically comes down to pitching... how many males are there, in highly competitive soft-ball leagues presumably, who can pitch as well as the best professional female... then you have to roughly double that number to make up for the number of offensive players who are equally valuable... this is the one I'm least sure about)

Tennis

Shot put (not many compete here either, but differently than the marathon, any male who did at one time... high school, college, whatever... throw shot put and is still in reasonably decent shape will still be able to beat world class females, if he was very good at it in the first place, i.e. you do not lose as much [compared to the marathon] if you are not in peak shape... I don't know a whole lot about shot put marks, but I'd imagine plenty of talented college throwers would outperform world-class females... with the marathon, the only people who have a shot are people who are conditioned for it currently, and that isn't a large sample)

100 M (even talented division III male sprinters would beat a world class female... every single division I runner would also... then add in the professionals and etc., and I think this one is definitely the lowest)

[MexKrax]

I think coming up with a ranking for the marathon would be easiest since we can just compare the times of the top male and female runners. With a quick google search I found that the winner of the women's marathon in the last Olympics finished in 2h 26min. If she ran the same time in the men's marthon this would be good for 62nd place.

As far as I know the men and women ran the same course in the Olympics. I also think it's a fair assumption that all (or a great majority) of the world's top marathoners were competing in that marathon. So I think it's pretty fair to say that in a unisex ranking of marathon runners the top woman would be somewhere around 60th place.

[Dan R]

In an actual unisex sport different results from current results may occur. This is because facing different levels of competition may result in different times, measurements, and scores. But it might be useful to compare women's and men's times, measurements, and scores in the 100 meters, marathon, 16 lb. shot put, and golf(if playing on the same course) as they currently stand, and come up with a ranking of where everyone would stand if the sports were unisex.

I have no real idea for tennis, I would guess serving speed may be greatly relevant. For softball, if it was fast pitch the women pitchers would rank really high right now, unless there are a lot of men training in those throws.

[Braden99]

I know for a fact that top female tennis pros train with men ranked worse than 300 and get smoked in straight sets. I would say the best woman would maybe be 400-500.

[deadfromsuckouts]

Poker is the best equalizer-they (women) should push their way into poker. Their expectation is WAY HIGHER than any other unisex sport.

[ALawPoker]

[ QUOTE ]
I found that the winner of the women's marathon in the last Olympics finished in 2h 26min. If she ran the same time in the men's marthon this would be good for 62nd place.

[/ QUOTE ]

That being the case, I change my answer to put marathon above golf. I didn't realize the top female would be quite so high. And yes, I'm pretty sure you're right that they use the same course for both men and women (I think it's simultaneous, if not, weather conditions are potentially a factor).

OTOH, I wonder if all of the best marathoners actually compete in the Olympics. With most track and field events, there are athletes who don't qualify for the U.S. team (because they only take so many) who would still outperform many athletes who do compete. I'm not sure if this is the case with the marathon, both because of the relative less interest, and the fact that the USA is not dominant in this event as in most others. There might be other issues though, like some of the African countries not being able to afford to send a large team. I'm not really sure. But we should contrast this result with the male/female results at the New York and Boston marathons.

[Bibigon]

With softball, it's a question of if MLB players competed or not. If they did, then I suspect we're dealing with 1000+ players better than the best woman, although that's hard to be sure of because of positional questions.

Jennie Finch, probably the best female softball pitcher for instance however throws 71 mph, which is well below where just about any MLB pitcher other than Tim Wakefield would end up throwing even if they switched to an underhand motion. Velocity isn't everything, but it is indicative of some underlying physical characteristics.

[ALawPoker]

[ QUOTE ]
Jennie Finch, probably the best female softball pitcher for instance however throws 71 mph, which is well below where just about any MLB pitcher other than Tim Wakefield would end up throwing even if they switched to an underhand motion. Velocity isn't everything, but it is indicative of some underlying physical characteristics.

[/ QUOTE ]

Keep in mind, this isn't a hypothetical where the males have incentive to hone the craft. I'm reasonably sure that any MLB pitcher would not be anywhere close to a conditioned female softball pitcher just because he has good arm strength. It's an entirely different motion. The main competition for the professional female pitchers would, imo, come from competitive adult leagues (perhaps consisting of retired pro ball players, former college ball players, etc.).

[goofball]

Softball-
For positions other then pitcher I would expect the top ranked player at each position to be the top ranked corresponding baseball player.

Shot put-
I think women wouldn't do terribly here. First, the number of shot putters is low, and second have you seen women bodybuilders? Women can artificially put on a lot of bulk using steroids.