Another Male vs Female Sports Comparison Question

[George Rice]

How was Bobby Riggs when he lost to Billy Jean King?

[jogsxyz]

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How was Bobby Riggs when he lost to Billy Jean King?

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That match doesn't count. Rumor is that Riggs bet on King.

[tipperdog]

I don't know what it illustrates, but for some of the sports you mentioned, the answer should be researchable and should yield a pretty accurate answer.

For the mile, the answer is 42 +/- a year or two. The women's outdoor mile record is 4:12. The Masters 40-45 age record is 4:09 and the 45-50 record is 4:18.

The marathon is harder to guess, because like golf, ability doesn't diminish in a linear pattern as one ages. However, your guess of 48 is WAY off. At the 2006 Boston Marathon, the women's championship time was 2:23. That beat the master's division (mens 40+) time of 2:26. The oldest man to beat 2:23 in the 2006 Boston race was 37. Obviously that gives you the answer only for the Boston course in 2006, but I can't see any reason to think it's different in other course in other years. So, I'm sticking with 37.

Other sports on the list can be similarly researched (Indy Car, Bowling).

Some other cannot, because men and women don't play against each other and/or the mens and women's games are sufficiently different to make comparison unreliable (football, baseball, basketball). In these cases, everyone is simply taking a guess.

However, it should be noted that for the track events, your guesses gave the old men way too much credit (hmm...I wonder what THAT illustrates).

[David Sklansky]

"However, it should be noted that for the track events, your guesses gave the old men way too much credit (hmm...I wonder what THAT illustrates)."

That there is no highly paid Masters competition like there is in Golf.

[tipperdog]

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David,

I think you're skewing a bit high on some of these, I'll give it some thought and respond later on most of these.

Marathon was one where I thought you were a few years high. I guessed about 40. You were a little closer than I thought, but still a few years high. A quick check finds this (all-time records):

2:15:25 Radcliffe, Paula

M 40 2:08:46 Andres Espinosa
Joshua Kipkemboi (43, KEN) 2:11:45
M 45 2:15:51 Kjell Erik Stahl

So, probably somewhere around 44 now.

I thought mile you'd be further off. Let's see.

M 40 4:02.53 David Moorcroft
M 45 4:16.75 David Sirl
M 50 4:27.9 Nolan Shaheed

4:12.56 by Svetlana Masterkova

So, very similar and just slightly lower, probably around 43 for that.

Interesting.

http://www.mastersathletics.net for lots of detail.

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Hi Diablo,

You can't look at Marathon world records, because all courses are different. This isn't true for the mile, where all tracks are basically the same. To answer the question for the marathon, I think you have to look at how men and women performed on the same course (see my above post using Boston '06 results...answer: age 37).

[gusmahler]

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Bowling


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As I mentioned in the other thread, the PBA tour is open to both men and women. While there is a seniors tour (50+), seniors are allowed on the regular tour, if they can earn an exemption or qualify for the event (events are limited to 64 bowlers; 56 (or so) bowlers are exempt).

There is currently one exempt woman on the tour (Kelly Kulick). And one exempt senior (Tom Baker). Baker is 53 year old. His last title was in 1997. He was on the verge of losing his exemption. Then he won the World Championship in 2004, earned himself a 5-year exemption on the tour.

Kulick won her exemption by finishing in the top 10 of the Tour Trials.

Baker is currently ahead of Kulick in the points standings (35th place versus 54th place).

So the correct answer is at least 53.

Of particular interest may be the "Ladies and Legends" event to be held in May 2007. For this one event only, female bowlers are allowed to compete against the men. The event turns into a team event: 1 female teamed with 1 senior, where the teams bowl against each other. However, the initial qualifying will be gender-neutral, so you can compare the results of the seniors against the results of the ladies.

http://pba.com/schedule/SeniorTourDetails.asp?EID=265

PS, it's also worth noting that Walter Ray Williams Jr. is perenially among the top 5 bowlers in the PBA. He's currently 47 years old. Pete Weber is also usually among the top bowlers. He's 45 years old.

[matt holland]

Sorry that I'm not following what we can deduce from these estimates, but I am curious what people think is the sport/activity listed above that the greatest # of men are better at than the best woman. I think it would be quarterback by a decent margin.

[eurythmech]

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Sorry that I'm not following what we can deduce from these estimates, but I am curious what people think is the sport/activity listed above that the greatest # of men are better at than the best woman. I think it would be quarterback by a decent margin.

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[pete fabrizio]

[ QUOTE ]
Sorry that I'm not following what we can deduce from these estimates, but I am curious what people think is the sport/activity listed above that the greatest # of men are better at than the best woman. I think it would be quarterback by a decent margin.

[/ QUOTE ]

Quarterback is kind of cheating, because women don't play football at any level. And it's such a skill position that if women actually DID play, I would expect the best female QB's would be better than a lot of younger, inexperienced males. For sports with relatively equal participation, it would probably be some track event. I think the speculation in the other thread was that the best female 100m runner is slower than most decent high school males.

[RockMySocks]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
David,

I think you're skewing a bit high on some of these, I'll give it some thought and respond later on most of these.

Marathon was one where I thought you were a few years high. I guessed about 40. You were a little closer than I thought, but still a few years high. A quick check finds this (all-time records):

2:15:25 Radcliffe, Paula

M 40 2:08:46 Andres Espinosa
Joshua Kipkemboi (43, KEN) 2:11:45
M 45 2:15:51 Kjell Erik Stahl

So, probably somewhere around 44 now.

I thought mile you'd be further off. Let's see.

M 40 4:02.53 David Moorcroft
M 45 4:16.75 David Sirl
M 50 4:27.9 Nolan Shaheed

4:12.56 by Svetlana Masterkova

So, very similar and just slightly lower, probably around 43 for that.

Interesting.

http://www.mastersathletics.net for lots of detail.

[/ QUOTE ]

Hi Diablo,

You can't look at Marathon world records, because all courses are different. This isn't true for the mile, where all tracks are basically the same. To answer the question for the marathon, I think you have to look at how men and women performed on the same course (see my above post using Boston '06 results...answer: age 37).

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el d's answer was fine...

nowadays, almost all marathon records (including age-group records) are set at either chicago, london, or berlin... all three courses are pancake-flat and offer large prize pools... i'm doing all of this off memory, but i believe espinoza (who trained with a friend of mine in mexico) set his record in berlin and radcliffe set her record in london...

boston is actually ineligible for world record purposes, as the course is point-to-point (the above courses are all loop courses) and will occasionally have a siginificant tailwind (as it did in 1994, when bob kempanien set the american record, which was later broken) which causes times to be considerably faster...

as far as those track times, eamonn coghlan of ireland actually ran under 4:00 for the mile at age 40 in an indoor track meet... nolan shaheed, the 50+ record-holder, used to coach another friend of mine (one of the top steeplechasers in the united states), and, interestingly enough, is a world-class jazz musician (and he only eats one meal a day!)...

being that the top tier of world-class runners (i.e., olympic gold medallists/world-record holders) give up serious racing LONG before they "deteriorate" to the level of top women (of the above list, only moorcroft and espinoza were world-class runners in their prime; whereas shaheed, stahl, and sirl were not), this merely becomes an exercise in speculation... that being said, i would put the "theoretical" age for the mile and marathon performances to converge very close to DS's initial guess ...