athletes' "obligation" to fans

[user4]

At end of the day the OG is about winning, nothing else - and Semenya did that. And that is all Semenya had to do - just like Farah.

And she did it with a real balzy effort and for that im satisfied.

[18.99s]

Ultimately the "men/male" and "women/female" labels need to be dropped, because the debate to define those will never end. The IAAF took one step in the right direction when they decided on the testosterone cutoff for women.

Replace those sex-based labels with something like "open" and "low-T", so there will be a simple to measure and objective standard.

[18.99s]

One has to suspect that the "nebs" (and that is 100% NOT meant in any disparaging sense) have long been major players in the game; it's only just now that modern science and testing is making their existence a much more open fact.

I am inclined to believe that is true, especially after learning that intersex individuals don't always look anywhere as masculine as Semenya.

But that has led me to become increasingly skeptical of women's world records in T&F and swimming set by athletes who have never been pregnant, particularly where nobody else very close to the WR has ever been pregnant either. I have to stop and wonder if such performances are beyond the reach of all women who aren't in the "nebulous" zone. There is one prominent swimmer who I hope will break my skepticism by having a child later in life, but I'm not counting on it.

[Powell]

One has to suspect that the "nebs" (and that is 100% NOT meant in any disparaging sense) have long been major players in the game; it's only just now that modern science and testing is making their existence a much more open fact.

There were multiple cases of athletes DQed from women's competition before WWII (including WR holders Zdenka Koubkova and Dora Ratjen), so the fact has been open for a long time.

[Guest]

There is a very wide spectrum of people that can be considered women. Indeed some people whom society considers women are actually somewhere between man and woman. And the spectrum is very wide. Some female athletes, are much closer to a typical male athlete in terms of morphology, muscle structure and other aspects. Science has proven that such women exist.. Such a woman would be quite capable of breaking 47.50 in the 400m and 3:50 in the 1500m. Indeed we have no way of knowing how fast such a woman can run.

For the sake of discussion I will call this hypothetical person Hypo Neb. Here's how she would compare to Kratochvilova's 2/4/8 achievements, based on the current IAAF scoring tables. I think 1:50 is a reasonable estimate of what a 47.6/3:50 runner could do.

HYPO NEB 3917

1291 47.59
1288 3:49.96
1338 1:49.99

= 3.5% better than JK scores across 2/4/8 (3785)

That is a considerably bigger jump than Flojo made over Evelyn Ashford when she took the 100 record down from 10.76 to 10.49.

By way of comparison these 3 have scored:

Olizarenko 3672 (4/8/15)
Semenya 3617 (4/8/15)
Quirot 3607 (2/4/8) also 3573 (4/8/15)

Obviously Semenya's potential over 4 and 15 is still not fully tapped and she could run quicker in those 2 with time.

Hypo(thetical)Nebbie will be quite the gal!

[tandfman]

Ultimately the "men/male" and "women/female" labels need to be dropped, because the debate to define those will never end. The IAAF took one step in the right direction when they decided on the testosterone cutoff for women.

Replace those sex-based labels with something like "open" and "low-T", so there will be a simple to measure and objective standard.

That's really gonna help sell the sport, right?

Gimme a break.

[Guest]

Ultimately the "men/male" and "women/female" labels need to be dropped, because the debate to define those will never end. The IAAF took one step in the right direction when they decided on the testosterone cutoff for women.

Outside of some very small circles there isn't much of a debate. I'd wager the vast majority of the human population has no time for splitting hairs over whether their daughters should be considered female.

[gh]

There were multiple cases of athletes DQed from women's competition before WWII (including WR holders Zdenka Koubkova and Dora Ratjen), so the fact has been open for a long time.

wow! I had always been under the impression that Ratjen was merely a man masquerading as a woman, and bought into the legend that he/she had been forced to do so by the Nazis.

This Wiki article presents a totally different picture:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dora_Ratjen

[NotDutra5]

One has to suspect that the "nebs" (and that is 100% NOT meant in any disparaging sense) have long been major players in the game; it's only just now that modern science and testing is making their existence a much more open fact.

Tend to agree here.

[18.99s]

Outside of some very small circles there isn't much of a debate. I'd wager the vast majority of the human population has no time for splitting hairs over whether their daughters should be considered female.

But I was talking about the very small circle of athletes in elite level sports, and I think that is what this thread is about. Not people in general in everyday life.

[Guest]

Ultimately the "men/male" and "women/female" labels need to be dropped, because the debate to define those will never end. The IAAF took one step in the right direction when they decided on the testosterone cutoff for women.

Replace those sex-based labels with something like "open" and "low-T", so there will be a simple to measure and objective standard.

But I was talking about the very small circle of athletes in elite level sports, and I think that is what this thread is about. Not people in general in everyday life.

Do you mean that the logical endpoint of the debate as it now stands in the world of elite level sports leads in that direction? I won't pretend to be an expert on how deep or fierce the debate is within athletics, because I really don't know. (I thought the debate was more or less confined to scientific places, with the odd foray from journalists and a few other curious types.) I wasn't aware that there was much of a movement to drop the male /female categories, in any sport. But perhaps that isn't what you mean. As tandfman pointed out, that won't make the sport terribly "attractive" to the general public.

[18.99s]

Do you mean that the logical endpoint of the debate as it now stands in the world of elite level sports leads in that direction?

The current direction is towards expanding the range of who is allowed to compete as female, which will make the separation of male from female become meaningless if it goes too far.

It's becoming increasingly harder to exclude people from competing as female when they've been legally declared as female and they self-identify as female. Heck, some states already allow anatomically male high school athletes to compete as girls based on their gender identity.

My point was that the "male" and "female" labels should be dropped as a way to counteract that direction. Otherwise the social, psychological, and legal ramifications of those gender labels will be used to further undermine the physical and biological reasons for separating males from females in sports.

[26mi235]

I read the situation differently, I think CAS wanted to have a more detailed case presented and the IAAF thought that they had done enough before and will almost certainly have more documentation and support this time around.