This is only sort of true about rock climbing. I am 4’11’’ woman climber and while my size gives me some advantages – for example I can more easily use smaller holds because I have smaller hands and some moves are easier for me because I’m not as scrunched up – being small is an overall disadvantage. Harder routes and bouldering problems generally have longer reaches, and while sometimes I can make up for the reach with power and strength, if the holds are much farther than my wingspan I’m often shit out of luck. Also, across all genres of the sport (sport climbing, trad, bouldering) men have climbed “objectively” harder rated climbs than women–it appears they are just stronger on average. However, that doesn’t really affect climbers on a day to day basis since most climbers don’t climb to compete against others, but only against themselves and “the rock” – it’s more about pushing your own personal limits than trying to be better than someone else (unless you are a competition climber…).
Shooting events have been mixed- and non-mixed-gender in the Olympics. This article doesn’t give any stats on whether women are generally better or worse than men…seems to me that it’s a pretty level playing field.
Darts
I dunno, this one is kinda dubious in my opinion. Primarily because of the race schedules of the top athletes (you can only run so many 100 milers in a year), the fields can be imbalanced. If you had one definitive event, where all the best 100 milers showed up, i’d say there’d be almost zero chance of a woman winning. For example, one of the items in the Runner’s World link mentioned Pam Reed winning Badwater in 2002 and even setting the course record, but when Scott Jurek (a top male ultra runner at the time) ran it in 2005, he broke her course record by over 3 hours. Many top runners don’t run Badwater.
There is also competitive acrobatics. Patty Wagstaff has been the best or one of the best pilots in that sport for most of her adult life.
Some types of motorsports perhaps? Top level F1 and MotoGP require a lot of strength and endurance, but I dunno, stockcar racing?
I’m glad you put in that “even if” about the on-average figure, because of course you have yet to demonstrate that women are better on average than men in whatever endeavour you’re talking about. Anything based on physical strength, for instance, is most unlikely to put women ahead on average - or even anywhere in the frame, on average - unless for whatever reason you have to include, say, people whose medical conditions preclude them from any exertion at all; and even then I’m unsure of the ground you’re on.
Iditarod?
Maybe pool/billiards? Whacking the cue with tremendous force is not often your best tactic.
No, but that’s assuming there are no other talents men possess other than big muscles and a dick. Spatial awareness maybe? What are the facts on gender balance in top-flight pool?
I think that’s probably right, but the ability of women to to at least mix it with the top men definitely seems to be greater as the running distance increases (and the ground gets rougher), which is interesting. Plenty of top ten overall finishes from the best female fell runners over the longer distances.
Drop down the distances and the gap between men and women steadily increases.
I guess the problem with these sort of comparisons is that niche sports don’t really sample the talent pool all that effectively. Maybe if the world went ultra-fell running mad and everyone started doing it, then men would dominate conclusively.
The problem is that, in the vast majority of sports, men and women do not regularly compete against one another. Besides equestrian and vehicle racing, one of the few others I could find was NCAA shooting events. While the events are co-ed, TCU’s teamis all female and has won 2 of the last 3 NCAA championships.
4 of the last 10 scripps spelling bee winners have been female and a quick perusal through the rest makes it seem relatively gender balanced.
The gymnastics events that only women compete in. Can a man, with a higher CG, even *do *a comparable routine on the uneven parallel bars?
There’s also caving, where the smallest persons can go the most places.
Men and women do score approximately equal on spelling tests in general.
I can see how separating the sexes makes sense in events that require muscles. But why is competitive chess gender-separated?
It might be worth mentioning that women often take to rock climbing more easily than men. Because men are more used to using their upper body strength, they don’t use their legs enough when they start climbing. They rely too much on their arms, and women do better using their legs.
I think this evens out as they improve technically.
What about curling? It seems to be that should be pretty equal footing.
Incorrect. This has come up a few times on threads here. Top female billiards players are not competitive with the men. The reason is the break where a the top male’s strength means that they’ll average one to two extra balls sunk on the break. A much lesser effect is a longer reach.
I have seen this asked and answered. Apparently both sweeping (in some circumstances) and peeling shots (again, in some cases) require big muscles.