There seem to be a few of these threads popping up lately. Since the “man vs woman in a fight” thread seemed popular, I thought I’d ask that about sports. In what sports and at what training disparity would men (boys?) and women be an even match?
I know a bit about this in soccer. The US women’s national team, which is one of the better in the world, sometimes plays against youth clubs. They seem to do ok against kids up to 16ish, and then get demolished after that. Sure these are generally kids that are going to be playing division 1 soccer, but still.
How would a WNBA team do against really bad (200+ rpi) college teams?
I think a WNBA team would be hard pressed to beat a decent D3 school in basketball. Lisa Leslie is a 3 time MVP center at 6’5" 175 pounds. Even a D3 school is probably going to have someone a few inches taller, 60-70 pounds heavier, and quicker. I think they would be hard pressed to even beat some of the best high school teams in the country. For example, Kevin Durant and Greg Oden were seniors in high school last year. Who in the WNBA is going to stop a 6’10" SF that shoots 40% from the 3, or a 7 foot athletic center?
The best women’s pro basketball team would be hard pressed to beat any Division I college team. They would be too strong and too fast for the women. The speed and strength would make a huge difference as the men would be able to get just about every rebound and they would likely score on a lot of layups and putbacks.
The women who would have to hit an incredible amount of three point shots.
She’s even admitted this. She was on Conan and Conan asked if she ever thought a woman could play in the NBA. Her response was ‘no way.’ She mentioned she’s 6’5, and one of the tallest centers in the WNBA, and if she were in the NBA she’d have to be, in her own words, “the little fast guy.”
My nephew, 14 at the time, played against the WNT a couple of times. Beat them the first time (mostly against the reserves); 0-0 the second time (mostly starters this time).
Exactly. I know in the past, the Kentucky women’s team has recruited college-age male former high school players to practice against because it gives them a similar skill/ability level to practice against.
I can’t imagine the bloodbath that would result from a D-I men’s team playing them.
That was Karsten Braasch, and I think he was ranked around 200 in the world at the time. As I like to note, in the interest of fairness, that was well before the Williams sisters peaked and became the dominant players in the world. Still, there’s no way a top woman competes with a man in the top 100 or 200, if not lower. Here the story according to Braasch:
I thought bowling would be pretty evenly matched but doing some research on the Pro Bowlers tour shows the best woman coming in around 50th as far as average score and points ranking.
I thought Table Tennis might be the answer, but the top-ranked female internationally would be at spot #100 on the Men’s list. Cite. Overall, combining the men’s and women’s rankings would yield 99M v 1W in the top 100 and 84M v 16W in the next 100.
Yeah I would have thought that too. But if you go into your local bowling alley and check out the Top Scores board, the men’s side will have higher top scores and more 300’s than the women.
I think at that point it just comes down to strength. If both groups have equal accuracy and one can routinely use a 16# ball and throw it with more “oomph,” that group is going to win.
In aerobatic competition flying however, Patty Wagstaff would still take it all or at least she would during her prime. The sport is hardly unathletic and I have heard that women might have an advantage because they can withstand g-forces better than men.
I’m having trouble articulating the distinction, but I think most everyone would agree that motorized racing sports fall into a different category of “athletic” than the typical definition. There’s little argument that NASCAR, competition flying, motocross, yacht racing and the like aren’t physically demanding in their own way, but I’m not sure many people are going to argue that it’s the more athletic person who wins any of those events.
Basically the driver just has to be athletic enough to not fuck things up and the vehicle does all the competing. Tactics and execution matter, but the same would be said of chess. And I don’t think that qualifies as a sport.
Perhaps I’m mistaken. A quick wikipedia search shows that the mens record is about 6 minutes faster than the womens. This is closer than record marathon times. I’m not totally convinced either way, do you have a cite for your statement?
