Discussion: Male/Female equivalence

In another thread, lazydave wrote:
Hopefully if so it will be 'real' classic length or why not an ultra long with say 120min winning time for men, equivalent for women (sorry ignorant as to what it should be, 100min?).

Thsi topic came up when I was on the course setting team for WOC93. As far as were were concerned, the equivalent winning time for women in that circumstance would be... 120 minutes! The IOF controllers felt otherwise, but it was our opinion that their reasons did not make sense. Anyone care to comment on this matter?

Yes, I've never understood why women's courses are not only shorter, but also have a quicker expected winning time. Women can handle two hour runs just as well as the men can!

Personally, I think the expected winning time for both men and women should be the same (and hence the women's course should be a bit shorter to compensate for the fact that men are faster).

I totally agree wit Kat. This is an opinion I´ve had for many years, but the 'official' (IOF&national federations) feelings apparently haven´t been the same.

There appears to be a very strong bias in Europe against testing female endurance. I ran into this quite a bit in bike racing. I never got a very convincing explanation, but the closest was that because women's fields are smaller and not as deep, the extra distance to sort things out wasn't necessary. While it's true that I've seen a lot more women's races get blown apart early on, I've also seen that happen in men's fields when the distance is shorter. Tactical racing is a result of longer distance, not what mandates it.

Anyway, back to O: if anything, I'd think the women could handle longer time on course. Most women also run fixed length running events where they have to go as far as the men, but generally take about 15% longer to do it.

When fixed length running events go *really* long, women occasionally win overall.

Maybe we need Long and Ultralong categories to keep everyone happy. The winning time for the so-called Long in my category (at least by Canadian O standards) is supposed to be 45-50 minutes. As an adventure racer, it takes me that long to warm up!

The daughter of a top local orienteer (at the time) was turned off by orienteering and cross country skiing because she was not allowed to race the same distance as men (note: not time but distance). "Are these sports trying to say that women are weaker?" - I recall her saying.

Different winning times for different categories also works against the sport in a marketing way as well. It would be so much easier if winning times were standard for at least most categories. 15, 30, 90, 180 minutes for sprint, middle, long and ultra, for example.

(Bash, start your warm-up 45 minutes early and hit the start line runnin').

I'm sure the girl above was allowed to race the same distance as men - to the best of my knowledge there's nothing stopping women from entering the "men's" race. If she doesn't think women are weaker then she should try to beat the men!

I agree with Kat on this one - same time, less distance (because it's pretty much fact that we can't run as fast as the guys over this distance). Does anyone know the "official" IOF reasoning for their stance?

At the moment we are comparable to tennis (women only play best of 3 sets in grand slams - for the same prize money!**), when we should be comparable to athletics (at least the running disciplines). Women like Simone and Hanny are running marathons, so why do they have shorter winning times at WOC?
(And in athletics maybe they should review the need for different weight shot, discus etc and give women a decathlon instead of a heptathlon.)

** Mind you, 5 sets with 2 women baseliners would be boring as hell. Maybe some of them would start coming to the net!

Yes, women (and masters men, etc.) often choose to race in longer or more technically difficult categories if they want to get a better workout, but they do so at the cost of being competitive in the event. People should have an opportunity to race against others of similar ability/speed in longer and more difficult events - in addition to the short events we already have. Entering other categories doesn't solve that. Just because you can run for 100 minutes doesn't mean you can do it as fast as a 21-year-old guy.

Some of the best ultrarunners -male and female - are in their forties. There have been past discussions on Attackpoint suggesting that running ability doesn't drop off much until the late forties. So why would a 45-minute race be considered "long" for a 45-year-old woman? It sounds like one of those quaint traditions, like not letting women run in the Boston Marathon for so many decades because it was too much for their delicate constitutions.

P.S. Yes Coach Hammer, you are right. I'm a lousy warmer upper.

I think (although I'm not positive) that the reason that women have the heptathlon is that they have fewer upper-body strength events, so since there wasn't a women's pole vault until recently, there's no pole vault in the multisport event, etc.

I can't remember the specific reason cited in 1993 for shorter times for the women (probably something like what Bash mentions above), and I can't be sure that the reasoning of the controllers was the official IOF position anyway. But I can tell you what we thought the unstated reason was. The start window for the Classic was the same for men and women. And the way the start list was set up, the likely winners would be going out near the end. If winning time for the two races were the same, then the big moment of suspense would be happening at the same time for the men and the women. That was not okay from a media perspective, they wanted to make sure that the women's race was over and done with before the climax came in the "real" race. Same deal with the Middle Distance final. And once they had that position, the shorter times for women had to propagate to all races.

Decathlon has 100m, 400m, 1500m, 110m hurdles, long jump, high jump, pole vault, discus, javelin, shot. Heptathlon is 200m, 800m, 100m hurdles, long jump, high jump, javelin, shot. Can't see why they wouldn't make them the same. However, it occurs to me that the case for hurdles is probably due to physical differences alone, ie the height difference in the hurdles may be justified, and perhaps the extra 10m is due to the number of strides required between hurdles?

I'm not an authority on anything orienteering, but here are my thoughts. When introduced to O a couple of years back my immediate impression of blue(men) vs. red(women) was that it was strangely archaic. Further, coming from a multisport/endurance background, I thought the idea of men and woman in there mid/late 30s and 40s dropping down into shorter course was just backwards.

Woman are indeed perfectly capable of running just as far as men and maintaining a consistent level of performance throughout a longer race. In just about every other sprinting or endurance sport they do exactly that (track & field, triathlon, xterra, marathons, etc.). In these sports it's perfectly alright for woman to finish with a time that is typically between 15%-25% slower than the men.

The one thing that I think O categories are good for, is the developmental aspect of them. Naturally, starting children on shorter less technical courses and then building their way up makes total sense, for a sport that requires not only physical ability but such intensive mental focus as well.

Having said all this there are indeed some logistical challenges with men and women running the same course, at least at the elite level. For example, if women are seeded with the men then you will have a lot of over-running taking place. This happens a lot anyways so this may or may not be a bad thing. Perhaps men and women could run two different courses of equal distance to avoid such a problem. Maybe they run the same course but start the equivalent of 30% of course time before the men.

My first feeling was that men and women orienteers should run the same distance. However, what do the sports scientists say? Is the amount of time you run the meter for an equivalent overall effort in a comparison between men and women? Is a woman running 8k(20% less) at her top pace an equivalent effort to a male running 10k at his top output? This is the way I now think of the whole blue/red concept. However, I don't believe that women should be expected to run with an overall lower net effort, for example: shorter distance with a shorter finishing time. That, I feel, is undermining a woman's role in orienteering.

In conclusion: In my family, all this goes out the window, because I've yet to beat my wife in any orienteering race, and yet still on most occasions I run blue and she runs red :o)

Don't feel badly. There aren't many people who can beat your wife in an orienteering race.

Thanks jjcote - You have raised an important issue which needs to be taken to the IOF. It's quite clear that women should indeed have the same planned "Winning times" and therefore slightly shorter distances than men. IOF and most National Associations have been over protective and patronising for decades and its overdue for change.