Discussion: Men, women, and rankings

Something I've been wondering for a while is why there isn't more separation in the math when ranking women. It seems that "suggested winning times" really apply to the men and that very few women will come close to the times that the top men post. Would creating "female suggested winning times" make things too complicated? Would people be offended? What about doing separate rankings calculations for men and women? That way the top women in, say F-21+, would be better than 90 rank points. Or does no one care enough? Does it matter?

(I guess the answer really is "no" since faster women would still be ranked higher than slower women...but I'm curious)

How about having separate 5K races? Say, if the men who show up typically win in 15:00, have a separate women's 5K course that would also be won in 15:00.
Sorry, couldn't resist.

Okay, everyone likes a sense of humor...

Now a more practical question. Has anyone looked into orienteering speed differences for men and women? Is it basically identical to running? (yes, I could probably figure it out myself, but if someone knows off hand...) I would make a guess as to differences created by the phyisicallity of the sport and the intellectual demands but I'd probaby piss off members of both genders.
And, again, maybe no one cares.

I vaguely recall reading somewhere that [international] elite women average 12 or 15% slower than elite men over the same distance. At the top level I would guess that this is entirely physical (i.e. the best men & women are not making mistakes.) you might find something different at lower percentiles e.g. in the US.

Actually, we threw around some numbers on okansas.blogspot (also click on the "ARCHIVED" comments for October 2 and 3). Some of the discussion, however, was based on bad data from some World Cups, so some initial conclusions there were flawed.
Kenny's numbers are correct. The event that would seem to give the clearest picture of the relative speed on a Medium course is the World Games in 2001; the women's course was essentially identical to the men's but 5% shorter (many times at IOF events, the women's course would not go through some of the more physically difficult areas). Hanne Staff was 13% slower than Grant Bluett, with the length difference accounted for.

As far as the top women's and men's "pure" running speeds, check out the world records at iaaf.org. Comparing the 3 km,  km, 10 km, half-, and marathon records, the respective speed differences are 10.3%, 14.3%, 11.9%, 12.6%, and 9.3%. I would take the mid-1990s Chinese records with much skepticism, however (the first three for women).
* Note: it is usually argued that for an orienteer, her/his 3 km speed is most relevant to IOF Medium, despite the difference in the race duration; 10 km is relevant to IOF Long; and half-marathon is not really relevant, much less the marathon.
There is more data on road races here.

While the top ranked F-21+ from last year is only around 90, one needs to consider sample size. Extreme values become more so as the sample increases. Looking at median rankings we see that F-21+ is 60, M35+, M40+, and M-18 are all around 64 while M45+ is 62. Still a discrepancy, but not enough of one to suggest that the course grouping is inappropriate.

Incidentally, this tight grouping is also the basis for my argument that all male red runners (or at least all over 35) should be lumped into a single group - but in the prize-happy USOF culture, that idea is definately a non-starter.

Oops, I meant M-20, not M-18.

Eric's mention of the statistics of the rankings is right -- the bigger the pool the better the results, ie extreme results good or bad have less effect on the overall rankings. In many events the F21 category is quite small and would not be statistically sound. Having been the Rankings Coordinator for several years (before Bill Cusworth) I know we always tried to get the pool bigger, including ranking Red X and Red Y together if they weren't too different. (Horrors!) Personally, I find it fun to compare myself to the men to see how I fit in with their rankings. I am resigned to earning lower points and that doesn't really bother me (especially since I personally can still get big points on Green). And of course it's true that the better/faster women will rank ahead of the not-as-good/slower women regardless.

Re ranking the Reds together: I meant, on a race-by-race basis, if the courses were pretty similar, we'd adjust for distance and rank them together. In some events we really couldn't do that (eg, the Connecticut meet last fall wouldn't have worked at all, with F21 having a short and long course on Sat & Sun respectively).

Eric Buckley is absolutely correct about the appropriateness of a single category for all men over 35 on Red, and about its prospects for coming to be.

Although note that at events where I work on results, they are posted by course, not by class, so all of these men (and the women as well) are all mixed together.

@jjcote: Third here

Why is this thread from 2003 awake again?

Zombie thread.

To produce some smoke.

I didn't even notice the 2003 dates until feet pointed it out, though its certainly not the first time. Perhaps Ken could somehow mark a thread 'resurrected' when a new post is added after some lengthy period of dormancy - say 3 or 6 months or something. Just a thought...

I didn't noticed dates either

Yikes, this is old!

Who was Grant Bluett?
;-}