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Thread: Women and men competing in open sports against each other

  1. #1
    Grand Master RustyBin5's Avatar
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    Women and men competing in open sports against each other

    Pondered this the other day. Other than mixed team events like tennis,badminton, table tennis, curling and ice skating I was trying to think of “sports” where men compete v women on an open equal footing.

    The first thought was of course the general difference in physicality so you wouldn’t get boxing, football, rugby, running etc, but where it’s not purely strength based then there must be examples where we can compete with each other. I did come up with a few ....

    1. Equestrianism - all 3 disciplines - showjumping cross country and dressage
    2. Horse racing - flat and jumps
    3. Motorsports - although strangely only 4 wheel varieties - couldn’t see motorbike examples
    4. Sailing - ocean racing (long distance only)
    5. Climbing - an extremely physical one and delighted to see this is generally open competition
    6. Chess - ok cerebral - and is it “sport” - different debate there but yes it’s unisex

    Next there were some question marks for me - ie these are NOT open competition but I see no reason why. The likes of darts and pool / snooker, shooting, archery. Can anyone explain why these aren’t open competition ????

  2. #2
    Master Christian's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by RustyBin5 View Post
    Next there were some question marks for me - ie these are NOT open competition but I see no reason why. The likes of darts and pool / snooker, shooting, archery. Can anyone explain why these aren’t open competition ????
    Purely conjecture but my first thought is I suspect its down to numbers...for every female that plays darts, pool, snooker, chess etc there are probably a thousand men, due to culture. With that ratio, the higher number will always dominate the sport purely on statistics.

    Tennis doubles only works because it is male and female versus male and female. At the highest level, put two men one side of the net and two women the other and it will make for an extremely one sided game.

  3. #3
    Grand Master RustyBin5's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Christian View Post
    Purely conjecture but my first thought is I suspect its down to numbers...for every female that plays darts, pool, snooker, chess etc there are probably a thousand men, due to culture. With that ratio, the higher number will always dominate the sport purely on statistics.

    Tennis doubles only works because it is male and female versus male and female. At the highest level, put two men one side of the net and two women the other and it will make for an extremely one sided game.
    Chess is open competition - Judit Polgar is the best known and regularly competes against the men

  4. #4
    Master Mouse's Avatar
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    Quite a few women in Irish Road Racing. Also some in Moto3/Supersport (María Herrera, Ana Carrasco)

  5. #5
    Master sean's Avatar
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    American Ninja Warrior.



    It's a sport, isn't it?

  6. #6
    Grand Master RustyBin5's Avatar
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    Lawn bowls there’s another. I see no reason why separate men and women’s titles.

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