Women winning outright

[Graham Breeze]

There was an interesting discussion on this in the "ScienceOfSport" podcast.
According to Prof Tucker, the fastest male at any given distance will always be faster than the fastest woman at that same distance.
The interesting part is that he also says, "it depends who your comparing against". If you pick a male and female who are matched at the half-marathon distance. The female will probably be the faster of the two over marathon, while the male will probably be the faster of the two over 10k.

It's at about 1h20min in this episode:
Science of sport podcast, series.5 ep.19

Yes. It is "interesting" but Tucker admits it depends how you do the matching. The Comrades is a bit special and if a man and woman can complete a marathon distance in 3 hours clearly the woman is relatively a "better" runner than the man and arguably should beat the man at the Comrades over full distance - she is just "better".

Presumably analysis could be made on the comparative male/ female "splits" of elite runners in say the London Marathon where conditions - nice flat tarmac - are comparable.

[Witton Park]

nice flat tarmac

I can't believe these words have emanated from your keyboard

[Graham Breeze]

I can't believe these words have emanated from your keyboard

Writing as a sub-3 hours marathon runner - everything is context.

[PiesAreGood]

Yes. It is "interesting" but Tucker admits it depends how you do the matching. The Comrades is a bit special and if a man and woman can complete a marathon distance in 3 hours clearly the woman is relatively a "better" runner than the man and arguably should beat the man at the Comrades over full distance - she is just "better".

Presumably analysis could be made on the comparative male/ female "splits" of elite runners in say the London Marathon where conditions - nice flat tarmac - are comparable.

I think that is pretty much what he was saying.
The best male marathoner will be faster than the best female marathoner.
The best male comrades-er will be faster than the best female comrades-er.
etc etc for other distances.

His slight nuance, was that if a particular male and female (pair) were matched at a distance. The female (of the pair) would probably be faster at longer distances but the male (of the pair) would probably be faster at shorter distances.

[noel]

His slight nuance, was that if a particular male and female (pair) were matched at a distance. The female (of the pair) would probably be faster at longer distances but the male (of the pair) would probably be faster at shorter distances.

If that were true, it would seem to suggest that the gap between men and women would narrow as distances become longer. But that's not true:

https://zigapskraba.com/2016/09/15/w...n-track-field/

Women's records are almost always about 10% slower than mens, across all distances: 100m to marathon. Which surprised me.

[Wardy]

https://www.racetecresults.com/resul...=20223&RId=120
Katie Walshaw came close at Whaley Waltz