Maybe I should have said "could" close the gap rather than "will" because there are a lot of factors at play.
But take the marathon.
In 40 years the mens has improved from 2:08:18 Di Costello, to 2:01:09 so 5.6% improvement and over the same time the ladies has gone from 2:26:12 Joan Benoit to 2:14:04 so 8.3% improvement.
I know it's just a random date and distance, but the gap has closed and I can see that the women could take another 5 minutes off that in the next decade, but 2 minutes would be a huge ask for the men.
So the closing gap, could close further.
Biggest issue though could be depth/numbers. More men running, bigger base and more quality and depth such as we see in some other sports.







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