Gurn Posted July 7, 2021 Share Posted July 7, 2021 AN article on how the IOC treats female competitiors, with a few eye opening tidbits thrown in about competitive advantages in other pro sports: https://www.msn.com/en-ca/sports/more-sports/rules-governing-olympic-runners-send-a-disturbing-message-to-female-athletes-especially-those-who-are-black/ar-AALRuZt?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531 At a track meet in Poland last week, Christine Mboma won the women's 400 metres in 48.54 seconds, the fastest time in the world this year. If you hadn't heard of her before that blazing fast run, that's normal. Mboma's an 18-year-old phenom from Namibia and a newcomer to the European circuit where established stars compete, and her clocking set a new world record for runners under 20. It also came two months after another Namibian teenager, Beatrice Masilingi, ran 49.53 over 400 metres at a small meet in Zambia. That time still stands as the seventh fastest worldwide this season — it's 1.3 seconds faster than any Canadian has run in 2021. Those two times, run so close together, by runners so young and from the same country, raised eyebrows. Namibia, after all, isn't a track and field powerhouse like Kenya. The country has produced exactly one Olympic medallist — sprinter Frankie Fredericks, who finished second to both Donovan Bailey (100 metres) and Michael Johnson (200) in Atlanta in 1996. The results also raised suspicions among officials at World Athletics, who dispatched doctors to Namibia so the two 18-year-olds could undergo "medical assessments." Those tests revealed neither runner was doping, which both already knew. But the examinations found that both women's bodies produce enough natural testosterone to violate World Athletics' convoluted rules on the hormone. Women — and only women — whose levels of natural testosterone exceed a limit World Athletics established in 2018, are barred from events between 400 metres and one mile, and faced with a choice. They can take drugs to lower their natural testosterone, courting a long list of side-effects to comply with World Athletics' guidelines. Or they can switch events, even if it places them at a competitive disadvantage. Mboma and Masilingi opted to drop down to the 200 metres, and the median sports fan, who might associate words like "testosterone" and "permissible limit" with intentional, illegal doping, thinks good-faith rule enforcement caught a pair of cheaters. From a distance, World Athletics appears to have restored competitive integrity to a high-profile event ahead of the Tokyo Olympics. Except there's a qualitative difference between anabolic steroids and naturally produced testosterone. Mboma's and Masilingi's default hormonal settings are no more an unfair advantage than Kawhi Leonard's giant hands, or keen eyes in Major League Baseball, where the average player sees with 20/13 vision. If you can picture MLB forcing left-handers with 100 mph heat and 20/10 vision to play first base, arguing their natural tools were unfair to regular players, then you can understand how arbitrary, targeted unfairness of World Athletics' testosterone guidelines. And if you realize a rule against sharp-eyed southpaw pitchers would create an artificially shallow talent pool in MLB, you can recognize the women's testosterone rule at World Athletics curates the field but diminishes the on-track product. Mboma and Masilingi, then, are resigned to their second-best event, collateral damage in World Athletics' ongoing, and ultimately successful, campaign to neutralize South African 800-metre runner Caster Semenya. After several false starts, the testosterone guidelines were codified in 2018. And while World Athletics leadership never specified that the rule targets Semenya, they apply only to the races in which Semenya excels, even though the group's own research found the strongest correlation between natural testosterone and performance in women's pole vault and hammer throw. That neither of those two events has a testosterone cap tells you World Athletics rule-makers understand that correlation doesn't always equal causation. If the simple presence of natural testosterone, and not the confluence of a constellation of attributes and skills, boosted women's pole vaulters above their peers, World Athletics would regulate that event the same way it does the 800. The rules only apply to Semenya's races, as if a hormone general enough to show up in every vertebrate on the planet is also specific enough to distinguish between the flat 400 and the 400-metre hurdles. ut the rule is less about testosterone than about using the hormone as a pretext to shut out Semenya, a two-time Olympic champion, and the fastest half-miler of her generation, along with peers who ran faster than rule-makers thought real women should. The 2018 guidelines have also chased the other two medallists from Rio, Burundi's Francine Niyonsaba and Kenya's Margaret Wambui, away from their preferred race. Semenya and Niyonsaba both moved to longer distances. Niyonsaba qualified for Tokyo in the 5,000 and 10,000, while Semenya fell short at 5,000. Wambui hasn't run a significant race since 2019, and recently called for World Athletics to create a third gender category rather than force women like her to choose between their best event and competing drug-free. If you've noticed that high-profile runners on the wrong side of the testosterone rule are all Black women from Sub-Saharan Africa, hold on. Indian sprinter Dutee Chand was tripped up by an early version of the rule, and regained her eligibility in 2015, with help from Toronto-based lawyers. Broadening our scope, we still see a rule that disproportionately affects women of colour from the global south. If we're willing to extend benefits of doubts, we can view the trend as an unfortunate coincidence. Otherwise, we can view the testosterone rule as one more half-baked regulation created in the toxic place where sexism and racism overlap. Its mechanism is different, but its spirit is the same as the FINA rule outlawing swim caps designed to fit Black women's hair, or the IOC cracking down on podium protests and Black Lives Matter gear. Either way, these rules send a disturbing message to young female athletes in general, and Black girls in particular. Run fast, but not too fast, lest you exceed some gatekeeper's expectations, trigger their suspicion and move them to act against you. Show too much speed and officials might ask you to take drugs to slow yourself down. But not marijuana. They'll ban you for that, too. Big picture, spectators lose. We won't get to see how teenage prodigy Mboma stacks up against established pros like Allyson Felix and Shaunnae Miller-Uibo in their preferred event. The sport loses. Olympic finals should pit the best against the best, and that can't happen if the owner of the world's fastest time can't even line up. And Mboma and Masilingi lose the most. Even World Athletics would acknowledge neither of them has cheated. They were simply written out of the rules, which is even more demeaning. 1 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post JM_ Posted July 7, 2021 Popular Post Share Posted July 7, 2021 Setting limits on a natural process is discrimination for sure. But this isn't really surprising given how new mothers have to fight for the right to compete we're working off a Victorian playbook when it comes to women in sport. 2 1 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post RUPERTKBD Posted July 7, 2021 Popular Post Share Posted July 7, 2021 Just finished reading the article...The author is exactly right in saying their elevated natural testosterone levels are no more unfair that basketball players having big hands, or the hand to eye coordination of baseball players. The arbitrary manner in which the IOC operates has been a joke for a long time and if it wasn't for FIFA, they'd be the most corrupt of the International sports organizations... 1 2 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Vinny in Vancouver Posted July 7, 2021 Popular Post Share Posted July 7, 2021 The irony here is that in these women's cases, they now need to take body-altering drugs just to be able to compete. 1 1 1 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fanuck Posted July 7, 2021 Share Posted July 7, 2021 I don't know how naive someone would have to be to actually believe that the Olympics are a fair event. It's no wonder that a corrupt organization like the NHL has little to no desire to relinquish control, even for a few weeks, to another totally corrupt organization like the IOC. 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
4petesake Posted July 7, 2021 Share Posted July 7, 2021 After reading this I searched who actually sits on the IOC expecting to see a huge group of wealthy old men creating rules to govern how women treat their bodies. I was shocked to see that roughly 1/3 of the 102 members were women. This makes my disappointment even greater knowing that garbage rules like this exist. I would like to hear the Canadian members Dick Pound, Hayley Wickenheiser and Tricia Smith speak to this. FTR the picture of the 44 honorary members shows exactly what I expected to find on the main body. Except for one woman exclusively old men. 2 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alflives Posted July 7, 2021 Share Posted July 7, 2021 If these girls have all the right parts, and no extra bits, let them run. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
-AJ- Posted July 7, 2021 Share Posted July 7, 2021 I guess maybe a solution is to just increase the maximum allowable testosterone levels? Seems like they have it too low. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RUPERTKBD Posted July 7, 2021 Share Posted July 7, 2021 1 hour ago, 6of1_halfdozenofother said: Perhaps, but in a way it's only dealing with the symptom and not the disease. It's like saying, "ok, basketball player - we'll accept hands that are at most 15" long, so your 14" hands are acceptable, but his 15.5" hands aren't", when in both situations, they're naturally-grown hands that haven't been artificially extended. I would push for eliminating any sort of testosterone level ban, and instead work towards identifying inorganically-introduced advantages, like taking anabolic steroids, and setting restrictions and bans on those. It just seems to simple and obvious.... ....apparently, too much so for the IOC.... 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RWMc1 Posted July 7, 2021 Share Posted July 7, 2021 (edited) It seems more racist than sexist. Edited July 7, 2021 by RWMc1 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChuckNORRIS4Cup Posted July 7, 2021 Share Posted July 7, 2021 (edited) I tried doing some looking at what the limit is, looks like in 2015 the IOC set the limit to 10nmol/L. The athlete's total testosterone level in serum must remain below 10 nmol/L throughout the period of desired eligibility to compete in the female category. But then in 2018 the IAAF separate from Olympics though, set this new rule. The regulations, proposed by the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) in 2018, state that women must have a blood testosterone level of 5 nmol/L or less at all times in order to compete. Doctors measure testosterone in nanomoles per litre (nmol/l) and the reported “normal” healthy range in males is anywhere from 9.2 to 31.8 nmol/L. It is about ten times lower in females, with “normal” levels considered to be between 0.3 and 2.4 nmol/L. Despite these lower levels in women, testosterone circulates in the blood at higher concentrations than oestrogen, the typical female hormone. But it is difficult to know what is the right level of testosterone, and these ranges are often not agreed on by experts from different societies, countries or laboratories. Now my question is what were these athletes nmol/L? It must of been pretty high... Edited July 7, 2021 by ChuckNORRIS4Cup Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
-AJ- Posted July 7, 2021 Share Posted July 7, 2021 3 hours ago, 6of1_halfdozenofother said: Perhaps, but in a way it's only dealing with the symptom and not the disease. It's like saying, "ok, basketball player - we'll accept hands that are at most 15" long, so your 14" hands are acceptable, but his 15.5" hands aren't", when in both situations, they're naturally-grown hands that haven't been artificially extended. I would push for eliminating any sort of testosterone level ban, and instead work towards identifying inorganically-introduced advantages, like taking anabolic steroids, and setting restrictions and bans on those. Maybe I'm wrong, but I assumed the rules were in place to avoid abuse by transgender athletes to dominate the womens categories. If the rules are simply to deal with drug usage in other ways like steroids, then a simple drug test does seem to be the most logical solution. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gurn Posted July 7, 2021 Author Share Posted July 7, 2021 Wonder if the allowance for tetosterone is already higher than found "normally". These athletes are trained to a much higher fitness level than "normal" so I would hope that was already factored in to the rules, that I don't agree with anyhow. Truly Tall people, are allowed to play basketball, even though that gives them an adavatage They can swim, even though their wingspan gives then an advantage etc, etc and so on. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ilunga Posted July 14, 2021 Share Posted July 14, 2021 On 7/8/2021 at 2:37 AM, Alflives said: If these girls have all the right parts, and no extra bits, let them run. What about intersex people ? Estimates for the US alone are there are 1- 2 people born with the reproductive or sexual anatomy that doesn't qualify as male or female. That's a lot of people out of 7 and half billion. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gurn Posted July 14, 2021 Author Share Posted July 14, 2021 11 minutes ago, Ilunga said: What about intersex people ? Estimates for the US alone are there are 1- 2 people born with the reproductive or sexual anatomy that doesn't qualify as male or female. That's a lot of people out of 7 and half billion. I think you might be missing a number? If it is 2 people for a population of 332 million then world wide that would be around 56 people. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ilunga Posted July 14, 2021 Share Posted July 14, 2021 1 hour ago, gurn said: I think you might be missing a number? If it is 2 people for a population of 332 million then world wide that would be around 56 people. Sorry,thanks for pointing that out. I missed the 1- 2 people out of every hundred. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gurn Posted July 14, 2021 Author Share Posted July 14, 2021 7 hours ago, Ilunga said: I missed the 1- 2 people out of every hundred. Now that would be a lot of people. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tortorella's Rant Posted July 14, 2021 Share Posted July 14, 2021 Meanwhile they're allowing a chemically altered 43 year old man with tits and long hair to crush women in their prime who have been training and competing all their life for this moment in powerlifting because they don't want to be labelled "bigoted" by some cowards on social media. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alflives Posted July 14, 2021 Share Posted July 14, 2021 5 minutes ago, Tortorella's Rant said: Meanwhile they're allowing a chemically altered 43 year old man with tits and long hair to crush women in their prime who have been training and competing all their life for this moment in powerlifting because they don't want to be labelled "bigoted" by some cowards on social media. Is that the guy from New Zealand? I remember when dr. Rene Richards got a sex change and went on the women’s tennis tour (I think he was mid 40’s) and did really well. This boys competing against girls is just very unfair. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tortorella's Rant Posted July 14, 2021 Share Posted July 14, 2021 7 minutes ago, Alflives said: Is that the guy from New Zealand? I remember when dr. Rene Richards got a sex change and went on the women’s tennis tour (I think he was mid 40’s) and did really well. This boys competing against girls is just very unfair. yeah, him. He bounced an actual female from the team in qualifications or whichever process they use to determine who goes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Please sign in to comment
You will be able to leave a comment after signing in
Sign In Now