In the last 11 Olympics, Sub-Saharan men have earned 87 of 88 finalist berths in the 100m dash, but black women garnered only 74 of 88. Why the Sex Gap in the Race Gap?
You're free to form any hypothesis you like but you have zero evidence that the male distribution in sprinting is wider than the female distribution in sprinting. Also your hypothesis doesn't address the racial issue at all. It's irrelevant to that.
LOL It's like when America wins some international math competition and the entire team is filled with Chinese-American children. The women's table tennis team is the same way; if they and the Chinese team were not wearing uniforms you would think they were 8 teammates 🤣
If the athletes are called "sprinters" then the race is called the 100 meter sprint. A dash, besides being a keystroke, seems a shorter distance, perhaps 25 meters max
Speculation on why black men sprints dominate more than black women:
(1) Greater sexual dimorphism among black people due to being closer to the r-pole in the r-K strategy continuum. Greater sexual dimorphism would mean that the delta in athleticism would be greater between the black sexes than the white sexes. This has almost surely already been studied, but I haven't seen this confirmed (if anything, I had this impression that whites were more sexually dimorphic--but that could be that Westerners overestimate how masculine black women are in some objective sense.)
Another problem with this theory is that Asians break this pattern. It would predict that Asians have the smallest delta of all, but as you noted (and as my anecdotal experience). Growing up, I knew a couple of Asian dudes who were low-key nasty at sports--including more physical ones. But Asian women always seemed uninterested in athletics, except for some of the more dainty ones like swimming, golf, and tennis.
(2) Better training/talent scouting for white women than for black women. This is the main explanation for why rich nations like the US tend to dominate sports like soccer. While male sports is popular everywhere (so performance is pretty close to the genetic limits of the corresponding country), female sports has a wide disparity in popularity depending on the wealth of the country.
But this makes less sense for sprinting than it does for soccer. Soccer is highly technical sport that takes years of investment and practice. Is it really possible that Olympic-level black female sprinters are falling through the cracks? I guess if they *never* try out for a sports team, it's possible.
(3) PEDs. As you noted, a lot of the white sprinters come from ex-Soviet union which was known for their rampant PED usage. PED usage is more impactful for women than for men due their naturally lower testosterone, so this would explain why Soviet women could make the leap to best in the world while Soviet men still couldn't outrun those of West African descent.
PEDs is surely part of the story (maybe as much as 50% of the story), but there is still some delta that is left over that needs to be explained.
Hypothesis: The more that nurture/culture is improved through relentless competition and the spread of 'best practices' in nurture, the more the results will reflect nature rather than nurture.
Men are more devoted to sports in general, so most of the best male athletes end up using the best possible nurture to max out their natural potential, and their results are more reflective of their nature.
Women are more lackadaisical about sports, so a lot of the women with the best natural gifts don't end up using the best possible nurture to compete at 100% of their natural potential, and their results are more reflective of their nurture.
It's the sex-based opposite of the situation with grades and testing in school. In school, conscientious women mostly study hard, and their test results ought to reflect their natural gifts more perfectly, while a lot of men underuse their gifts, so their results reflect more of their nurture.
Competitiveness is a major male/female personality difference, but women conform more to social pressures. A friend's daughter is an extraordinary natural swimmer. But she just doesn't have a competitive personality -- she was even known to let other girls win at swim meets if she felt sorry for them! She eventually ended up quitting swim team, even though she still loves to swim non-competitively. In this case, her parents didn't fight it too hard. But it's easier to imagine a girl being pressured by parents into sticking with athletics in America than in Africa, or noticing that more female peers play sports here and therefore deciding to stick with sports.
Neuromuscular efficiency, i.e., explosiveness manifesting as a high standing vertical jump, in women is far less than that of men with a far broader distribution, i.e., fewer outliers on the far or elite end. In other words, being women crowds out the woman's race generally.
That makes zero sense. Olympic athletes are far enough into the right tail that the overall distribution doesn't matter much. Your chance of being someone capable of winning in the Olympics is pretty near zero no matter what ethnic distribution you are part of,
How fishy is Su Bingtian? He ran 9.8 in the Olympics - at age 31! - and has done nothing since. He finished last in the semi-final at the 2022 World Championships running 10.3, which would have been the 8th fastest time for American high school boys this year.
If he was from Canada, I'd be suspicious. But China? The internet tells me it's because in 2014 he switched to starting with his left foot forward. And his coach swears the whole Chinese team is 100% clean.
Makes sense if you look at all humans in aggregate. If blacks are faster on average the fastest humans of all (men's 100m) are going to be blacker than the fastest of a subset that is slower on average (females) but proportionately just as black.
Just as there are more male morons and male geniuses - the male distribution is spread out further into the tails.
Is it possible that the effects of testosterone drive outliers further in the male population?
You're free to form any hypothesis you like but you have zero evidence that the male distribution in sprinting is wider than the female distribution in sprinting. Also your hypothesis doesn't address the racial issue at all. It's irrelevant to that.
Another way to present that data:
.
2008 to 2024:
2 white-female top Olympic sprinters / 40 total = 5%
.
1980 to 2004:
12 white-female top Olympic sprinters / 48 total = 25%
.
Did white-females get worse at sprinting?
Maybe sports participation wasn't very high for black women in many countries back then.
Did the same decline happen within say the US?
Could be that plus the Communist countries use of steroids.
Steve might want to comment on the Math Olympiad. A very different ethnic picture to the Olympics.
The teams are listed by name, allowing one to deduce the participants are heavily Chinese in both Canada and the US.
Have you taken a gander at the American table tennis team? 🤣
No I’m not watching the Olympics.
LOL It's like when America wins some international math competition and the entire team is filled with Chinese-American children. The women's table tennis team is the same way; if they and the Chinese team were not wearing uniforms you would think they were 8 teammates 🤣
If the athletes are called "sprinters" then the race is called the 100 meter sprint. A dash, besides being a keystroke, seems a shorter distance, perhaps 25 meters max
Seems to who?
Regret to advise the guy's name is "Hinchliffe." There is no second c. Previous article had same issue.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louie_Hinchliffe?wprov=sfla1
Steve,
One should look at team sports, how many teams where majority of the team members have a parent who comes from Africa has one a medal.
Of course, one could also try to explain the genetics of South Korea dominating archery.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archery_at_the_2020_Summer_Olympics_%E2%80%93_Women%27s_individual
Speculation on why black men sprints dominate more than black women:
(1) Greater sexual dimorphism among black people due to being closer to the r-pole in the r-K strategy continuum. Greater sexual dimorphism would mean that the delta in athleticism would be greater between the black sexes than the white sexes. This has almost surely already been studied, but I haven't seen this confirmed (if anything, I had this impression that whites were more sexually dimorphic--but that could be that Westerners overestimate how masculine black women are in some objective sense.)
Another problem with this theory is that Asians break this pattern. It would predict that Asians have the smallest delta of all, but as you noted (and as my anecdotal experience). Growing up, I knew a couple of Asian dudes who were low-key nasty at sports--including more physical ones. But Asian women always seemed uninterested in athletics, except for some of the more dainty ones like swimming, golf, and tennis.
(2) Better training/talent scouting for white women than for black women. This is the main explanation for why rich nations like the US tend to dominate sports like soccer. While male sports is popular everywhere (so performance is pretty close to the genetic limits of the corresponding country), female sports has a wide disparity in popularity depending on the wealth of the country.
But this makes less sense for sprinting than it does for soccer. Soccer is highly technical sport that takes years of investment and practice. Is it really possible that Olympic-level black female sprinters are falling through the cracks? I guess if they *never* try out for a sports team, it's possible.
(3) PEDs. As you noted, a lot of the white sprinters come from ex-Soviet union which was known for their rampant PED usage. PED usage is more impactful for women than for men due their naturally lower testosterone, so this would explain why Soviet women could make the leap to best in the world while Soviet men still couldn't outrun those of West African descent.
PEDs is surely part of the story (maybe as much as 50% of the story), but there is still some delta that is left over that needs to be explained.
Hypothesis: The more that nurture/culture is improved through relentless competition and the spread of 'best practices' in nurture, the more the results will reflect nature rather than nurture.
Men are more devoted to sports in general, so most of the best male athletes end up using the best possible nurture to max out their natural potential, and their results are more reflective of their nature.
Women are more lackadaisical about sports, so a lot of the women with the best natural gifts don't end up using the best possible nurture to compete at 100% of their natural potential, and their results are more reflective of their nurture.
It's the sex-based opposite of the situation with grades and testing in school. In school, conscientious women mostly study hard, and their test results ought to reflect their natural gifts more perfectly, while a lot of men underuse their gifts, so their results reflect more of their nurture.
Yes, this.
Competitiveness is a major male/female personality difference, but women conform more to social pressures. A friend's daughter is an extraordinary natural swimmer. But she just doesn't have a competitive personality -- she was even known to let other girls win at swim meets if she felt sorry for them! She eventually ended up quitting swim team, even though she still loves to swim non-competitively. In this case, her parents didn't fight it too hard. But it's easier to imagine a girl being pressured by parents into sticking with athletics in America than in Africa, or noticing that more female peers play sports here and therefore deciding to stick with sports.
Neuromuscular efficiency, i.e., explosiveness manifesting as a high standing vertical jump, in women is far less than that of men with a far broader distribution, i.e., fewer outliers on the far or elite end. In other words, being women crowds out the woman's race generally.
That makes zero sense. Olympic athletes are far enough into the right tail that the overall distribution doesn't matter much. Your chance of being someone capable of winning in the Olympics is pretty near zero no matter what ethnic distribution you are part of,
How about a story about the Chinese male swimmer who one gold in the 100 meter freestyle by a full body length.
How fishy is Su Bingtian? He ran 9.8 in the Olympics - at age 31! - and has done nothing since. He finished last in the semi-final at the 2022 World Championships running 10.3, which would have been the 8th fastest time for American high school boys this year.
If he was from Canada, I'd be suspicious. But China? The internet tells me it's because in 2014 he switched to starting with his left foot forward. And his coach swears the whole Chinese team is 100% clean.
Makes sense if you look at all humans in aggregate. If blacks are faster on average the fastest humans of all (men's 100m) are going to be blacker than the fastest of a subset that is slower on average (females) but proportionately just as black.
No, that makes no sense whatsoever, and you've failed to make any argument as to why it would make any sense whatsoever.
How does it not make sense? If blackness correlates independently with speed, then all else being equal the faster the blacker, no?