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> The fastest female marathoners do not even remotely compete with the top men - top men run just a smidge over 2 hours, with the top women running 2:15:00+

Random side note: Interestingly, the shortest and longest races (at least out of Olympic events) are where men and women are most competitive [0]. And, when Paula Radcliffe ran 2:15 in 2003, the marathon world records for men and women were only separated by ~8%.

Compared to weightlifting, where male and female world records are separated by >25%, running is pretty close. Swimming, too. Perhaps that's intuitive.

[0] https://zigapskraba.com/2016/09/15/womens-world-records-comp...

How about target shooting? There's no physical reason that women and men couldn't compete on an equal basis in an Olympic event like 10m Air Rifle. Size and strength don't help.

I know absolutely nothing about air rifle shooting but your comment made me curious as to if there would actually be a difference. It looks like there is a massive difference in qualification shooting but not in the final score, not sure what the difference between qualification and final is and why it would have such an impact from the final scores.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/10_meter_air_rifle#Post_1_Janu...

It's right there in the article. Men are allowed more shots in the qualification round, hence their higher scores.

I see, aren't we denying people that are better at the job to compete this way just because of their gender? Clearly this must be gender discrimination.

Let me explain: If I divide a competition between 100 men and 100 women instead of the 200 best humans and then give prizes to the 3 best men and 3 best women instead of the 6 best humans, I'm actually denying place to 100 men and denying 3 men a prize just because of their gender (assuming as true your predicate that men timings are clearly superior to woman).

Isn't it funny how this is not gender based discrimination?

Discrimination has multiple definitions. You're using the general definition, which is just "recognizing the difference between two things". Gender discrimination uses the other definition, "the unjust or prejudicial treatment of different categories of people or things". Gender discrimination in sports is usually not unjust or prejudicial, because it's based on real insurmountable biological differences between the sexes.

In the Boston marathon, only the elite runners (a few dozen) are segmented by gender/sex, and elite women are the first to leave, followed by the elite men, followed by the top qualifying times of either gender.

From watching the race along the road yesterday, there were no elite men who caught the main pack of women (though a few straggling women did fall back into the elite male pack). Following that, while it was mostly a male non-elite pack at the beginning, there were a few women scattered throughout, and then it was fairly blended about 15 minutes later.

So while they stagger men and women to prevent interference in the race at the very highest levels (and a woman crosses the finish line first), women below that tier have a ton of opportunity to push themselves against men.

Edit: Also, they do track overall finishers, time-wise, regardless of gender. So a woman might see that she was the 4th finisher in her division (young women), and 16th overall.

Thank you for cheering yesterday. This was my third Boston. The Boston Marathon is an experience that in my mind is unique in sport.

The analogy I make is this. It's like getting to play on the field after the Super Bowl or World Series or World Cup just after the pros leave the field with a bunch of other amateurs while the crowd is still there cheering for you.

I can't think of another sport where you get to participate on the same field of play right after the pros and the fans are still there for you.

In Boston especially the entire city treats the runners like royalty the whole weekend and Marathon Monday. Everyone asks how you did. It's truly amazing and I'm honored and thankful I can participate.

I've run other big city marathons including New York and Chicago and while they are great races too, there's really nothing like Boston.

So again, thank you. And if you're a runner of any sort and the marathon is at all appealing to you, do the work you have to do to get to Boston. Making that left turn on Boylston and running to that finish ... I just have no words to describe the thrill.

Great way to sum up the experience of the Boston Marathon; glad to hear from another HNer who also did Boston yesterday.

I agree that if you're at all interested in marathons, the effort to qualify for and run in Boston is well worth it. I've done it a few times and the experience is never short of magical.

IIRC women have to start before men for their records to hold, as otherwise women could gain from the faster men's slip stream. Of course, there are still pace makers so even men can take advantage of that, and men can run behind each other and their records would still hold. I think the reasoning is that at least they're running behind/ahead of racers who are competing with them, whereas if women and men started together, the front runners of the women's race would be able to run behind men with whom they are not really competing, and who would thus be less careful about giving them a lift.

No, it's not funny to most people because most people have a more nuanced and thoughtful understanding of the subject than you do.