The writing is a bit confusing so here's a TL;DR:
Usually in these races, there are two trophies, one for the overall winner and one for the female winner. This time, since a woman finished first overall, she got both trophies.
Usually in these races, there are two trophies, one for the overall winner and one for the female winner. This time, since a woman finished first overall, she got both trophies.
Having a 'special' female winner while assuming a male will be the 'real' winner is implicit/transparent sexism to me.
Men are more physically performant than women, so if there weren't two leagues then in the overall majority of sports women would just lose.
They probably added the female winner trophy to be more inclusive towards women even.
The situation is kind of stupid but does not seem malicious to me, just happened to be like this.
What system would be better, here? A single award? That's just the same system as now, minus the female award - now women almost never take home a prize. Separate but equal "mens" and "womens" awards, labeled as such? Now you aren't recognizing the "overall" winner at all. Perhaps three awards - mens, womens, and outright? Might be a good idea for cases like this where the best man gets nothing, but for the majority of cases all you've done is hand another award to the man.
Remember, this is a headline because it's an edge case. Edge cases are a poor guide for good policy.
FTA:
> “Obviously there’s a lot of great women runners, but you don’t see them winning ultras outright a lot. When it happens, they get two awards.”
Sounds as though it’s infrequent, but not unprecedented.
> Edge cases are a poor guide for good policy.
Consider this situation to have been a bug in a production environment. Would you advise your junior developers not to patch it, or write unit tests for it? Edge cases are where the rubber meets the road.