Written by Anthony Alford
This week in class, we had a debate about whether or not women should compete with men in certain sporting events. Well what better way to settle the debate than to pit the best male athlete against the best female athlete in various sports to see how they matchup. It is basically pure speculation, but it is a debate that is worth having.
Laila Ali vs. Floyd “Money” Mayweather Jr. (Boxing)
Background: Ali, 35, is the daughter of Muhammad Ali and is undefeated at 24-0 (with 21 Knockouts). Mayweather, 35, is undefeated at 43-0 (26 KO’s), and is considered by many to be the best pound-for-pound boxer in the world.
Both of these fighters are undefeated and the same age. Ali has dominated female boxing during her entire in-ring career and is the most notable female fighter in the world especially considering she has been retired since 2007. Her style is very physical and she is quick compared to other female fighters that she has faced. But quickness doesn’t necessarily translate into speed in the ring against Mayweather. He has the rare ability to do whatever he wants in the ring at whatever pace he wants in the fight. Ali has never faced anyone with the pure speed that Mayweather has. It doesn’t matter how hard Ali hits if she could never touch Mayweather during the fight. Mayweather wins.
Men 1, Women 0.
Serena Williams vs. Roger Federer (Tennis)
Background: They are both winners!! They are both Grand slam winners and they have Olympic medals (Williams with Gold and Federer with Silver).
It is really tough to figure out who would win this matchup. So to help me with this analysis, watch this video from username XboxTennis playing the Xbox video game Top Spin 4 as this matchup was play out.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hAugmbRMMvg
Williams wins.
Men 1, Women 1.
And now the tiebreaker:
Usain Bolt vs. Carmelita Jeter (Track and Field)
Background: Bolt is the fastest man in the world with a 100 meter time of 9.58. Jeter is currently the fastest active woman in the world with a 100 meter time of 10.64.
Usain Bolt's 9.58 run: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nbjhpcZ9_g
Track and Field is all about speed especially in sprinting races. The most overused and misleading phase used in sports is “you can’t coach speed.” While speed does come naturally, it can be taught in ways to improve it with technique. Running form, upper and lower body strength matters along with endurance in a 100 meter dash. But at the end of the day, the only result that matters in this sport is your time. Bolt would win.
Men 2, Women 1.
With all that being said, it is very tough to evaluate whether or not women should and could compete with men. On one end, people complain that women should compete with men. But there are many others who say that if women competed with men, it would be unfair to them. Honestly, this issue is not ruining sports. So there is no reason to change what has worked in sports since the beginning of time.
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ReplyDeleteYour article had a very interesting concept to it. Comparing the best male and female athletes to each other in their respective sports would seem like a fair and clear-cut way to determine exactly which gender is better in a particular sport. Obviously, in your post, the men came out with the victory, but surely you also could have chosen alternative scenarios that would have seen the women come out victorious. Because there is no officially correct way to compare men and women in all sports, I feel like the debate about who's better will continue forever. There will always be some people who believe that men are the dominant ones in sports. There will also always be some people who believe that a woman can compete with any man in any sport as long as the playing field is fair. It is always an interesting topic to think about though.
ReplyDeleteBy David Shelmon
Taylor Redd
ReplyDeleteDavid, I disagree with you on the point that there is no officially correct way to compare men and women in all sports. I think this could be done by direct competition in almost every sport. Sports such as track and field or swimming you can look directly at stats, times, etc. Obviously for a sport such as golf, women and men hit the ball from different tee boxes so you could not rely on scores but rather direct competition where the playing fields are the same. I do not think there are very many sports where the best woman would beat the best man. However, I do think a very good woman athlete could beat a man athlete like in the Billy Jean King match.
I really liked the concept of your post pitting male athletes against female athletes although I wonder if there could've been more even match ups. In some sports, its just physical body composition that makes it hard for both men and women to compete against each other. In a sport like track where males consistently post slightly faster times it seems like it would be impossible for men and women to compete together. However in a sport like tennis or golf where the physical differences between men and women make a difference but not as big as of one, it seems much more conceivable for men and women to compete together. I liked the concept of the mixed gender doubles tennis teams we saw in class. That seems to me like one concept of men and women competing together that could actually be feasible.
ReplyDeleteBy Max Perry
By: Taylor Cook
ReplyDeleteI feel like the sport of boxing would be one of the sports that we would not want to have direct competition between men and women due to the fact that men have been proven to be physically superior to women. I just do not think it would be pretty no matter how good of a boxer the female was. However, the sport of tennis would be extremely intriguing to watch because I do not feel that at the top of both mens and womens tennis that there is a overwhelmingly huge difference of talent. I feel that Serena Williams could actually compete with Roger Federer. She may not win, but she will definitely compete. Track and field is another one of those areas where it is most likely that men are flat out going to be better then women. The fastest woman could never compete with the fastest male and that is just the way it is. Overall, I feel that men and women's sports should continue to be separated and that women should dominate women's sports, and men should dominate mens sports.
By: Taylor Brown
ReplyDeleteI think I am going to have to disagree with this. I think there has to be a direct form of competition to prove the true winner. Your method wouldn't work in my opinion. I'm not trying to be bias when I say this, but I think that every male would win the above mentioned competition. However, even for me there is no way to prove this without having a direct competition between them. This kind of reminds me of the video we watched in class. You're proving that women are great athletes, but facts certain facts like the one we saw and the video and yours don't prove that they would win in a true competition.