So, I was watching women's sports... (1 Viewer)

[Chu Gai]

the other day, specifically, the NCAAW basketball playoffs. I actually watched more of that than the men's. Anyways, as I'm watching, I couldn't help noticing how many 'right' passes weren't being made to a free person under the hoop at the right time. It got me wondering at which point do women compete successfully with men in some sports.
Years ago, I remember an old hustler, but former men's top world player, Bobby Riggs knocking off Margert Chase and then loosing to Billy Jean King. However I was wondering nowadays, who would a top women's player, say a Sharapova or Williams, be able to reasonably compete with? Federer I'd imagine would clock any woman but would the bottom rated men's world player do so? If not, would it be a top college amateur?
With basketball, if you took a top women's team, let's say a collection of WNMBA all stars or for that matter an Olympic caliber team, how would they do against men? Would they be competition for a team in the NCAA. What about the NIT? Would a top high school team consistently beat them?
Just wondering. What do you think?

 

[Andrew Pratt]

A lot likely has to do with what advantage the men have over the women in the sport...typicallys its power and height. Take something like curling or bowling etc that aren't physically as demanding and I'd imagine the playing field is much more even.

 

[Chu Gai]

Well maybe. Skill and fundamentals also play into it. I remember watching the big upset many years ago when UCLA got beaten by Princeton, a 1 vs. a 16 I think, because they couldn't overcome Princeton's fundamentals in the way of passing and finding the open person. I'd imagine that at the top level in basketball, the women have reasonably solid fundamentals. Just wondering how they'd compete.

I like watching curling. I'd watch more if the women wore skirts and thongs though. Shameless of me :frowning:

 

[bobbyg2]

Well, ya. I'd say men have a slight advantage, depending on which men you pit against which women. Football, on the other hand, would be rather hard for women to play. Mainly strength and height advantages.

 

[trump29]

Ever watch Survivor?... Women are better than men at balancing due to a lower center of gravity......... Balancing doesn't make a great sport though :

 

[Holadem]

How about making women play up to 5 sets in a tennis match? The physique required to compete at the top in such a tournament would probably cause a drop in ratings.

--
H

 

[Jude Faelnar]

Uhm, actually, her name is Margaret Smith Court (from Australia).

As of April 2007, GM Judit Polgar (Hungary) is ranked #13 in the World by FIDE among the top chess players and is very competitive against any of the top men players.

JUDE

 

[Bryan X]

I think Chu Gai is specifically talking about physical sports.

My son is on his sixth grade basketball team and they regularly scrimmage the ninth grade girls' team. At that age, it's a pretty even competition although the boys still always edge out the girls. But the skills between the 6th grade boys versus 9th grade girls is pretty comparable.

 

[Andy_Bu]

Note that Riggs was 55 years old when he lost to BJK.

 

[Andy_Bu]

This sounds about right.

I remember reading about the famous US Womens World Cup(soccer) team of 1999, which contained perhaps the best set of female players ever assembled, and they used to practice against U17 regional level boys teams.

 

[ChristopherDAC]

Women's bicycle racing doesn't get as much attention as perhaps it ought. I don't think the women's Tour de France gets aired at all in the USA. Lance Armstrong being the glaring exception, champion men's riders are typically quite small of stature (think Gregg Lemond or Eddie Merckx), and stamina has a good deal more of a role in long races than has speed. Women have typically superior endurance to men, and leg length doesn't tell in cycling the way it does in the Marathon. I'd bet on a woman to finish in the top five of a mixed Tour.

 

[Chris Lockwood]

> Note that Riggs was 55 years old when he lost to BJK.

Didn't he also have some artificial handicaps that made it an uneven match? I may be way off, but I seem to remember something like folding chairs set up on his side of the court so he had to dodge them when playing.

It certainly wasn't a real battle of the sexes, like the #1 man vs the #1 woman at the time.

I wonder if we will ever see a female player make the regular season team on one of the big 4 major league American sports. The Lightning had a female goalie on the preseason squad one year in the 1990s, but I don't know what happened to her.