Thread by @Scienceofsport

@tomhfh I can assure you that I am not the one who is confused. Let’s take weight - a weight class exists for boxing in BOTH men AND in women. Why is that? What would happen if we mix the sexes at the same weight? So again, let me ask, since you feel you know this: How would you do it?

@tomhfh Let’s take the first step. We use weight. We say that a male at 70kg should be accepted into women’s sport at 70kg. Now we discovered that this male is 34% stronger than the weight-matched female. Now what? We have to screen for strength, is that right? How do we do this in a

@tomhfh …credible and valid way? Which tests would you use? What about punching power, which is 260% higher in males? Even if that is adjusted for mass, it stays say 150% higher. Which test might be conducted to match those together? Now think about speed - males are 10-15% faster than

@tomhfh …females, so if you're doing this in football, or rugby or hockey, you now need an algorithm or some kind of adjustment factor that accounts for mass, strength, power, speed. And we haven’t yet considered skeleton factors and cardiovascular factors. So it’s getting quite complex

@tomhfh Next, think about some logistics. What happens if you can develop this algorithm or model to somehow “handicap” a male in order to let them compete in women’s sport? I’m sure you’d agree you need to have different thresholds for elite vs sub-elite sport? So a club player would be

@tomhfh …permitted to play against women club players at a different standard than elite vs elite. Which means you’d need to re-classify people as they move through sports pathways. You’ll also create a DISINCENTIVE for a person to ever improve, because once classified by this unicorn

@tomhfh …algorithm, they can’t get faster, stronger, better, or they’d be reclassified into a new category. So that’s anti-sport - you’d literally be encouraging people to stay where they are, not improve. In the context of ‘cheating’ the system of course. And ultimately, even if this

@tomhfh …rainbow system were to work, you’d even up with a situation where a male who is at the 20th percentile within men is now racing against the very best females in the world, the top 1%, and you’d be saying “These athletes are equal”. Because Doug Leadfoot, 100m sprinter from Cape

@tomhfh …Town, who is a bit smaller, slower and weaker than his male counterparts, is now being to be classified as similar to Shelly-Ann Fraser Pryce or Dina Asher-Smith, because of “mass and hormones”, and they’ll race each other in a sideshow of a race that relegates women. Great

@tomhfh …concept. Maybe that’s the D-race in the Olympics. Followed by the E, F and G races, until we get to the one with 42kg weight limits, where it’s only women left. But loads of mediocre men doing their thing against exceptional women. So…am I still confused?