Thread by @FondOfBeetles

On staggered starts as a means of correcting for advantage. Thoughts for discussion.

https://twitter.com/scienceofsport/status/1470448640611213316

Grevenberg has proposed that advantage carried by transwomen into female categories of sport might be corrected by means of ‘staggered starts’. Taking a broad view, we’ll assume this means some kind of handicap applied to transwomen.

Usain Bolt’s 100m WR average speed was 10.44 metres per second. FloJo’s was 9.53 metres per second.

We could, on these stats, create a dead heat between the two by starting Bolt 109.52m from the finish (FloJo at 100m) or starting him 0.91 seconds later than FloJo.

They cross the line at the same time.

Bolt is faster. He’s either covered a greater distance in the same time, or the same distance in a lower time.

What’s the point of a race? To find the fastest runner.

What’s the point of engineering a dead heat? That’s exhibition stuff.

A famous exhibition match featuring a ‘staggered start’ was the Battle of The Sexes between Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs (tennis, 1973).

In this case, the ‘staggered start’, the handicap applied, was age. Riggs was 26 years older and 26 years past being world number 1.

While King was younger, fit and one of the best females in the world.

The ‘staggered start’ of age was, among others, a handicap carried by Laurel Hubbard in Tokyo weightlifting. Track Hubbard’s lifts ‘back in time’ (to ‘remove’ the handicap) and Hubbard would take the WR.

Other ‘staggered starts’, of a kind, are evident in throwing events.

The male-female performance gap in shot put is a mere 3.3%. In discus, the female WR is 3.7% longer than the male.

We know why that is. Males are ‘handicapped’ by chucking heavier weighted implements.

If you account for implement weight, males would throw further (assuming no bio mechanical impedance).

I’ve calculated this for shot put because the physics is easier and there are exhibition events to guide, and males would throw 21% further with the female shot.

So the male-female performance gap in shot put is masked by the male handicap. Corrected for weight, it’s 25%.

I touched on this with Ross in his recent Space with me. Using a scoring system (in the case of shot put, distance putted, but in our chat, scoring in archery)…

…to calculate performance gap in projectile events, then making assumptions about event-specific strength differentials etc is flawed *if you do not account for the potential correction in score of male handicap with heavier projectiles/equipment*

With shot put in mind, I’m going to make a bold suggestion.

Mixed sex. Different shot weights.

Not personalised shot weight to, in theory, give the same distance. I don’t mean that.

But given that we’ve achieved a pair of shot weights that broadly deliver the same distance (and could be brought closer by tinkering with the weight), I’d like to hear arguments against?

<slight devil’s advocate here>

But back to ‘staggered starts’. As a concept (taking a broad definition), it’s not novel.

But is it better than categories? Categories *are* staggered starts. Why would you have four males starting at 109m and four females starting at 100m?

Staggered starts are taking a sledgehammer to crack a nut.

That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do tricky things.

But will it be a better system? I don’t think so.