On the illusory men-women parity in athletics

The recent European Championships in Athletics were considered as a milestone on the road to a parity between men and women in athletics. For the first time in history the program comprised a 50 km race walk for women. So, on the surface the programs for men and women are identical. Well, not quite, and what is worse, I am afraid that we'll never reach real parity.

I. Enriques winning the European title over 50 km

The first event where a manifest disparity exists is the 100 m hurdles. And I am not talking here about the fact that the distance is shorter. This had to be done in order to accommodate the fact that women have statistically a shorter stride length compared to that of men. No, I am talking about the hurdle height. I wrote about this in a blog post on imperial vs. metric units. The 100 m hurdles height was fixed  after the Mexico, 1968, Olympics at 0.84 m. Previously the women were running a 80 m with hurdles of 0.76 m. Unfortunately this standardisation going back to 1926 corresponded to a period when women were considered frail and weak and thus they had to have a special treatment. So, when the time came for a change, in 1968, going from 0.76 m to 0.84 m was considered an important leap in difficulty. As a result women can race the 100 m without the perfect technique which is vital for the elite men hurdlers. What would be the appropriate height for women's hurdles. The specialists agree on a 0.91 m height. Will, this ever happen? I don't think so. But if it did I would be the first to applaud such a decision. 

N. Visser (left with M. Jeanneke on the right)  as a hurdler

But where the disparity becomes really embarrassing is in combined events. The women's heptathlon cannot in any way be compared to men's decathlon. The latter asks for a real specialisation while it is not rare for women to move form heptathlon to some other event (and vice versa). T. Hellebaut won the olympic high jump competition and the indoor pentathlon in the same year (2008). Of course pentathlon is even easier than heptathlon (remember the curious story of Eva Wilms?). But it is not rare for a heptathlete to abandon combined event and shine in an individual one. Two out of the four dutch "wundermädchen" (I know, this is german, but I like this word) D. Schippers and N. Visser left heptathlon the first becoming world champion over 200 m while the second obtained a bronze medal in the 60 m hurdles of this year's World Indoors. N. Thiam could at any moment abandon heptathlon (but this would be not a very clever move, since she is the world's best for the last few years) and become a high jumper. The examples of men decathletes who became specialists of some other event are few and far between. We all remember of course the fabulous off-year of A. Eaton (2014) where he left the decathlon for the 400 m hurdles where he excelled to the point of winning a Golden League event with an enviable 48.69 s. Closer to us we have K. Warholm who went from combined events as a junior to a hurdler becoming world champion of the low hurdles while still being on the U23 category. But these are the exceptions. The decathlon is a different event from the heptathlon and no real parity between men and women will be reached as long as the latter insist on competing on this amputated combined event. Will we one day see women's decathlon competitions? This is not impossible given that the event exists officially and that a world record is homologated  What is needed is for the IAAF to show some firm hand and introduce the event first organising some special competition and then promoting it to a championships event.

And, repeating myself, race walk should not exist as a competitive discipline (or, if it did, only for ultra-marathon like events of 100s of kilometres, like the famous Paris-Kolmar). The reason for this is that race walkers  are cheating: they are running. Look at the photo below, taken at the 2005 World Championships and used to illustrate the Wikipedia article one race walk. 

Look carefully: two guys are running

Two of the walkers (the spaniard in front and one of russians) do not have any contact with the ground. They do it because the rules sanction only what the human eye can see. But we know, since time immemorial, that the hand is faster than the eye (that's how con artists have been making a living). Unfortunately, for the probity of athletics, the foot is also faster than the eye. 

PS. I had finished writing this article but hadn't posted it yet when the european athlete of the year awards were announced. And quite deservedly K. Mayer won the men's title. The interesting thing was that at the award ceremony he expressed the wish for the women's heptathlon to be replaced by a decathlon, ensuring thus a real parity between the two sexes. I was really impressed for the clairvoyance of K. Mayer and came to appreciate him even more. I am also convinced that there can be no comparison between the heptathlon and the decathlon and only when the latter will replace the former in the ladies competitions we will be able to talk seriously about combined events for women.