Ten for Tokyo

I do not usually link to the articles that appear in the World Athletics site. At this moment two out of three articles are promotional for the Tokyo Olympics and somehow I do not manage to relate to them. But this time I will make an exception. The title of the article is

10 athletes set to make national sporting history at the Tokyo Olympics

It gives a list of ten athletes who have a chance to win an olympic medal, a fact that would constitute a first for their country. 

The article is signed by J. Mulkeen who is an athletics journalist the work of whose I do really appreciate. What I did not like in this article of his is that he refers to the athletes of the list as "underdogs" (admittedly, he is doing so only indirectly, but still I gritted my teeth when I read the "u" word). Well, let's (just for this once) forgive the slightly racist faux pas and get on with the list. 

Lonah Chemtai Salpeter, marathon - Israel

Neeraj Chopra, javelin throw - India

Joseph Fahnbulleh, 200 m - Liberia

Kimberly Garcia, 20 km race walk - Peru

Thea LaFond, triple jump - Dominica

Kyron McMaster, 400 m hurdles - British Virgin Islands

Alex Rose, discus throw - Samoa

Amel Tuka, 800 m - Bosnia & Herzegovina

Andrea Vargas, 100 m hurdles - Costa Rica

Hugues Fabrice Zango, triple jump - Burkina Faso

The athletes of the list are far from being underdogs. 

L. Salpeter is European 10000 m champion. N. Chopra is  Commonwealth and Asian champion.  K. McMaster is Commonwealth gold medalist. A. Vargas won a Pan American gold. H.F. Zango holds the world indoor record in triple jump. 

The raison d'être of the list has more to do with the athletes' countries than with the athletes themselves. In fact none of these countries has ever won an Olympic medal. (And the fact that N. Pritchard's two silver medals from 1900 are attributed to India is a joke: although India-born, Pritchard was definitely of british nationality).  Some of those countries do not even have an olympic finalist. So any success by one of the list of ten will be a big first. 

I will definitely follow all of them in Tokyo. And my favourite (even for a gold medal) is H.F. Zango. I cross my fingers for him.

On Ageing

Being a master athlete, the question of ageing is highly important for me. That been said, I am not obsessed to the point of following closely the scientific literature on this subject. Still, whenever an interesting article attracts my attention I take the time to read and understand it. This is the case with a recent article which appeared in Nature Medicine, authored by a team of Stanford University.

The team analysed data from blood samples from more than 4000 persons aged from 18 to 95 and in particular the levels of 3000 different proteins. They found that more than 1000 of the latter were varying with age.

The interesting finding is that, most of the time, the levels of these proteins were practically constant but, at certain ages, there were massive shifts. To put it simply, linking the protein concentrations in the blood plasma to ageing, the findings of the Stanford team would support the idea that ageing is not a continuous process. We do not age uniformly: there exist special age thresholds.

In the graphic above it is clear that something important happens around 35 and 80 years of age, as well as something minor around 60. 

Using these results the Stanford team was able to set up a system, using a set of circa 400 proteins, allowing to predict the age of an individual based on the analysis of its blood proteins. The correlation between the predictions from the protein measurements and the actual age of the subjects is impressive. 

The research team pointed out that individuals who were predicted to be younger than their chronological age performed better on cognitive and physical tests.

The link between ageing and blood is something that has been spotted in previous studies.  In fact it has been observed that old mice can be rejuvenated with blood infusions from younger mice. Conversely, giving the younger mice "old blood" led to an increase of cognitive ageing. We shall not pursue these, verging on the vampiric, considerations. What is interesting is that, when the Stanford team method becomes well established, it will be, hopefully, possible to measure how well is one ageing through just a blood test. Ideally, linking specific proteins to the various organs, it would be possible, by measuring their concentration and its variation, to detect premature deterioration of some bodily function and perhaps find methods to counteract this.  

Be that as it may, it is funny to remark that the thresholds found above materialise the usual intuitive separations of age groups: one is young till 35, then of middle age till 60, then belonging to the third age till 80, and, then "insert something non-derogatory here" for the over-80 group.  

A site for the heptathlon fans

I have made it clear, on several occasions: I am not a fan of the heptathlon. Women should be competing the decathlon just like men do. The very existence of the heptathlon is an insult to women. It's as if they were not capable to face the difficulties of the decathlon, and thus this event is reserved to the big boys. And women are, at least partially responsible for the state of affairs. Most heptathlon champions are confortable with the situation, which means having to train for fewer events and compete over one day and a half (because the second day, with just three events, can hardly count a full day). 

Be that as it may, I ran accross an interesting site devoted to women's heptathlon. It's in french, so if you do not speak the language of Molière you'll have to use the help of Google's translation. Fortunately once you are past the first page, everything is also in english. The curators of the site have done a great job. It's the most complete site on heptathlon I have ever seen. Do not let yourself be discouraged by the fact that the news are in french. Just give it a try.

Theories of scoring: the French (Letessier) tables

Among the various scoring tables that have been proposed over the years, the Letessier tables (known internationally as the "french tables") are worth mentioning. They have been of capital importance in France. When physical education became an essential component of the french educational system and students were to be attributed marks according to their performance in sports activities, various scoring scales were proposed. The first attempts were disastrous. In some events more than 50 % of the students were obtaining the maximal mark, while in some other less than 1 % managed to do so. It became thus clear that a serious overhaul of the scoring process was in order. Jean Letessier, a physical educator had already pointed out in 1951 the necessity of a systematic approach to the question.

What came to be known as the "Letessier tables" is the product of a close collaboration of Jean Letessier with his brother Pierre. The latter had a solid training in mathematics and this can be seen in the rigorous approach used for the construction of the tables. (This can be good and bad at the same time). Pierre Letessier explains the method used in the construction of the tables in the preface of the second, 1961, edition (the first edition was that of 1957 and the 9th (last?)  appeared in 1992). 

According to the Letessier brothers the construction of the tables must be based on a statistical approach. However, as they correctly remark, a statistical comparison has meaning only if the all the distributions of the performances follow the same law. They define two tasks, which they dub horizontal and vertical. The horizontal is to establish the equivalent performances between the various disciplines. The vertical one is to attribute points to the various performances. The authors of the tables are aware of the difficulties presented by these two tasks. While it is not so difficult to find equivalences between high level performances, when one gets to the bottom of the tables things can get iffy. 

The Letessier make the assumption that the distribution of the performances follows a "log-normal" distribution. (I won't bother you with mathematical details here. If you wish to find more about the "log-normal" distribution you can simply consult the wikipedia article). This assumption of the Letessier leads unnecessarily to very complicated mathematical expressions. In my article (on the extension of Harder's method) I presented a much simpler approach which, as a matter of fact, I find more realistic. To put it in a nutshell, the implicit assumption of the Letessier is that nobody would score a zero in athletic events. My model allows for a small, albeit non-zero, percentage of the population being unable to register any athletic performance. But, of course, pursuing in this direction would be akin to counting how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, so I stop here.

Unfortunately the Letessier tables are not very useful as far as combined events are concerned. Their tables, which go from 0 to 500 points (why 500 and not 1000, nobody knows) are regressive. They know this and (try to) justify it. They say that a progressive scoring would incite the athletes to try to improve their strong events and neglect the weak ones (and they give the example of the 1500 m for the latter). Unfortunately the experience of several decades of regressive decathlon tables has shown that the exact opposite is true: the athletes would not make extra efforts for an ever diminishing reward. And by the way, the Letessier tables are regressive even for running events. 

A correct scoring approach should lead to a table roughly linear in velocity for the track events.

So, while the Letessier tables had had a great success within the french educational system, they are not better than the Portuguese Tables (for which they formulate critiques in no uncertain terms) as far as combined events are concerned. In fact, while reading the explanations that Amado provides in his tables one can feel his love for athletics. In the case of the Letessier brothers, their approach is more rigid and thus less endearing.

PS1 This is the last post of the first season of the "Theories of scoring" series. A second season is in preparation. Stay tuned.

PS2 As you have certainly gathered from the phrasing of the previous postscriptum, I am a TV series fan.

The long and arduous road of women to the Olympics, part two

As I wrote in my previous post, in Paris (1900) women participated in competitions which would be later recognised as "olympic". This was only due to the fact that de Coubertin, and the Comité d’Organisation des Jeux Olympiques, were forced to withdraw from the Paris scene leaving the organisation in the hands of the Union des Sociétés Françaises de Sports Athlétiques and D. Mérillon, who was “Délégué Général aux concours d’exercices physiques et de sports". Monsieur Merillon delegated the responsibility of organising some of the contests, such as tennis and golf, to the Parisian clubs, which explains why women were invited to participate.

St. Louis (1904) was a totally different business. Here the big boss was J. Sullivan. He was the "Grand Manitou" of US sports. Once again de Coubertin withdrew from the organisation and let Sullivan organise a slew of contests which he labelled "olympic". Although on bad terms with de Coubertin, Sullivan shared the latter's antifeminist views. As a consequence there were no women's competitions in St. Louis. With one exception. Women participated in the USA National Championships in archery. And then (as it happened with the All-Around competition) the archery championship was a posteriori baptised "olympic". On the other hand, although tennis and golf were on the pro­gram for men, they were not open to women as they were in 1900. Sullivan opposed this and that was that. 

Women's archery competition in the 1908 Olympics

As I have on several occasions pointed out, the Olympic Games were saved by the organisation of the 1906 Intercalated Games (and de Coubertin manifested his gratitude by denying to the 1906 organisation the "Olympic" label). Women were officially present in Athens participating in the tennis competition. But perhaps the most important event was the gymnastics exhibition, by a team of Danish female gymnasts, an exhibition which met with the highest success. 

Figure swimming exhibition in the port of Piraeus, 1906

(this is certainly an exhibition of a male-only team)

Then came the 1908 London Olympics. (In fact the organisation was initially awarded to Rome but following the Vesuvius eruption the organisation was offered to Great Britain). As luck would have it, once more the Games were coinciding with an international fair, the "Franco-British exhibit" (but this was going to be the last time). Starting with London, the International Sports Federations were involved in the selection of athletes, although the final say was that of the British Olympic Council. Women participated in tennis, skating and archery competitions. But most important was the fact that once again there were swimming and diving, with girls from Sweden and Iceland, and a gymnastics exhibition, again with a team from Denmark. And the presence of gymnastics was a highly non-trivial one. In fact, while tennis and archery were sports reserved to an aristocratic minority, gymnastics was a physical activity for women which developed elsewhere than within the "gentry". And, in fact, it was pointed out that the vast majority of the danish gymnasts originated from the working classes of the country.

Gymnastics exhibition during the London Olympics

In the official London report Th. Cook writes: “The successful appearance of ladies in the competitions suggests the consideration that since one of the chief objects of the revived Olympic Games is the physical development and amelioration of the race, it appears illogical to adhere so far to classical tradition as to provide so few opportunities for the participation of a predominant partner in the process of race-production. More events might be open to women, whether they are permitted to compete with men or not". Fortunately, not everybody had the same deeply ingrained anti-feminism as de Coubertin.

What is essential to keep in mind is that de Coubertin and the IOC really had almost no say in the Olympic Program. And the situation persisted till 1924 (is this a coincidence or is this somehow related to the fact that de Coubertin was presiding the IOC till 1924?). Thus there were no rules saying that women were not allowed or were excluded. And the decisions were taken by the (male) members of the Organising Committees, based on the experiences of the previous Olympic Games and influenced by the social and cultural codes of the time.

Helen Preece, who was denied participation

 in the modern pentathlon

And thus we arrive at the 1912, Stockholm, Olympics and the thorny affair of the Modern Pentathlon involving Miss H. Preece. This competition, involving five diverse and unrelated sports was proposed by de Coubertin himself. I have already presented my opinion concerning this outdated sport which, due to his "noble" paternity continues to haunt the Olympic Games. The first olympic competition of Modern Pentathlon was programmed for Stockholm and a distinguished british equestrian, Helen Preece, submitted her candidacy. The Swedish Organising Committee was not prepared for such a request and so they asked de Coubertin. He answered in a most hypocritical way but the message conveyed to the Swedish Committee was clear: they had to refuse the entry of H. Preece. Which they did.

Archery was deleted from the Stockholm program but women's swimming was accepted and it was a great success, with 42 participants. What is also important is that no fewer than 236 women, from the scandinavian countries, gave demonstrations of gymnastics with a huge success. Still women were not allowed to take place in the gymnastics competition.

Ladies swimming competitions had been accepted by the IOC following the 1910 meeting. However, as the last say was that of the national federation, US women were blocked, thanks to the diktat of J. Sullivan who did not like women competing. Fortunately for women's sports he died in 1914. A tentative program of the Olympics was elaborated in 1912, submitted to the Paris IOC congress in 1914. However it was never published due to the disturbance caused by the war. And thus de Coubertin profited in order to give, in 1919, a version of the report distorted so as to be less unflattering to him. In fact de Coubertin tried in 1914 to get women out of the Olympics. He tried it three times during the 1914 Session, asking the same question, and three times was he outvoted by the majority. He felt so defeated that he threatened to resign. For the very first time he could not prevail in something which went deep down in his own convictions and which was an integral part of his upbringing and his beliefs.

The British swimmers with their chaperone (1912)

The aftermath of the war was particularly harsh for de Coubertin. Before the war he was the one paying for most of the proceedings and festivals out of his own pocket. However the war left him totally broke. Having lost all his money he had to depend on his wife’s little pension money. He had to accept the charity of the city of Lausanne, which provided him with free accommodation resulting in the transfer of the IOC headquarters to that city. 

In 1920 the IOC set down to establish a program for the Olympics. In fact the proliferation of sports and disciplines were threatening the very existence of the Games. And the magic solution proposed by the IOC was ... to cut down the women's events! For de Coubertin that was consistent with the position he had been holding all through his life. But by now de Coubertin's influence was becoming if not negligible at least not decisive any more. The main reason for this is that each nation was contributing financially to the IOC and thus had a say in every decision. And the second reason is that the IOC was by now endowed with an Executive Board, which, as per the statutes, could overrule de Coubertin.

Still, even thus, it is amazing that the proposal of suppression of female events was tabled. And what is even sadder is that this strategy continued from Session to Session that dealt with the problem of the reduction of the size of the Games until 1957! Does Olympism rhyme with misogyny? At times one may wonder.

The admittance of women became official in 1924. The text stipulated that “Women are admitted in certain competitions in the Olympic Games. The Program will mention the events in which they may participate”. 

An intriguing photo,

supposedly from 1908

de Coubertin retired in 1925. And in 1926 women were admitted to compete in Athletics. But this is a story we shall tell in some other post.