Let us be honest with ourselves here: men are, collectively speaking, physically bigger, faster, and stronger than women. Yes, a professional female weightlifter will easily surpass your average guy, but she won’t beat her male peers—this is just a given. Or is it?
Not exactly, no. Because there are quite a few sports where women regularly surpass men.
First up are the 'level playing field' sports: chess, horse racing, equestrian events, and the like. These competitions do not require strength or speed (at least not in the human muscle form), and as such, if you are good enough, then you are good enough—irrespective of your sex.
But what about events that do require physical traits to reach the very top? There are quite a few of these, too. We are not talking singular events, like when Billie Jean King famously beat Bobby Riggs in 1973 in straight sets (he had declared no woman could ever beat a male professional... that went well), but actual sporting disciplines where women do come out on top.
As it turns out, women are far better suited than men to ultra-endurance sports—those that make marathons look like a hobby—be it on foot, cycling, rock climbing, or free diving. These sports push the very limits of what a human body can accomplish, and then go beyond. It’s not just that women have better endurance; it’s that once the limit has been reached, women tend to conserve energy and resist fatigue more effectively.
This is evidently down to having more type-I muscle fibres than type-II—something usually reversed in men. Type-II is geared towards power, whereas type-I is better suited to prolonged exercise. It’s also said that oestrogen helps; women are better at burning fats and tend to be more resilient to pain (which might help explain the “I want more children, despite what I said during childbirth” phenomenon).
Example: Pamela Reed was the first person to run 300 miles without sleeping.
Of course, there are anomalies—so there’s no need to flood the comment section or send messages pointing out that such-and-such beat whatshisname. We’re aware. This is a generalisation—broadly speaking, men win in ABC, and women win in XYZ.
I was once told by an absolute golf nut that if I wanted to get into the game—or indeed something like tennis—I should watch the women’s events. The explanation? What women lack in power (compared to male professionals), they more than make up for in technique.
Not sure there is a point I’m trying to make here, because we know women can be, and some are, world class. But we also know that a woman is never going to break the world deadlift record (501kg / 1,105lbs / half a tonne). Still, we now know women can beat men in many events on a regular basis.
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