Seems to have held very steady through out the decades. Women seem to always be about .90 time wise of the men's performance. Some interesting science why that always may be the case.
www.theatlantic.com/.../
it seems fishy that all the women's records "likely to fall" are sprints (or relay sprints) and all the men's are distance. Seems that other factors may be in play.
Without seeing any data I would think women would be comparatively closer to men in the longer events where strength isn't as much of a factor. These numbers seem to support this theory.
It would be interesting to see what the numbers are like in masters. I did a couple quick calculations in the 40-44 age group with the long course national records.
100 free 96.2%
1500 free 92.6%
200 IM 92.5%
100 fly 90.3%
The 100 free may well be an outlier considering Dara Torres has the record for women. It would be interesting to see the general trends in the data, though. For example, do women get closer to men with age, stay the same, or get comparatively slower?
it seems fishy that all the women's records "likely to fall" are sprints (or relay sprints) and all the men's are distance. Seems that other factors may be in play.
Without seeing any data I would think women would be comparatively closer to men in the longer events where strength isn't as much of a factor. These numbers seem to support this theory.
It would be interesting to see what the numbers are like in masters. I did a couple quick calculations in the 40-44 age group with the long course national records.
100 free 96.2%
1500 free 92.6%
200 IM 92.5%
100 fly 90.3%
The 100 free may well be an outlier considering Dara Torres has the record for women. It would be interesting to see the general trends in the data, though. For example, do women get closer to men with age, stay the same, or get comparatively slower?
