Can a woman beat a man in swimming?

Originally posted by craiglll@yahoo.com What about guys playing on women's fieldhockey or volleyball teams. Peole get into such a ruf about it but many girls I know don't want to be athiletes. Now THAT creeps me out.....just kidding! Fine, if you (man or woman) want to be an athlete, great; if not, go shopping. I happen to be pretty good at both! :D

Actually most girls these days play some sort of sport, so I disagree about not many girls wanting to be an athlete. In fact, I would say, judging from both my son's classwho is 17 and daughter's class who is 12, the amount of both in sports is getting equal. Hey, I was a softball player(and you are right, there are some teams that are pretty scary!).

Originally posted by TheGoodSmith With the advent of Libby Lenton's 51.91 WR in the 100m free. I propose a swim off and battle of the sexes. Paul "the evil" Smith (45) representing Bobby Riggs vs. Libby Lenton (20) as Billie Jean King. My money rests on the female. John Smith From the story over at Swim Info, it looks like Libby could beat any man over 40 in the 200 Free with the 1:53.29 and the 50 Free is rather impressive at :23.85 from the recent World Cup this past week. Two things that stuck out in the article was the wild pink fastskin suit that's shown in the picture and the first paragraph of the story. I think Stephen Thomas who wrote the article has never been over to these USMS threads. If some started a story like that here it would just be baiting for controversy.

There's only one girl I want to beat but she's using shoulder problems as an excuse.:thhbbb: :thhbbb: :thhbbb: .

To answer the question, of course a woman CAN do it. It depends on who is swimming and what event it is. Hypothetical experiment: if you took a set of fraternal m/f twins (thats about as close as you can get), they went through exactly the same training, did the same meets, same events, etc., the guy is BIOLOGICALLY supposed to beat the gal. The rest of the time, its just two different swimmers, probably about the same level, gunning for it. Case in point: the ongoing battle of Muppet vs. SwimmieAvsFan in the 200 back. She's been swimming pretty much year round for 18 years with a heavy concentration in back and free. I started taking swimming seriously at age 16, first full year of swimming was in 2003, mostly freestyle and fly. Back to the 200 back head to head, I am 1-2 LCM, 1-0 in SCM and 0-1 SCY. She also routinely beats me at the end of a 100 free descend set in practice. and NO, I did not "let her win" any of those. ps - this post is NOT meant to be interpreted as or spawn any loveydovey mush crap - it is just an example

At the highest levels of elite competition, no. Yeah, I generally agree. Young elite age groupers can be roughly similar, but as they age up and the boys get stronger, the top boys usually beat the top girls, although the gap seems to be narrowing. In masters, it varies, that's why you have Swimmie beating Muppet (although she has the age group advantage). Lots of women can beat men in masters -- happens all the time. But if you look at the most elite in comparable masters age groups (say Top Ten), the guys have faster times. Paul Smith will beat Lisa Dahl. Now, as to that Poolraat. I'm still swimming, Floyd, even with my wored out shoulder. I've basically always had swimmer's shoulder since I started masters.. So we can still do our 50 fly race. I'm swimming it in SCM on March 25. Probably shouldn't, but I'm not always very sensible. I am doing some backstroke too, which is better. In the meantime, go play with your monofin if you ever want to beat me. :thhbbb:

Hi all - Back in the 1970's I had the opportunity to swim in the California HS State Championships at Belmont where one Shirley Babashof blew away all kinds of male swimmers in her age group. (Calif HS Assoc allowed this as she had no competition on the girls side.) As an anchor on my schools' relay, standing next to her as an anchor on her schools relay, it was quite a treat. Of course she blew my doors off! :bow: In the early 80's, in college, I watched as collegiate program after collegiate program fell to Title 9, but not because women couldn't compete, or practice with the men. I think alot of the Division 3 schools have it figured out, where their teams essentially practice together (with alot of the women leading the lanes in workouts), while still maintaining the separate events and record books. In short, I think it is possible that we may see a woman eclipse the record books in our lifetimes.

Why not? It's all relative anyway. Are you talking about putting two swimmers together, who are about the same speed, in the same event? Maybe - maybe not. I swim with guys all the time - sometimes I'm faster; sometimes they're faster. :2cents:

At the highest levels of elite competition, no.

...there is evidence that boy do feel more comfortable in jammers versus "speedos". In New England, boy participation in HS swim meet increased with the popularity of jammers. When I spoke to several people involved in MA high school swimming they confirmed their belief that jammers made swimming more "comfortable" for boys. Old thread, but I liked it and felt like voicing my opinion for a change. I think this "Speedophobia" has significant bearing on the lower number of boys. Partly b/c Speedo briefs are generally mocked by society at large if seen outside of a swimming pool, and this does have a knock on effect. Europe is not so bad as they tend to have a pretty "laissez faire" attitude to beach life. Indeed much of Europe find clothing a hassle to tanning and provide places for tanning "hassle free." There is of course the motivation that Dad sees the next Nolan Ryan, Joe Montana, Wayne Gretsky, or lately David Beckham when they see their kid play a sport. The power sports seem to generate a greater feeling of braggability to the narrow minded. Thus many athletes are shepherded away into real sports by parents and other social pressures. Swimming is a sport that IMHO takes a great deal more natural talent to do even locally good, not top tier elite, at. My friend a good Football (soccer) player said once that it was not fair to race me as I could swim. I told him why not he was swimming too. He replied "No I'm moving in the water; you can SWIM." I got what he was saying. He however can PLAY football I just kicked folks. Not that I'm great at swimming but I feel a certain predispoition, either hereditary or learned by exposure, to being happy in the water--I suggest all of us here are like this. So when you mesh the need for a more intrinsic ability in water ( to achieve top end ressults) with the social attitude towards $ being the measure of what's best, and the preoccupation with violent/contact sports equalling manliness, many kids will be initially moved towards sports that might lead to a more obvious financial or street cred return, or even if they are swimmers they leave for other "REAL" sports at a time when non academic activities have to be reduced. All sports are hard to excel in, and swimming is tough on a person, time and effort is considerable; 5am practices etc. There are many factors, and I don't think the prospect of being beaten by a girl is really a deciding issue. IMHO.