LogFAQs > #960853154

hockeybub89 posted...

If an individual athlete at their best is nearly unbeatable, should they be removed from the league or placed with the men? Wouldn't their continued existence be unfair to the success of their peers? Should peak Usain Bolt been barred from sprinting? Is it unfair to put other swimmers in the pool with Katie Ledecky on a distance event?

If we aren't in an event with weight classes, how can we quantify how elite of an athlete you are before your participation is unfair?

Why would Usain Bolt be barred from sprinting? We don't rule people out for doing well. Do we have a separate sprinting class for people over 6ft4 or something?

That's my entire point. Divisions in sport are literally discrimination designed to protect a class of people who otherwise would be ruled out of competitive sport. There would be no lightweight weightlifters, lightweight fighters, females or people under the age of 18 in more or less any sport at all if these divisions didn't exist.

Basketball is an example of a sport where an obvious height advantage exists but we never made a division for it. Why? Well I guess, because (somewhat arbitrarily) we never thought that a short person's basketball league was important enough.

I think what you're arguing here begs an even bigger question: what is even the point of sport? We don't rule people out for doing well. We only rule people out for not being a certain "class" of person, however arbitrary that class is., whether it's weight or height or disability or age. But the point is, once you define that class you have to defend it, or abandon it. And that's only because we wanted to see people of X class compete against people in the same class, nothing more or less.