Intergender Sports

[Colly]

Kevin sounds awesome.

[MDK]

I was awesome :@

[Gazz]

But what about Chess Boxing?

One of our black belts was British Champion at Chess Boxing.

He got banned from the sport for knocking out a referee and breaking his jaw.

[Matt]

I don't get why sports like Bowls or Curling have gender teams.

Because who wants to watch men's curling?

[MDK]

I don't get why sports like Bowls or Curling have gender teams.

Because who wants to watch men's curling?

Plenty of people will pay to watch someone curl one out

[Colly]

Not mens though. That would be weird.

[Quom]

Also, for any of you who have voted for all sports to be intergender (and I don't mean to name and shame)... How about MMA and boxing? Do you feel that's ok? Or what about Rugby where more and more of the guys and huge, powerful beasts, we talked about Courtney Lawes tackle in the final 6 nations game being amazing at one point, imagine it on a woman, is that ok?

I mean I know it's more of a one of kind thing, but how would Ronda Rousey do competing against male MMA fighters?

Considering she does the Brock Lesnar freeze up when getting hit in the face I'd say not so well. Women's MMA at the moment is very similar to men's MMA 10 years ago, the women involved are all pretty one dimensional. Ronda's so dominant because she's so strong and so good at the one thing she does really well.

[Gazz]

Something popped up on Twitter that I thought is a good demonstration of the physiological differences I was talking about earlier.

Manchester City's U13's team...

I think they evened out the 6 year old in the squad (middle of the front row) by having a 20 year old too.

[Bobfoc]

The goalkeeper looks a bit like Joe Hart.

[Quom]

If you took gender out of this equation, nobody would even compare to the two situations. If you were to compare a man who received lesser coaching, lesser opportunities in sports, less scholarships, less encouragement from the people around them growing up, etc. versus a man who received the best coaching, the best opportunities, the greater scholarships, the greater chances to play in leagues, etc. You would say it was a clearly unfair comparison to say that one of the athletes was better than the other.

But this happens. There have been African basketball players who didn't take up the sport until 14 who are playing in the NBA by 20. Or guys like Giannis Antetokounmpo who went from playing in the Greek second league straight into the NBA at 18 and is now considered an incredibly promising player and starter two seasons later. Meanwhile there are plenty of women who started younger, had better scholarships, had better opportunities who have no chance of ever competing with men.

Same with cricket and football players that grow up in the third world. Sure they probably get better coaching than females in their country, but all male (and female) children in developed nations probably have access to better coaching as juniors.