this post was submitted on 09 Aug 2024
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[–] HauntedBucket@lemm.ee 98 points 3 months ago (4 children)

All Olympians are genetic outliers. Do you really want to be the DNA police? Then every Michael Phelps medal should be returned because that man is naturally different from the rest of us. But he's a man so we're not talking about him.

https://www.biography.com/athletes/michael-phelp-perfect-body-swimming

[–] ech@lemm.ee 64 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (2 children)

Seriously. Phelps is pretty much genetically ideal for a swimmer, but nobody claimed it was "UnfAiR!!" when he swept the board multiple olympics in a row, garnering more gold medals than anyone in history, before or since.

One female boxer looks a bit "too" muscular and the bigots are up in arms. Fucking assholes.

[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 33 points 3 months ago

And Khelif lost plenty of bouts in her career, but somehow, those aren’t relevant because, “I know a man when I see one.”

[–] njm1314@lemmy.world 11 points 3 months ago (14 children)

I actually encountered someone a couple of days ago herr on Lemmy that said it was unfair of Phelps to compete because he was too genetically superior. It was bizarre. Course it was on a thread about Phelps criticizing Chinese athletes who were doping so I imagine it was just a tankie trying his best.

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[–] sudneo@lemm.ee 4 points 3 months ago

This is honestly an argument that I find very weak. I mean absolutely there are plenty of genetic advantages in general in sport. The problem is that not all sports have categories to isolate competitions for certain parameters. Swimming does not, so you could argue that is unfair by default, but that's what it is right now. Fighting sports generally do have categories, both gender and weight.

If we leave alone gender, if someone had some condition (let's imagine something that doesn't exist) that would result in having muscle mass common for a 80Kg, but in a 70Kg body, that person would probably have an unfair advantage in the 70Kg category because weight is a proxy for muscle mass as well.

The only reasonable argument here is that the boxer, even if she has some genetic condition, still tested within the limits for female boxers. That is pretty much it, which means that whatever condition she has (if any), it's not considered an advantage in the female category according to current standards.

[–] bassomitron@lemmy.world 4 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (2 children)

Was it him or Lance Armstrong that ended up getting caught doping? Pretty sure it was the latter, but also recall Phelps getting accused of something. If could've even been something irrelevant like marijuana.

Agree with your point, though.

[–] legion02@lemmy.world 21 points 3 months ago (1 children)
[–] LustyArgonianMana@lemmy.world 0 points 3 months ago

And poor Sha'Carri

[–] dubyakay@lemmy.ca 10 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

Lance Was the one that got accu of doping. He never got caught. Just didn't contest charges by the anti doping agency after he retired anyway.

But also, everyone seems to do it in cycling.

[–] njm1314@lemmy.world 8 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I'm pretty sure he was caught. Like proven. It's just they caught like virtually every other cyclist in that same race.

[–] Passerby6497@lemmy.world 8 points 3 months ago

It was so bad that there are 6 Tours De France without winners because he and so many people behind him were all disqualified.

[–] LustyArgonianMana@lemmy.world 3 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (27 children)

What's interesting is Katie Ledecky can beat him on long distance swims, if we go by their times. So how much of an advantage is gender in many sports at this level? And let's look at disability - Usain Bolt had/has scoliosis, Ledecky has POTS, and many other athletes have "disabling" conditions. So why would intersex get a special category that isn't allowed? It's just transphobia.

Here’s a source for Katie Ledecky beating Phelps: https://www.essentiallysports.com/us-sports-news-olympics-news-swimming-news-is-katie-ledecky-faster-than-michael-phelps-answering-the-burning-question-of-the-swimming-community-before-us-olympic-trials/

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