When recent female Olympic champions would have won gold in the men's event



MUCH has been made of the performance on July 28th of Ye Shiwen in the women's 400m individual medley. Her final 50m sprint was faster than the final 50m swum by Ryan Lochte, the winner of the men's event, and her overall winning time was faster than that in the men's race in the 1972 Olympics. Is this an indication that the gap between male and female performance in the pool is not as great as one might think? Today's charts show that in four Olympic swimming events with a long performance history, the most recent women's winning times (we have used 2012 results where applicable) would all have won gold medals as recently as the 1960s and '70s. But in athletics, the story is rather different. The 2008 gold-medal winners would have to travel substantially farther back in time to triumph in the men's competitions. Indeed, the winner of the long jump, Maurren Maggi, would have to go to Athens 1896—and even then she might have struggled. According to the gold-medal winner, Ellery Clark, the distances the men jumped were compromised by the refusal of Prince George of Greece to allow the measuring of run-ups because such behaviour savoured of professionalism.