Shark jumping is a new Olympic sport

Elite sports teams should be mixed gender, according to “a rising star” in the current Australian government.

Linda Reynolds would like a parliamentary debate on the subject, paid for by the Australian taxpayer.

Presumably she’s already solved the problems of national policy on cheap energy generation and security, the complexities of the tax code, affordable health care, the creeping pension Ponzi and updating the school curriculum to ensure a future-ready workforce so has got time to spare for this important topic?

Perhaps we can help shorten the debate with a couple of pertinent pictures;

Exhibit A, the largest elite Australian female rugby player, Violeta Tupuola.

Violeta weighs in at a solid 99kg.

Exhibit B, her likely opponent next time she plays against England, Kyle Sinkler;

Kyle has been cutting back on the pastries recently and has trimmed down to an anorexic 124kg, over 25% heavier than his new Australian opponent. That will make for an “interesting” contest at scrum time.

Let’s give a little more context. Here is the lightest man on the current England squad, Danny Care;

Danny currently weighs in at 88kg, or just 11% lighter than the biggest Australian female player. They play in very different positions on the field, Violeta is selected for her power and bulk, Danny for his nimbleness and speed.

What other facts could we bring to the debate?

How about looking at the delta between some of the current men’s and women’s world records;

100m sprint – 0.91 seconds

1,500m – 24.07 seconds

Raw deadlift – 155kg

Long jump – 1.43m

That trend continues for every world record. There is no Olympic sport where women outperform men, including air rifle shooting, an event where it isn’t obvious that a larger body or greater aerobic capacity would be an advantage.

It’s almost as if human beings are, I dunno, a dimorphic species selected over an incredibly long time by natural selection to perform different tasks…..

To return to the article;

However Marnee McKay, a lecturer in musculoskeletal physiotherapy at the University of Sydney, doubted mixed gender teams would suit contact sports.

She said her researched showed that from 12 years of age, “males and females are fundamentally physically different in terms of speed, power and coordination and balance”.

She said tests demonstrated males were stronger than women but females were better at tasks that required fine motor skills. Dr McKay said mixed gender teams could work for sports like lawn bowls.

“But rugby league? No. I cannot see male and female professional athletes competing across all sports as a blanket rule.”

Dr. McKay is risking the Twitter mob pile on by bringing such inconvenience irrelevancies like scientific facts into the debate.

Bill’s Opinion

If there is a parliamentary debate on this proposal, Australian taxpayers should all send an invoice to Linda Reynolds totalling the consequent wasted salaries and building power expended during such a pointless exercise.