Thread

Six-year-old breaks women's world Rubik's Cube record [video]

69 points · 67 comments · 1659447091

etiennebausson · 1790230765 · focus · HN ↗
I'm a bit curious about the rationale behind splitting the category by gender for rubik's cube. Is there a difference in dexterity to justify it?
Sound about as useful as splitting rubik's cube champion by weight class.
Video looks impressive, though the resources poured into that training seems excessive to me. Maybe I'm too poor and don't understand how rich people raise their kids?
1. patrec · 1790242154 · focus · HN ↗
  Can you name any fields from the top of your head that have a) objective scoring b) no gender split rankings b) women in the top 10, consistently?
  1. jstanley · 1790243141 · focus · HN ↗
    This was not from the top of my head but:
    * Equestrian endurance racing: <a href="https://www.fei.org/endurance/rankings" rel="nofollow">https://www.fei.org/endurance/rankings
    * Long-distance sled-dog racing: <a href="https://iditarod.com/race/2023/" rel="nofollow">https://iditarod.com/race/2023/
    * NHRA drag racing: <a href="https://www.nhra.com/news/2023/final-2023-camping-world-drag-racing-series-top-10-standings" rel="nofollow">https://www.nhra.com/news/2023/final-2023-camping-world-drag...
    * Crossword solving: <a href="https://crosswordtournament.com/2018/index.htm" rel="nofollow">https://crosswordtournament.com/2018/index.htm
    * Dog agility: <a href="https://www.agilitynow.eu/results/agility-world-championship-2024/" rel="nofollow">https://www.agilitynow.eu/results/agility-world-championship...
    I read that the reason so many fields appear to be male-dominated is just that men have wider variance on almost anything you can measure, so outliers on any metric are more likely to be men.
    etiennebausson · 1790282528 · focus · HN ↗
    I would argue that sled dog racing at least is heavily impacted by the participant weight, but fair enough.
  2. 1659447091 · 1790243901 · focus · HN ↗
    Ultra-endurance sports/running. First read discussions about it here but can't remember the thread
    <a href="https://www.fitnessfirst.com.au/get-there/new-study-finds-women-are-better-at/" rel="nofollow">https://www.fitnessfirst.com.au/get-there/new-study-finds-wo...
    patrec · 1790253475 · focus · HN ↗
    Ultra-endurance definitely seems to have one of the thinnest sex differentials in sports.
    Still, when I ask Google to provide a list of top 10 ultra endurance runners in terms of absolute performance across sexes, it lists not a single woman and elaborates: "While female athletes like Courtney Dauwalter have occasionally won mid-tier ultramarathons outright over the entire field, in highly competitive, top-tier international events, the absolute raw times and physical performance indexes lean heavily toward the elite male field."
    1659447091 · 1790259563 · focus · HN ↗
    > a) objective scoring b) no gender split rankings b) women in the top 10, consistently?
    Why are changing the criteria?
    Here are a list of race results you can look through.[0]
    Look at the longest distance & time races such as the multi day one and females are "in the top 10, consistently", in overall results.
    And thats with currently only about 20% of ultra endurance runners are female -- but growing. Apparently the science has female physiology as potentially superior for the longer distances (>195 miles) and studies[1] show that they are faster in amateur pace per mile at the greater distances
    [0] <a href="https://ultrarunning.com/calendar/race-results" rel="nofollow">https://ultrarunning.com/calendar/race-results
    [1] <a href="https://runrepeat.com/state-of-ultra-running" rel="nofollow">https://runrepeat.com/state-of-ultra-running

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