Female athletes ‘closing the performance gap' with men in certain events, study finds
The performance gap between the sexes in athletics has also narrowed since the 20th century, followed by a period of stability thereafter.
A new study, published in the journal Frontiers in Physiology, found female athletes are rapidly closing the performance gap with men in ultramarathons and Arctic expeditions, and may one day overtake them in these endeavours.
Until now, much of what scientists know about sex-specific differences in exercise or sports performance has been from laboratory-based studies.
While these studies are well-controlled, revealing insights on physiological mechanisms, they lack practical relevance to the 'real world', researchers said. A closer observation of real-world athletic performance in extreme sports reveals an overall shrinking gap between males and females.
For instance, the current men's marathon world record is held by the late Kenyan athlete Kelvin Kiptum at two hours 35 seconds, set during the Chicago Marathon in 2023. In comparison, the women's record was set in the same event by Ruth Chepng'etich – also a Kenyan – at two hours, nine minutes and 56 seconds.
In 2002, Pamela Reed won the Badwater Ultramarathon – a gruelling 218km race held in Death Valley, California – defeating all her male counterparts.
While traits such as strength, power and speed are typically greater in men, recent work suggests the athletic performance gap between the sexes decreases as the distance or duration of an event increases. Developments such as improved footwear and pacesetters, as well as better nutrition, can bridge the performance gap in more such extreme athletic events, scientists said.
Under extreme conditions, women also seem to exhibit greater metabolic efficiency than men. This especially appears to be the case during events conducted in extreme cold conditions.
Women spent lower total energy relative to load carriage compared to men during the Alaska Mountain Wilderness Ski Classic – a remote and unsupported 200km Arctic winter expedition, according to the latest study.
ADVERTISEMENT
Researchers described a phenomenon called an 'Arctic shift' in female athletes, indicating the activation of cold-induced body heat generation at a lower temperature compared to males. This physiological process could be reducing their metabolic demands under cold stress, scientists suspect.
Over the last four decades, the gap in race durations between males and females has decreased by about 3pc in events lasting six, 72, 144, and 240 hours.
When men and women compete in similar numbers, the gap decreases even further. However, fewer elite female athletes participate in such ultraevents.
'Emerging data from endurance events conducted in extreme environments suggest that women may be equally, if not more, metabolically resilient under physical and nutritional stress,' researchers said.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Irish Examiner
18-07-2025
- Irish Examiner
Author interview: Finding new life among the hidden worlds at the ‘Ends of the Earth'
During the late 1960s, John H Mercer set out on an epic adventure: To map the sequence of rock formations in Reedy Glacier, in West Antarctica. On his field trip, the British glaciologist noticed a strange phenomenon: There were layers of sediments typical of those found at the bottom of lakes. It led Mercer to come up with a new working hypothesis: Approximately 120,000 years ago, the high-altitude site where he was carrying out his research held lakes instead of glaciers. Mercer's logic implied that during warm periods, the West Antarctic ice sheet melts completely, only to re-form during cold periods. Mercer explored this idea further in a scientific paper he published in 1968, but nobody paid attention. A decade later, Mercer published another paper in the science journal Nature. 'If the global consumption of fossil fuels continues to grow… atmospheric CO2 content will double in about 50 years,' he wrote. 'Climatic models suggest that the resultant greenhouse-warming effect will be greatly magnified in high latitudes… and could start rapid deglaciation of West Antarctica, leading to a 5m rise in sea level.' The scientific community denounced Mercer as an attention-seeking alarmist. From 1978, until his death nine years later, the British scientist struggled to get grants to support his research. Mercer was a visionary, but his ambitious ideas did not fit with a commonly held consensus among climate scientists. Up until the beginning of the millennium, most of them believed that Antarctica — the Earth's fifth largest but least populated continent — was a stable bulwark against changes in ice. Today, American palaeontologist and evolutionary biologist Neil Shubin describes Mercer as 'an amazing field geologist'. 'Mercer said the world is at a tipping point, and if we keep increasing global temperatures, we are setting ourselves up for dramatic changes with the ice in West Antarctica, and by extension, global sea levels,' the 64-year-old scientist explains from his office at the University of Chicago — where he is currently a professor of Organismal Biology and Anatomy. 'Mercer's peers thought Antarctica was very stable. Unfortunately, though, as research continued over time, it turns out Mercer was probably right. 'Three decades ago in Antarctica, we were losing, say, 80 gigatons of ice per year. But now we are losing about 280 gigatons per year.' Moving ice shapes the world Shubin's book examines how moving ice shapes the world. He notes, for instance, that polar regions encompass 8% of the total surface of the Earth and that almost 70% of all the planet's fresh water is frozen in ice. Expeditions to the polar regions are now a matter of urgency. 'The Arctic is heating five to seven times faster than the rest of the globe, and there are now open spaces of water where ice was previously,' he says. 'In Antarctica, melting ice is less visible to the naked eye.' In fact, Antarctica is witnessing the slowest temperature rise on Earth, but for complex reasons. As the oceans warm, Antarctica's surface temperatures stay relatively cool. This disparity in temperature amplifies a wind current, which swirls around Antarctica and carries 170 times more water than all of the Earth's rivers combined. With that water comes heat. The change in the circumpolar current brings more warm seawater to the coast of Antarctica, causing the coastal glaciers to melt from below, where the ice meets the ocean. The glaciers then fragment and collapse into the sea. Shrinking glaciers, of course, mean rising seas. The British Antarctic Survey along with the US Antarctic Program, have collaborated on research to help us understand those glaciers in West Antarctica. 'Specifically, with robots looking underneath the ice, and with satellite images, and with studies of the ice, both in the air and in the water. They confirm that in West Antarctica there is a lot to worry about,' says Shubin. Drilling in ice in Antarctica has also shed light on another idea geographers and scientists have been speculating about since the mid-19th century: Underneath the ice of the region sit entire worlds sealed off from Earth's surface. We now have a detailed understanding of these hidden worlds, via decades of research that has been carried out by scientists from numerous countries at Lake Vostok. The largest subglacial lake in Antarctica has a surface area of more than 14,000sq km and a depth of more than 800m. Glaciologists have reasons to believe that Lake Vostok may have been separated from the world above for over 15m years, Shubin explains. During the late 1990s, a group of Russian, French, and American scientists set off on an international science trip to drill a core to get down to Lake Vostok. On that occasion, though, the team stopped drilling about 400ft above where they expected liquid water. But even at that depth, the ice samples they recovered displayed special properties. John Priscu, from Montana State University, later received one of those samples. Putting them under high-powered microscopes, Priscu surmised that there were about 100,000 microbes per millilitre of ice. Those findings inspired Priscu to hunt for more life elsewhere in Antarctica. For logistical reasons Priscu decided to move his research to Lake Whillans: A subglacial lake in Antarctica that sits 480km from the South Pole. Using a drill sterilised by UV light and hydrogen peroxide, Priscu and his team sampled the waters of Lake Whillans, which were then examined back in the lab. DNA sequencing revealed nearly 4,000 species living in Lake Whillans under the ice. The subglacial microbes were diverse, thriving, and part of a complex web of ecological interactions. 'These are living creatures that have been separated from the sun, for millennia, if not millions of years,' Shubin explains. And these creatures exchange information with other lakes underneath. 'We don't know much about these worlds and how these creatures survive. There is probably a wide diversity of microbial lifeforms that we can barely imagine under there.' If life can thrive and survive under the ice in Antarctica, it might also be possible it can thrive in extraterrestrial environments too. Shubin mentions Europa, the fourth largest of Jupiter's 95 moons, and, Saturn's moon, Enceladus: A small icy world that has geyser-like jets spewing water vapour and ice particles into space. 'Both of these places have ice on the exterior and fresh water underneath the ice, which make them two promising candidates for places in our solar system to expect microbial life,' Shubin explains. 'Understanding life under the ice in Antarctica gives us a model to think possible alien life outside our own planets.' Closer to home, however, there are more urgent matters to be concerned about, Shubin warns. Global warming means our planet is undoubtedly entering an era of uncertainty. Shubin cites one scientific study which estimates that sea levels could rise as much as 10ft globally in the next century, if the planet warms more than three degrees Fahrenheit. 'Geological engineering is one option we might have to peruse if we cannot, as [a global community] get carbon emissions under control,' says Shubin. 'But the reality is that the choices we make for the future will make a difference. Not just for us. But for future generations. 'We need to keep global conversations alive and international science collaboration going,' Shubin concludes. 'Antarctica and the Arctic are warming, and polar treaties are straining as fast as ice melts and species disappear. 'Our fragile window for understanding the cosmos, the planet, and ourselves is closing, so we need to act now.' Read More Book review: Revealing the dangers and thrill of polar exploration leaves a deadly chill
Irish Independent
01-07-2025
- Irish Independent
Louth scientist Niamh Shaw to follow in the footsteps of Dundalk's Arctic Fox on latest expedition
The Argus Today at 01:00 Louth science communicator, writer, engineer, and performer Dr Niamh Shaw is travelling to the Arctic Circle this month to retrace and research the tale of Ireland's Arctic Fox, Sir Leopold McClintock. Leopold McClintock, known as the Arctic Fox, was born in Dundalk in 1819 and achieved fame as an Arctic explorer who discovered the fate of Sir John Franklin's failed 1845 expedition in search of the North West Passage. Related topics Margaret Roddy
Irish Times
09-06-2025
- Irish Times
Extinction of nature's giants tracks human expansion across the globe
When did humanity's destructive relationship with nature begin? Was it the unleashing of neoliberal market reforms in the 1980s? Was it the dawn of the Industrial Revolution in the late 1700s? Or even the beginning of the era of capitalist colonialism in the late 1490s? Or does it go back further, to the rise in agriculture, or organised religion that granted on to men dominion over all the beasts of the earth? While these are all important points of inflection in our troubled relationship with nature, none point neatly to a juncture where peaceful harmony gave way to something darker in the human spirit. Last year, a fascinating paper published by a team from Aarhus University in Denmark, tells the remarkable tale of early modern humans and their relationship with the giants that had, up to then, ruled the land for millions of years. Large animals, referred to as 'megafauna', dominated terrestrial ecosystems in a way that is hard to imagine today. For instance, there are only three species of elephant in Africa and parts of southern Asia, but until quite recently, 12 other elephants roamed throughout Europe, the Americas and across Asia as far as the high Arctic. There were distinct species of dwarf elephants living on islands, including off the coast of California and in the Mediterranean, including Cyprus and Sicily (later, the unearthing of their skulls would inspire myths of the Cyclops). READ MORE Many of these mammoths and mastodons were huge, well over 1,000kg, but they were not alone. There were 16 types of ground sloths (one nearly as tall as a modern African elephant), giant marsupials in Australia, an armadillo the size of a small car in South America and an American beaver twice the size of those that exist today. Then there were the carnivores: sabre-toothed cats, dire wolves and cave bears (both substantially bigger than their surviving relatives). There were lions and rhinos across Europe and America. The world was also inhabited by monster birds, including the flightless moas in New Zealand, some up to 3m in height, and Haast's eagle, the largest eagle ever to have existed, up to twice the size of the largest eagle in existence today. Due to their large size and abundance, the megafauna shaped the ecosystems in which they lived, but today they are nearly all gone. From 50,000 years ago, their signature in the fossil record starts to flicker out. Today, only 11 out of 57 species weighing in at more than one tonne survive, while nearly half of the animals in the 100-1,000kg size range also disappeared. The researchers from Aarhus refer to this 'simplification' of the fauna as 'unique on a 30 million-year timescale.' When the bones of the megafauna started to be unearthed by European scientists in the 1700s, they caused bafflement. Extinction was not an accepted concept at the time, indeed, it was heretical to believe that God, after creating a perfect world, would allow any of his creations to disappear. Thomas Jefferson, third president of the United States, fervently hoped that America's elephant, the mastodon, still roamed the western parts of the Continent which were then unknown to white people. As evidence grew from around the world, and it became clear that extinction was a real phenomenon, investigation into the vanishing of the megafauna narrowed to two prime suspects: changing climate or 'overkill', the idea that early hunter-gatherers hunted the great beasts off the face of the earth. However, that debate now seems to be settled, with the Danish researchers finding that 'there is little support' for the climate-driven theory'. There are two principal reasons which point the finger at humans: first, the extinction was heavily biased towards the largest animals on land, smaller animals were much less affected while plants, and animals in the ocean, not at all. Second, the time frame over which extinctions occurred tracks closely the expansion of humans across the world's land bodies. Africa, where the human story begins, is not so much affected (though it doesn't escape completely). But as people spread to Asia, Europe and Australia, the giants fell. In the Americas, dates for extinction match the arrival of people 15,000 years ago, while the moas and Hast's eagle survived in New Zealand up to human colonisation in the 1400s. Jens-Christian Svenning is the lead author of the paper and believes that rather than looking at the megafauna extinctions as an 'event', it is instead 'the start of humanity's transformation of the biosphere', something that continues to this day. Populations of surviving megafauna are in a 'dire state' says his paper and nearly half of all mammals today weighing more than 10kg are threatened with extinction. He notes that 'it's a process that likely has very deep roots, the start of it is probably a million years ago but became really apparent from about 50,000 years ago'. That humans are the cause can still stoke debate, but at this stage, Svenning seems confident to brush this off. 'To be completely honest, the relation to humans, and the lack of a consistent relationship to climate, is a very clear pattern. From that perspective, it's weird that it's still controversial ... People undervalue how resourceful and impactful hunter-gatherer people have been. 'In Europe, there is a strong tendency to interpret the ecosystems before agriculture as natural, implying that people hardly had any influence on their environment before that. But people 50,000 years ago were just as capable as we are ... there's no reason why they wouldn't try to manipulate their environment for their own benefit ... the ideal of the 'noble savage' is still quite prevalent.' Svenning notes that at the scale of a human lifetime, extinctions happened over a very prolonged period (woolly mammoths survived in Siberia right up to 4,300 years ago) so people were likely unaware of the impact of their actions, something that can't be said for us today. Humans and our ancestors have been hunting large animals for a long time, and possibly precipitated extinctions even before the arrival of modern humans. 'It's well established that Neanderthals killed straight-tusked elephants in Europe,' he points out, however their impact was limited due to their small population sizes (it is also notable that Neanderthals also went extinct with the rise of Homo sapiens). Human impact was not related, therefore, only to their capabilities, but to their expansion in numbers. The consequences of the absence of large herbivores, which play key roles in seed dispersal, spreading of nutrients and the structure of vegetation, have been profound. Less grazing has meant more growth of woody plants, which, depending on the climate, leads to more fires, a pattern that is perpetuated to this day with the absence of large grazers that were common even a few centuries ago. As for the impact on climate, the picture is complicated as multiple effects are likely to have had warming and cooling effects. Today, wild animals only make up a mere 4 per cent of the total mass of mammals in the world. Today's megafauna is mostly made up of cattle and other domestic animals and there have been suggestions from some in the livestock industry that the overall effect on the planet is neutral. However, today's 1.5 billion cattle, many of which are confined for some or all of their lives, eating processed foodstuffs and prevented from displaying their natural behaviours, are no substitute for healthy natural ecosystems. Whole processes, driven by a fantastic diversity of animals, such as migration, predation, seed dispersal, decomposition and scavenging, are now absent from swathes of Earth's land surface. 'I'm pretty sure we have a lot more livestock now, and a lot more [methane-emitting] ruminants than there were wild animals in the past,' says Svenning. 'The way we keep the livestock is completely non-analogue to naturally living megafauna, there's no doubt it's not comparable. 'If one wanted to have more sustainable livestock production from a climate and biodiversity perspective, the way to go is low intensity, low stocking rates, such as in European semi-natural landscapes, that's very possible. Of course, the consequence of this is that the production is much, much lower. So, it means there won't be so much meat available for everybody to consume. That's simply impossible.'
