Université Jean Monnet Saint-Etienne, Lyon 1, Université Savoie Mont-Blanc, Inter-university Laboratory of Human Movement Biology, F-42023, Saint-Etienne, France.
Université Jean Monnet Saint-Etienne, CNRS, Institut d'Optique Graduate School, Laboratoire Hubert Curien UMR 5516, F-42023, Saint-Etienne, France.
Sports Med. 2023 Apr;53(4):917-926. doi: 10.1007/s40279-023-01813-4. Epub 2023 Feb 21.
To determine whether the gap in endurance performance between men and women is reduced as distances increase, i.e. if there is a sex difference in endurance, one can analyse the performance of elite runners, all participants, or one can pair women and men during short-distance events and examine the difference over longer distances. The first two methods have caveats, and the last method has never been performed with a large dataset. This was the goal of the present study.
A dataset including 38,860 trail running races from 1989 to 2021 in 221 countries was used. It provided information on 1,881,070 unique runners, allowing 7251 pairs of men and women with the same relative level of performance to be obtained, i.e. the same percentage of the winner time of the considered race on short races (25-45 km-effort) that were compared during longer races (45-260 km-effort). The effect of distance on sex differences in average speed was determined using a gamma mixed model.
The gap between sexes decreased as distance increases, i.e. men's speed decreased by 4.02% (confidence interval 3.80-4.25) for every 10 km-effort increase, whereas it decreased by 3.25% (confidence interval 3.02-3.46) for women. The men-women ratio decreases from 1.237 (confidence interval 1.232-1.242) for a 25 km-effort to 1.031 (confidence interval 1.011-1.052) for a 260 km-effort. This interaction was modulated by the level of performance, i.e. the greater the performance level of the runner, the lower the difference in endurance between sexes.
This study shows for the first time that the gap between men and women shrinks when trail running distance increases, which demonstrates that endurance is greater in women. Although women narrow the performance gap with men as race distance increases, top male performers still outperform the top women.
为了确定耐力表现上的性别差距是否随着距离的增加而缩小，也就是说，如果存在耐力方面的性别差异，可以分析精英跑者的表现、所有参与者的表现，或者可以在短距离比赛中配对男女，并在更长距离的比赛中观察差异。前两种方法都有其局限性，而最后一种方法从未在大数据集中进行过。这就是本研究的目的。
使用了一个从 1989 年到 2021 年在 221 个国家举行的 38860 场越野跑比赛的数据集。它提供了关于 1881070 名独特跑者的信息，从中可以获得 7251 对男女跑者的数据，他们具有相同的相对表现水平，即在短距离比赛（25-45 公里-努力）中获得相同的比赛冠军用时的百分比，而在长距离比赛（45-260 公里-努力）中进行比较。使用伽马混合模型确定距离对男女平均速度差异的影响。
性别差距随着距离的增加而缩小，即男性速度每增加 10 公里努力度下降 4.02%（置信区间 3.80-4.25），而女性速度下降 3.25%（置信区间 3.02-3.46）。男性与女性的比例从 25 公里努力度的 1.237（置信区间 1.232-1.242）下降到 260 公里努力度的 1.031（置信区间 1.011-1.052）。这种交互作用受到表现水平的调节，即跑者的表现水平越高，性别之间的耐力差异就越小。
本研究首次表明，当越野跑距离增加时，男女之间的差距会缩小，这表明女性的耐力更强。尽管随着比赛距离的增加，女性缩小了与男性的表现差距，但顶级男性运动员仍然优于顶级女性运动员。
