Why are the top women 100-meter hurdlers so beautiful?
Seriously.
Actually, I’ve noticed recently that a lot of the female athletes are beautiful, and I don’t remember that being so true in previous years. Male pulchritude has always been a feature of the Olympics, but the females have lagged somewhat behind, to the best of my recollection anyway.
And I’ve also noticed that the female track and field athletes this year almost all have long long hair, usually tied back in swinging ponytails or up in buns. That seems newish to me, too, at least within the last decade or so. I remember that when Florence Griffith-Joyner was running back in the 80s, her long hair, complicated manicures, and devotion to fashion (including uni-leg running outfits that she designed herself) seemed a novelty and drew as much attention as her extreme speed:
I tried to find a good video of the 2016 Olympic 100-meter women’s hurdle finals to show their speed, because they most certainly are fleet of foot. However, I couldn’t find a single one where you could see them clearly, so the following will have to do; it shows the three American winners (gold, silver, bronze) at the very end of the race and shortly afterwards. And to top it all off, embedding is disabled, so you’ll need to go to YouTube to view it.
Here are a couple of still photos:
That last photo seems to me to encapsulate the idea of jumping for joy.
[ADDENDUM: During the Olympics I often have the TV turned on and set on “mute” as I blog, and now and then I glance at it to see whether there’s something especially interesting going on. Just now I saw a men’s bicycle race called the BMX, which I’d never heard of before. Whoaaa! Thrills and chills! It was won in an upset by an American, Connor Fields, who explains the sport here:
I can’t find any videos of the race I just saw yet, but here’s a different one (can’t be embedded) to give you an idea of what the sport looks like in slow-mo (obviously, in real life it’s much much faster):
These people seem to be made of different stuff.]
before feminism being soft and so forth was the idea
post femism, pretending your a man is the idea
so the pretty women who would have not bothered to compete and all that, are now competeing…
in the past, the pretty women didnt have to, want to, or would have benefited much, so the field was left open to those less than feminine women.
still going on, but the olympics is the cream of the crop
however, in the marines and special forces, zero are making it…
I noticed the beauty of female athletes with the UConn women’s basketball teams. Not that this was the first instance, mind you.
note that many of these new athletes are not healthy, they often do not have periods, and often are infertile or have other issues…
Studies over the years have reported that over 60% of women athletes have what is known as “Athletic Amenorrhea,” that is disturbed menstruation due to the demands of high intensity training on the body.
and in the past, fertility WAS important… women wanted kids, not like today where the groups are dying out and dont beleive it till its way too late to do anything about it…
they often are too lean to have normal periods and normal function… (while the men who do this are the pick of the litter and are not being ruined by their sport in the same way – though injury is another thing)
women need fat to be healthy, and being lean and having a flat stomach is only sexy to those that want ot toss in the hay and not have kids..
this is why men laugh at the feminists saying men want these anorexic waifs.. those only appear in womens mags, the men like healthy… which you wuold see if one looked in the mens mags..
the mens idea of beauty is symetry (clue to immunity), and certain hip and waist ratios that reflect high fertility and high success… (and its across all cultures). note that twiggy, the pop star and marylyn monroe have the same hip to waist ratio… its the ratio, not the absolut… so the anorexics think its thinness when its really fertility, and ratio as there is nothing to measure aginst other than relatively
these women also tend not to have good births anyway, and often need cesearians. their hips often are more male like so they have canals too small
note that there are also differences in the arms for other things… which women ignore because they are told they are like men… like the twist in the arm. mens arms lack the outward twist yu can see in the famous sargent painting… this twist helps to hold a baby, but causes issues when punching… for men, the lack of it transmits power… this is why the women who are taking up mens sports, like boxing, are also taking up lifetime injuries at much much higher rates.
they are not equal to the men
this causes a high suicide rate in the military for women, who are told they are equal to the men, and then they finally get to compete agaist men who arent throwing the game, or the society isnt protecting them from, and they see how large the gap is in doing things. which is why they have to do things differently or at a lesser rate (The young girl that did the push ups in the video against the guy and won, was not through puberty)
there is tons of fascinating stuff in this subject
hope others can bring info and share!!!!!!!!!
Wilma Rudolph was a lovely young woman when she won her gold medals at the Olympics in 1960. Hair style wasn’t great, though, and no makeup, so the glamour quotient wasn’t there.
Ann:
My post on Wilma Rudolph.
The three in the 100m hurdles looked even better running!
All three could be super models.
Thanks, Neo, that’s a great post on Wilma Rudolph. I’d not seen it before.
Well, athletic women at that level usually have very good genetic backgrounds. It is actually odd to find one who isn’t attractive in the face- lots of symmetry. And, of course, the athleticism shapes the rest of the body into a pleasing (at least to me) shape for all but the most intense endurance events, however, even the distance runners (races over 800 meters) are quite attractive to me.
And the three hurdlers in the 100m race are particularly beautiful.
Some countries in Africa are known for their beautiful women. Ethiopia and Somalia in particular. Iman, the supermodel, was born in Somalia. Somalia was once described as a place where the men were all high on khat and the women all looked like Iman. 🙂
These three hurdlers look as if their genes may come from that area of East Africa.
What a wonderful thing to be young, beautiful, talented, and in the Olympics. Top of the world. Good for them.
One odd thing I’ve noticed is that there are two sports which select for the same body type–tall and yet have very different levels of attractiveness. This is basketball and volleyball. In both woman’s and men’s teams, the volleyball players are much more attractive than the basketball players. It is more pronounced one the women’s side though.
Also, now that they show more weightlifting than just the heavyweights–These people are mostly quite attractive and not close to the stereotype of fat, blocky looking folks.
This 100m hurdler from Australia is adorable: Michelle Jenneke
I think the rise in the importance of visual media (TV, Film, video) in our entertainment-driven culture has also contributed to the increasingly beautiful women, and even men too, that rise to the top in every venue that lends itself to such exposure. Fitness videos, music videos, cheer-leading and dance team competitions, et al, all require comely participants, non? The monumental money at stake even for “amateurs” these days doesn’t hurt either.
Studies for a long time have shown that the better looking children receive more encouragement to excel from an early age, especially in the performing arts, which sports could easily be grouped with.
J.J.:
If the women all looked like Iman, why did the men need to get high on khat?
Here is an exceptionally beautiful Ethiopian star runner. She’s got beautiful running sisters, too.
Neo: “If the women all looked like Iman, why did the men need to get high on khat?”
That is the $64 question isn’t it?
The Ethiopian runner is a beauty as well. Thanks for the link.
Makes one wonder how that part of Africa came up such a winner in the genetic lottery. They are a fine-boned people with wonderfully shaped heads and with noses and eyes that many people go to plastic surgeons to emulate. More mysteries to ponder.
Why the top performers in many sport disciplines are beautiful? Because genetic supremacy needed for champion status manifest itself in a lot of ways, and beauty is one of them, especially in women.
Sergey:
But to the best of my recollection, the women athletes didn’t used to be especially beautiful (with some exceptions, of course).
It depends on diversity of abilities needed for a specific discipline. Hurdlers need many different skills involving all systems of organism: force, agility, speed, precise visual-spatial orientation. That is where general genetic supremacy comes into play. Women beauty is a powerful tool of so called sexual selection, as Darwin described it. It means robustness of genetic regulation of development processes, which manifest itself in symmetry of face (since the left and the right halves of the body originate from the two different embrionic cells). Beauty involves also harmony of the size of different body parts, which also can be achieved only by perfect genetic regulation of the growth processes.
Sergey:
I think you’ve got it.
Regarding the volley ball vs basket ball beauty question. Basket ball requires more upper body arm and arm strength than volley ball I would guess. Captain Obvious speaks! /jk
Many women athletes are not, strictly speaking, women, but natural androgynes, especially where brute force trumps all other traits. Robust skeleton and excessive muscular mass also means an excess of male hormones, first of all testosterone. This is a natural anabolic, so they need not to cheat and use these forbidden doping substances, their bodies produce them themselves. And this does not lead exactly to female beauty!
As Darwin explained, sexual selection and other types of selective pressures often work in the opposite directions. Athletes are special cases of a very strong selection, which can drive away from natural norm which we perceive as beauty.
Neo, I’m guessing it’s because of color TV and now HDTV, so make-up and hair styles are of personal concerns for looking good on TV. Do you recall a New Yorker article of 10-20 years back on the Las Vegas topless ice show skaters, showing them made up and in costume and in mufti without make-up?
Neo,
If you like the BMX cyclists you should catch the X-Games when they’re on. Way more fun than the Olympics with really outrageous events like the guys on motorcycles doing 360 flips in midair. BMX racing originated there.
Yep. Neo is correct. I especially like the gold winner in the shot put. Boy is she a beauty. -)
The beautifulness is human look and soul,
As most young people looks beautiful dispite the different looks and different details of thier looks but the youthness shine from thier faces bodies and looks
This is the hunmun as God create them but of course there air few of exceptions.
As for sport in these day of age the change in life, Money, life style of living and most importantly the revolution in communication social media all that drages people to see, learn and change and som times copy the thos beautful examples they see and they love them.
I don’t know why they are, but they are. Enjoy this, especially the race itself:
http://www.mostwatchedtoday.com/michelle-jenneke-pre-race-dance/
I love the ‘jumping for joy’ photo!
The daughter of former US President George Bush has posted a photo on social media of her grabbing the athlete’s biceps.
You can see the guy closely in the opening ceremony here & here
These women are Olympic athletes. Why do they have to look like showgirls?