Five-second answer

Claim we investigated

Boys and men have a large competitive advantage over girls and women in high-school and professional sports.

True. After puberty, males outperform females by about 7-15% in running and swimming, 18-28% in jumping, and more in strength. Official results from Washington's 2026 state high-school track meet and the Paris 2024 Olympics show a large male margin in every event compared, and studies from Norway, the United States, Europe and Australia trace it to physical changes at puberty.

Quote or cite this fact-check

FactHub rates the claim “Boys and men have a large competitive advantage over girls and women in high-school and professional sports” True (high confidence): After puberty, males outperform females by about 7-15% in running and swimming, 18-28% in jumping, and more in strength. Reviewed October 12, 2026. https://facthub.org/n/article/boys-girls-sports-performance-gap/5

One-minute summary

What the evidence establishes

  • At Washington's state track meets from 2022 to 2026, the boys' champion beat the girls' champion in 149 of 150 comparable finals and tied once; the 8th-place boy beat the girls' champion in 136 of 142.
  • Every year from 2022 to 2026, 19 to 37 performances by Washington high-school boys beat a Paris 2024 women's Olympic winning mark.
  • Across the United States, boys' national high-school records beat girls' by about 10% to 30% in eight running and jumping events, close to the Olympic margins.
  • At the Paris 2024 Olympics, men's champions beat women's champions by 9-15% in running, 18-28% in jumping and 7-12% in swimming.
  • Boys and girls perform almost equally until about age 12; in USA Swimming's national standards the gap grows from under 2% at 11 to 12% at 18, and Norwegian track data show the same timing.
  • Adult men average about 57% more skeletal muscle, 64% stronger grip, 17% more hemoglobin and 28% higher aerobic capacity than women; before puberty these differences are 0-7%.
  • Girls and women do hold real advantages in flexibility, muscle fatigue resistance, marathon pacing and very long cold-water swims, and reaction time shows little or no sex difference.
Important context: This article compares biological males and females who are not taking hormone drugs, puberty blockers or steroids; it does not examine transgender athletes or any eligibility rule, including Washington initiative IL26-638 on the November 3, 2026 ballot, which concerns who may compete in girls' school sports. Averages and champions are compared; many individual girls outperform many individual boys.

The evidence

The conclusion rests on the combined record. Expand each item to see its role and limitations.

Independence note: This check uses 7 methods across 20 institutions and 9 countries or international groupings.
Evidence map
Method Institution / country Year(s) What it shows Key limitation Primary links
Analysis of official competition results Washington Interscholastic Activities Association (WIAA) United States 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025, 2026 FactHub tabulated every final at the 2022 to 2026 WIAA 2A, 3A and 4A state track and field championships in the ten events boys and girls contest identically: 100m, 200m, 400m, 800m, 1600m, 3200m, high jump, pole vault, long jump and triple jump. In 149 of the 150 finals the boys' champion beat the girls' champion, and in the other, the 2022 3A pole vault, they tied at 14 feet 6 inches; the median margin was 17.6%. In 136 of the 142 finals with an 8th-place boys' mark, the boy who finished last in the boys' final beat the girls' state champion; the exceptions were four pole-vault finals and two 3A 400m finals in which the last boy ran 57.65 and 1:40.06, far behind the rest of the field. At the 2026 meet, for example, the 4A girls' 100m was won in 11.87 seconds and the 8th-place boy ran 11.12. Every year, between 19 and 37 boys' finals performances also beat the Paris 2024 women's Olympic winning mark in the same event: 27 in 2022, 36 in 2023, 19 in 2024, 37 in 2025 and 37 in 2026, most of them in the 800m. Each meet is one weekend; wind, weather and tactics differ between races, and one exceptional athlete can move a single margin, such as the 45.8% 4A pole-vault margin in 2026, set by a winner 2 feet higher than any other boy. Field depth also varies: in technique-heavy events and in some years the girls' fields are thin, and the 2022 3A pole vault shows that a strong girls' field can match the boys'. High-school athletes are not routinely drug-tested. Hurdles and throws are excluded because boys and girls use different hurdle heights, distances and implement weights. FactHub transcribed the marks from the official PDFs with published scripts; athlete names are omitted. FactHub Washington Interscholastic Activities Association (WIAA) Washington Interscholastic Activities Association (WIAA) Washington Interscholastic Activities Association (WIAA) Washington Interscholastic Activities Association (WIAA) Washington Interscholastic Activities Association (WIAA) World Athletics
Analysis of national competition records Wikipedia compilation of U.S. high-school national records (from meet results and news reports) United States 2001, 2002, 2004, 2009, 2015, 2018, 2022, 2023, 2025 Washington's meet is not unusual. FactHub compared the outdoor U.S. national high-school records for boys and girls, held by athletes from schools in 11 states (California, Florida, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Nevada, North Carolina, Texas, Utah, Virginia and Washington), in eight running and jumping events. The boys' record is better by 9.8% in the 100m (9.92 vs 10.89 seconds), 14.9% in the 400m (44.10 vs 50.69), 16.4% in the 800m (1:42.27 vs 1:59.04), 12.9% in the mile (3:53.43 vs 4:23.50), 19.1% in the high jump (2.31 vs 1.94 m), 30.1% in the pole vault (6.05 vs 4.65 m), 19.2% in the long jump (8.18 vs 6.86 m) and 22.0% in the triple jump (16.72 vs 13.71 m). These best-in-the-nation margins are close to the Paris 2024 Olympic margins, including the long jump (19.2% vs 19.4%), so the larger long-jump gap at Washington's 2026 meet looks like a feature of one state's girls' field that year, not of girls' high-school sport nationally. Records are single best performances from different years (2001 to 2025), meets and conditions, so they compare the best boy and best girl in the country rather than typical athletes. Some were set at open, national or international meets while the athlete was still in high school, and not all were drug-tested. The list is a Wikipedia compilation that cites meet results and news reports, not an official National Federation of State High School Associations list. Where it gives more than one boys' 100m mark, FactHub used 9.92 seconds, run at the Texas state high-school championship; the 9.89 run at a senior international meet would raise that margin to 10.1%. Hurdles and throws are excluded for the same reason as at the Washington meet. FactHub Wikipedia
Analysis of official competition results World Athletics, International Olympic Committee France, International 2024 At the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, whose athletes are subject to anti-doping testing, the men's champion beat the women's champion in every event compared: by 9.5% in the 100m (9.79 vs 10.72 seconds), 11.0% in the 400m, 15.3% in the 800m, 9.4% to 15.0% from 1500m to the marathon, 18.0% in the high jump, 27.6% in the pole vault, 19.4% in the long jump and 18.9% in the triple jump. In pool swimming the margins were smaller but consistent: 11.6% in the 50m freestyle, 12.4% in the 100m freestyle, 6.8% in the 1500m freestyle and 8.3% to 10.3% in backstroke. Using recent drug-tested results avoids a known distortion in all-time records: several women's records date from the 1980s, when state-run doping programs were later documented, which makes the gap in records look smaller than it is. A single Olympic final reflects tactics and conditions; distance races in particular are often run slower than record pace. Marks were transcribed from compiled medal tables and checked one by one against the official World Athletics and World Aquatics results; all 40 matched. FactHub World Athletics World Aquatics Thibault V, Guillaume M, Berthelot G et al. (2010)
Longitudinal analysis of youth performance records Norwegian Olympic and Paralympic Committee (Olympiatoppen), Mayo Clinic, University of Sydney, USA Swimming Norway, United States, Australia 2015, 2018, 2019, 2024 A study of the 100 best Norwegian athletes at each age from 11 to 18 found that boys and girls performed almost equally in the 60m, 800m, long jump and high jump up to about age 12; after that, boys improved much faster, and the sex difference grew from under 5% at age 11 to 10-18% by age 18. A study of the top 100 U.S. age-group swimmers found the fastest girls under 10 were about 3% faster than the fastest boys, but boys led by 2.5% at age 10 and 7.6% at 17. USA Swimming's national time standards for 2024-2028 show the same timing: across about 50 events, the median gap between the boys' and girls' top standards is under 2% at ages 10 and 11, then 4.2% at 12, 6.3% at 13, 8.4% at 14, 9.3% at 15, 10.3% at 16, 10.9% at 17 and 12.1% at 18. A 2018 review in Endocrine Reviews by researchers at the University of Sydney and World Athletics found that the performance gap appears with male puberty, when testosterone rises to far higher levels than in females. The youth studies and swimming standards describe strong young athletes, not all children, and do not measure each child's pubertal stage directly. USA Swimming does not describe how its standards are set in the standards document; secondary sources say they are based on recent national 16th-place times. Even at age 11, boys led by 1.5% to 4.8% in the Norwegian track data, so the gap is small rather than absent before puberty. Tønnessen E, Svendsen IS, Olsen IC, Guttormsen A, Haugen T (2015) Senefeld JW, Clayburn AJ, Baker SE, Carter RE, Johnson PW, Joyner MJ (2019) Handelsman DJ, Hirschberg AL, Bermon S (2018) USA Swimming FactHub
Population health surveys and medical imaging U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), UK Biobank, Queen's University, University of Southampton United States, United Kingdom, Canada 1994, 2000, 2008, 2014, 2015, 2017, 2018 U.S. government surveys and peer-reviewed studies show large adult differences in traits that matter for sport: men average 175.3 cm and women 161.3 cm (8.7% taller); men carry about 33 kg of skeletal muscle and women 21 kg (57% more); men's grip strength at age 30 is 64% higher; young men have 43% more hip bone mineral and 11% higher hip bone density; men have 17% more hemoglobin to carry oxygen; men's hearts pump 28% more blood per beat; and men's aerobic capacity (VO2max) is about 28% higher per kilogram of body weight. Before puberty the same measures differ little: at age 12 girls are slightly taller, grip strength at age 10 differs by 3%, hip bone mineral at ages 8-11 by 7%, and hemoglobin at ages 9-11 by 1%. Reaction time does not differ meaningfully: a study of 1,469 U.S. adults on precisely timed equipment found simple reaction time unaffected by sex. These measurements come from the general population rather than athletes, from different decades, and the heart data are from adults aged 45 to 74. The muscle-mass figure comes from one MRI study of 468 adults. Reaction time is the exception: an apparent Olympic sprint-start gap is probably a starting-block sensor artifact, and a laboratory study of 1,469 adults found no sex difference. FactHub CDC National Center for Health Statistics Janssen I, Heymsfield SB, Wang ZM, Ross R (2000) Dodds RM et al. (2014) CDC National Center for Health Statistics CDC National Center for Health Statistics Petersen SE et al. (2017) Kaminsky LA et al. (2015) Lipps DB, Galecki AT, Ashton-Miller JA (2011) Woods DL et al. (2015)
Systematic review and pooled fitness-test data University of North Dakota, University of South Australia 30 European countries 2018 A review of 2,779,165 fitness-test results from children and teenagers aged 9 to 17 in 30 European countries found that boys performed substantially better than girls on tests of muscular strength, muscular power, muscular endurance, speed-agility and cardiorespiratory fitness, and that boys' fitness improved faster during the teenage years. Girls performed better on the flexibility (sit-and-reach) test. The norms pool and harmonize results from 98 studies and simulate data to build percentiles, so they describe populations, not individuals; they cover ages 9 to 17 and are not athletes. Tomkinson GR et al. (2018)
Historical analysis of records and expert consensus review Institut National du Sport, de l'Expertise et de la Performance (INSEP), American College of Sports Medicine France, United States 2010, 2023 French researchers compared men's and women's world records and top-10 performances in 82 events in athletics, swimming, track cycling, weightlifting and speed skating from 1896 to 2007. The gap narrowed while women's participation grew, then stabilized from 1983 at a mean of 10.0%, ranging from 5.5% in the 800m freestyle swim to 18.8% in the long jump, despite continued growth in women's participation and professional support. The American College of Sports Medicine's 2023 expert consensus statement concluded that biological sex is a primary determinant of athletic performance, that males typically outperform females by about 10-30% in events relying on endurance, strength, speed and power, and that differences are minimal before puberty. The French analysis ends in 2007 and its record data include doping-era marks. FactHub could read only the abstract and press summary of the 2023 consensus statement, not its full text. Thibault V, Guillaume M, Berthelot G et al. (2010) American College of Sports Medicine
Peer-reviewed studies of fatigue, pacing, ultra-endurance and shooting Marquette University, Grand Valley State University, University of Zurich, University of San Diego United States, Switzerland 2014, 2015, 2020, 2023 Female advantages are real but narrow. A review of 59 studies found women's muscles are generally more resistant to fatigue at the same relative intensity in sustained contractions; in one test of strength-matched men and women, women lasted 23.5 minutes versus 8.6 for men. Among 91,929 U.S. marathon finishers, men slowed 15.6% in the second half and women 11.7%, and 14% of men versus 5% of women slowed by 30% or more. In solo open-water swims of about 30 km or longer in water colder than about 20 degrees C, the fastest women have matched or beaten the fastest men, likely because body fat insulates and adds buoyancy. At the Tokyo 2021 Olympics there was no sex difference in rifle shooting. By contrast, the claim that women outrun men in ultramarathons does not hold for the fastest runners: the fastest men were 9.7% to 20.2% faster than the fastest women from 50 to 3,100 miles. These advantages are narrow and task-specific. Fatigue studies are small laboratory tests of single muscles; the advantage shrinks in dynamic and high-intensity tasks. The marathon pacing data are from recreational runners, who were still slower on average if female. The ultra-swimming findings involve small fields of finishers. Hunter SK (2014) Deaner RO, Carter RE, Joyner MJ, Hunter SK (2015) Knechtle B, Dalamitros AA, Barbosa TM et al. (2020) Goldschmied N et al. (2023) Zingg MA, Knechtle B, Rosemann T, Rüst CA (2015) Tomkinson GR et al. (2018)
1. In five years of Washington state finals, the boys' champion never lost to the girls' champion

FactHub tabulated every final at the 2022 to 2026 WIAA 2A, 3A and 4A state track and field championships in the ten events boys and girls contest identically: 100m, 200m, 400m, 800m, 1600m, 3200m, high jump, pole vault, long jump and triple jump. In 149 of the 150 finals the boys' champion beat the girls' champion, and in the other, the 2022 3A pole vault, they tied at 14 feet 6 inches; the median margin was 17.6%. In 136 of the 142 finals with an 8th-place boys' mark, the boy who finished last in the boys' final beat the girls' state champion; the exceptions were four pole-vault finals and two 3A 400m finals in which the last boy ran 57.65 and 1:40.06, far behind the rest of the field. At the 2026 meet, for example, the 4A girls' 100m was won in 11.87 seconds and the 8th-place boy ran 11.12. Every year, between 19 and 37 boys' finals performances also beat the Paris 2024 women's Olympic winning mark in the same event: 27 in 2022, 36 in 2023, 19 in 2024, 37 in 2025 and 37 in 2026, most of them in the 800m.

Limit: Each meet is one weekend; wind, weather and tactics differ between races, and one exceptional athlete can move a single margin, such as the 45.8% 4A pole-vault margin in 2026, set by a winner 2 feet higher than any other boy. Field depth also varies: in technique-heavy events and in some years the girls' fields are thin, and the 2022 3A pole vault shows that a strong girls' field can match the boys'. High-school athletes are not routinely drug-tested. Hurdles and throws are excluded because boys and girls use different hurdle heights, distances and implement weights. FactHub transcribed the marks from the official PDFs with published scripts; athlete names are omitted.

Verify: Male and female athletic performance and physical traits (dataset) 2026 State 2A-3A-4A Track & Field Championships results 2022 State 2A-3A-4A Track & Field Championships results 2023 State 2A-3A-4A Track & Field Championships results 2024 State 2A-3A-4A Track & Field Championships results 2025 State 2A-3A-4A Track & Field Championships results The XXXIII Olympic Games: results by discipline

2. U.S. national high-school records show the same gap

Washington's meet is not unusual. FactHub compared the outdoor U.S. national high-school records for boys and girls, held by athletes from schools in 11 states (California, Florida, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Nevada, North Carolina, Texas, Utah, Virginia and Washington), in eight running and jumping events. The boys' record is better by 9.8% in the 100m (9.92 vs 10.89 seconds), 14.9% in the 400m (44.10 vs 50.69), 16.4% in the 800m (1:42.27 vs 1:59.04), 12.9% in the mile (3:53.43 vs 4:23.50), 19.1% in the high jump (2.31 vs 1.94 m), 30.1% in the pole vault (6.05 vs 4.65 m), 19.2% in the long jump (8.18 vs 6.86 m) and 22.0% in the triple jump (16.72 vs 13.71 m). These best-in-the-nation margins are close to the Paris 2024 Olympic margins, including the long jump (19.2% vs 19.4%), so the larger long-jump gap at Washington's 2026 meet looks like a feature of one state's girls' field that year, not of girls' high-school sport nationally.

Limit: Records are single best performances from different years (2001 to 2025), meets and conditions, so they compare the best boy and best girl in the country rather than typical athletes. Some were set at open, national or international meets while the athlete was still in high school, and not all were drug-tested. The list is a Wikipedia compilation that cites meet results and news reports, not an official National Federation of State High School Associations list. Where it gives more than one boys' 100m mark, FactHub used 9.92 seconds, run at the Texas state high-school championship; the 9.89 run at a senior international meet would raise that margin to 10.1%. Hurdles and throws are excluded for the same reason as at the Washington meet.

Verify: Male and female athletic performance and physical traits (dataset) List of United States high school national records in track and field

3. Olympic champions show a 7-28% gap in every event compared

At the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, whose athletes are subject to anti-doping testing, the men's champion beat the women's champion in every event compared: by 9.5% in the 100m (9.79 vs 10.72 seconds), 11.0% in the 400m, 15.3% in the 800m, 9.4% to 15.0% from 1500m to the marathon, 18.0% in the high jump, 27.6% in the pole vault, 19.4% in the long jump and 18.9% in the triple jump. In pool swimming the margins were smaller but consistent: 11.6% in the 50m freestyle, 12.4% in the 100m freestyle, 6.8% in the 1500m freestyle and 8.3% to 10.3% in backstroke. Using recent drug-tested results avoids a known distortion in all-time records: several women's records date from the 1980s, when state-run doping programs were later documented, which makes the gap in records look smaller than it is.

Limit: A single Olympic final reflects tactics and conditions; distance races in particular are often run slower than record pace. Marks were transcribed from compiled medal tables and checked one by one against the official World Athletics and World Aquatics results; all 40 matched.

Verify: Male and female athletic performance and physical traits (dataset) The XXXIII Olympic Games: results by discipline Olympic Games Paris 2024: swimming events and results Women and men in sport performance: the gender gap has not evolved since 1983

Male champions' margin over female champions, by eventPercentage by which the men's or boys' winning mark beat the women's or girls' winning mark, at the Paris 2024 Olympics and the 2026 Washington 4A state high-school meet.{"width":960,"height":540,"plot":{"left":90,"top":70,"right":926,"bottom":482},"yDomain":[0,50],"series":[{"name":"Olympic champions (Paris 2024)","color":"#176b87"},{"name":"Washington 4A state champions (2026)","color":"#b6542c"}],"points":[{"series":0,"x":90,"y":403.72,"xLabel":"100m","yLabel":"9.5"},{"series":1,"x":90,"y":381.47,"xLabel":"100m","yLabel":"12.2"},{"series":0,"x":209.43,"y":381.47,"xLabel":"200m","yLabel":"12.2"},{"series":1,"x":209.43,"y":383.12,"xLabel":"200m","yLabel":"12"},{"series":0,"x":328.86,"y":391.36,"xLabel":"400m","yLabel":"11"},{"series":1,"x":328.86,"y":370.76,"xLabel":"400m","yLabel":"13.5"},{"series":0,"x":448.29,"y":355.93,"xLabel":"800m","yLabel":"15.3"},{"series":1,"x":448.29,"y":337.8,"xLabel":"800m","yLabel":"17.5"},{"series":0,"x":567.71,"y":333.68,"xLabel":"High jump","yLabel":"18"},{"series":1,"x":567.71,"y":332.03,"xLabel":"High jump","yLabel":"18.2"},{"series":0,"x":687.14,"y":254.58,"xLabel":"Pole vault","yLabel":"27.6"},{"series":1,"x":687.14,"y":104.61,"xLabel":"Pole vault","yLabel":"45.8"},{"series":0,"x":806.57,"y":322.14,"xLabel":"Long jump","yLabel":"19.4"},{"series":1,"x":806.57,"y":217.5,"xLabel":"Long jump","yLabel":"32.1"},{"series":0,"x":926,"y":326.26,"xLabel":"Triple jump","yLabel":"18.9"},{"series":1,"x":926,"y":325.44,"xLabel":"Triple jump","yLabel":"19"}]}Male champions' margin over female champions, by event01020304050100m200m400m800mHigh jumpPole vaultLong jumpTriple jumpEventOlympic champions (Paris 2024)Washington 4A state champions (2026)10% reference lineFactHub · Male winner's margin over female winner (%)
In all eight events both meets share, the male winner beat the female winner by at least 9.5%, at the Olympics and at Washington's largest-school state meet. Source: FactHub dataset from WIAA and Paris 2024 results. View source chart
4. The gap is small before puberty and opens at about age 12

A study of the 100 best Norwegian athletes at each age from 11 to 18 found that boys and girls performed almost equally in the 60m, 800m, long jump and high jump up to about age 12; after that, boys improved much faster, and the sex difference grew from under 5% at age 11 to 10-18% by age 18. A study of the top 100 U.S. age-group swimmers found the fastest girls under 10 were about 3% faster than the fastest boys, but boys led by 2.5% at age 10 and 7.6% at 17. USA Swimming's national time standards for 2024-2028 show the same timing: across about 50 events, the median gap between the boys' and girls' top standards is under 2% at ages 10 and 11, then 4.2% at 12, 6.3% at 13, 8.4% at 14, 9.3% at 15, 10.3% at 16, 10.9% at 17 and 12.1% at 18. A 2018 review in Endocrine Reviews by researchers at the University of Sydney and World Athletics found that the performance gap appears with male puberty, when testosterone rises to far higher levels than in females.

Limit: The youth studies and swimming standards describe strong young athletes, not all children, and do not measure each child's pubertal stage directly. USA Swimming does not describe how its standards are set in the standards document; secondary sources say they are based on recent national 16th-place times. Even at age 11, boys led by 1.5% to 4.8% in the Norwegian track data, so the gap is small rather than absent before puberty.

Verify: Performance development in adolescent track and field athletes according to age, sex and sport discipline Sex differences in youth elite swimming Circulating testosterone as the hormonal basis of sex differences in athletic performance USA Swimming 2024-2028 Single Age Motivational Standards Male and female athletic performance and physical traits (dataset)

Boys' swimming edge over girls grows from age 12Median percentage by which USA Swimming's top (AAAA) time standard for boys is faster than the girls' standard, across all events, at each age from 10 to 18.{"width":960,"height":540,"plot":{"left":90,"top":70,"right":926,"bottom":482},"yDomain":[0,14],"series":[{"name":"Value","color":"#176b87"}],"points":[{"series":0,"x":90,"y":434.91,"xLabel":"10","yLabel":"1.6"},{"series":0,"x":194.5,"y":440.8,"xLabel":"11","yLabel":"1.4"},{"series":0,"x":299,"y":358.4,"xLabel":"12","yLabel":"4.2"},{"series":0,"x":403.5,"y":296.6,"xLabel":"13","yLabel":"6.3"},{"series":0,"x":508,"y":234.8,"xLabel":"14","yLabel":"8.4"},{"series":0,"x":612.5,"y":208.31,"xLabel":"15","yLabel":"9.3"},{"series":0,"x":717,"y":178.89,"xLabel":"16","yLabel":"10.3"},{"series":0,"x":821.5,"y":161.23,"xLabel":"17","yLabel":"10.9"},{"series":0,"x":926,"y":125.91,"xLabel":"18","yLabel":"12.1"}]}Boys' swimming edge over girls grows from age 12024681012141011121315161718Age (years)Gap begins to widenFactHub · Boys' standard faster than girls' (%, median of events)
In USA Swimming's national time standards, boys and girls are within 2% of each other at ages 10 and 11; from 12 the boys pull ahead every year, to about 12% by 18. Source: FactHub dataset from USA Swimming 2024-2028 single-age motivational standards. View source chart
5. Puberty gives males more muscle, bone, blood and heart capacity

U.S. government surveys and peer-reviewed studies show large adult differences in traits that matter for sport: men average 175.3 cm and women 161.3 cm (8.7% taller); men carry about 33 kg of skeletal muscle and women 21 kg (57% more); men's grip strength at age 30 is 64% higher; young men have 43% more hip bone mineral and 11% higher hip bone density; men have 17% more hemoglobin to carry oxygen; men's hearts pump 28% more blood per beat; and men's aerobic capacity (VO2max) is about 28% higher per kilogram of body weight. Before puberty the same measures differ little: at age 12 girls are slightly taller, grip strength at age 10 differs by 3%, hip bone mineral at ages 8-11 by 7%, and hemoglobin at ages 9-11 by 1%. Reaction time does not differ meaningfully: a study of 1,469 U.S. adults on precisely timed equipment found simple reaction time unaffected by sex.

Limit: These measurements come from the general population rather than athletes, from different decades, and the heart data are from adults aged 45 to 74. The muscle-mass figure comes from one MRI study of 468 adults. Reaction time is the exception: an apparent Olympic sprint-start gap is probably a starting-block sensor artifact, and a laboratory study of 1,469 adults found no sex difference.

Verify: Male and female athletic performance and physical traits (dataset) Anthropometric reference data for children and adults: United States, 2015-2018 Skeletal muscle mass and distribution in 468 men and women aged 18-88 yr Grip strength across the life course: normative data from twelve British studies Lumbar spine and proximal femur bone mineral density, bone mineral content, and bone area: United States, 2005-2008 Hematological and iron-related analytes: reference data for persons aged 1 year and over, United States, 1988-94 Reference ranges for cardiac structure and function using cardiovascular magnetic resonance in Caucasians from the UK Biobank Reference standards for cardiorespiratory fitness measured with cardiopulmonary exercise testing: data from the FRIEND registry On the implications of a sex difference in the reaction times of sprinters at the Beijing Olympics Factors influencing the latency of simple reaction time

6. Ordinary schoolchildren show the same pattern, except in flexibility

A review of 2,779,165 fitness-test results from children and teenagers aged 9 to 17 in 30 European countries found that boys performed substantially better than girls on tests of muscular strength, muscular power, muscular endurance, speed-agility and cardiorespiratory fitness, and that boys' fitness improved faster during the teenage years. Girls performed better on the flexibility (sit-and-reach) test.

Limit: The norms pool and harmonize results from 98 studies and simulate data to build percentiles, so they describe populations, not individuals; they cover ages 9 to 17 and are not athletes.

Verify: European normative values for physical fitness in children and adolescents aged 9-17 years: results from 2 779 165 Eurofit performances representing 30 countries

7. The elite gap has held at about 10% for four decades

French researchers compared men's and women's world records and top-10 performances in 82 events in athletics, swimming, track cycling, weightlifting and speed skating from 1896 to 2007. The gap narrowed while women's participation grew, then stabilized from 1983 at a mean of 10.0%, ranging from 5.5% in the 800m freestyle swim to 18.8% in the long jump, despite continued growth in women's participation and professional support. The American College of Sports Medicine's 2023 expert consensus statement concluded that biological sex is a primary determinant of athletic performance, that males typically outperform females by about 10-30% in events relying on endurance, strength, speed and power, and that differences are minimal before puberty.

Limit: The French analysis ends in 2007 and its record data include doping-era marks. FactHub could read only the abstract and press summary of the 2023 consensus statement, not its full text.

Verify: Women and men in sport performance: the gender gap has not evolved since 1983 The biological basis of sex differences in athletic performance: consensus statement for the American College of Sports Medicine

8. Where girls and women have the edge

Female advantages are real but narrow. A review of 59 studies found women's muscles are generally more resistant to fatigue at the same relative intensity in sustained contractions; in one test of strength-matched men and women, women lasted 23.5 minutes versus 8.6 for men. Among 91,929 U.S. marathon finishers, men slowed 15.6% in the second half and women 11.7%, and 14% of men versus 5% of women slowed by 30% or more. In solo open-water swims of about 30 km or longer in water colder than about 20 degrees C, the fastest women have matched or beaten the fastest men, likely because body fat insulates and adds buoyancy. At the Tokyo 2021 Olympics there was no sex difference in rifle shooting. By contrast, the claim that women outrun men in ultramarathons does not hold for the fastest runners: the fastest men were 9.7% to 20.2% faster than the fastest women from 50 to 3,100 miles.

Limit: These advantages are narrow and task-specific. Fatigue studies are small laboratory tests of single muscles; the advantage shrinks in dynamic and high-intensity tasks. The marathon pacing data are from recreational runners, who were still slower on average if female. The ultra-swimming findings involve small fields of finishers.

Verify: Sex differences in human fatigability: mechanisms and insight to physiological responses Men are more likely than women to slow in the marathon Sex differences in swimming disciplines: can women outperform men in swimming? Sex differences in performance of Olympic shooters Performance differences between sexes in 50-mile to 3,100-mile ultramarathons European normative values for physical fitness in children and adolescents aged 9-17 years: results from 2 779 165 Eurofit performances representing 30 countries

Common questions

“The gap exists only because girls have had less training, coaching and opportunity.”

Opportunity matters, but it does not explain the size or timing of the gap. Boys and girls perform almost equally until about age 12, when training differences would be expected to show already, and the gap then opens quickly with puberty. Among professional athletes with full-time coaching, the gap in world records stopped shrinking in 1983 and has held at about 10% despite large growth in women's participation and support. The physical differences behind it, such as muscle mass, hemoglobin and heart size, are measured in the general population, not only in athletes.

“Girls' high-school fields are shallower and less coached, so the high-school gap, especially in technical jumps, overstates the biological gap.”

Partly, for some events, and FactHub does not count that extra margin as biological. Across the 15 Washington finals per event from 2022 to 2026, the median high-school champion margin exceeds the Paris 2024 Olympic margin by 1 to 3 percentage points in the 100m, 200m, 800m, high jump and triple jump, by 4.7 points in the long jump and 6.1 in the 400m, and is lower in the pole vault (21.6% against 27.6%). Larger high-school gaps are what shallower girls' fields would produce. Two comparisons do not depend on depth at all. U.S. national high-school records, the best boy against the best girl in the country, show margins close to the Olympic ones, including the long jump (19.2% against 19.4%). And every year from 2022 to 2026, 19 to 37 performances by Washington high-school boys beat the Paris 2024 women's Olympic winning mark, set in the deepest and best-coached women's field in the world.

“The gap widens in the teenage years partly because many girls quit sport, so the youth studies overstate the biological effect.”

Dropout could weaken girls' top-100 youth lists, and the Norwegian and U.S. youth studies do not rule that out. But three lines of evidence do not depend on who stays in sport. The 2,779,165 Eurofit results come from general samples of children and teenagers, not athletes, and still show boys' strength, power, speed and endurance pulling ahead during the teenage years. The physical differences behind performance, such as about 57% more skeletal muscle and 17% more hemoglobin in adult men, are measured in the general population. And among Paris 2024 Olympic champions, all full-time professionals, the gap is still 7% to 28%. Dropout may add to the gap among teenagers; it cannot explain the adult gap.

“Comparing champions exaggerates the gap; most boys are not elite athletes.”

The gap is not confined to the very top. In the Washington 4A running finals, the 8th-place boy beat the 8th-place girl by 11.6% (100m) to 20.1% (3200m), similar to the champions' margins, and the pooled Eurofit results show boys ahead on average in strength, speed and endurance among ordinary schoolchildren. Individual girls still outperform many individual boys, as the context note says; the claim concerns the competitive advantage at each level of sport.

“Some of the boys or men might have been using steroids.”

The gap does not depend on drugs. It appears in the general population: adult men have about 57% more skeletal muscle and 17% more hemoglobin than women in surveys of ordinary people. It appears in children who are not plausibly doping: in USA Swimming's national standards, boys' top times are 6% faster than girls' at 13 and 8% at 14. And it appears among drug-tested Olympic champions, at 9.5% to 15.3% in running and 18% to 28% in jumping. High-school athletes are not routinely tested, which is a limit of that evidence. If anything, doping has narrowed the apparent gap: several women's world records set in the 1980s doping era remain unbeaten, which is why this article uses recent Olympic results rather than all-time records.

“Boys' teams have beaten women's national soccer teams, which proves the point.”

In 2017 an FC Dallas under-15 boys' academy team beat the U.S. women's national team 5-2, and in 2016 a Newcastle Jets under-15/16 boys' team beat Australia's women's national team 7-0. Both were informal training scrimmages in which the women rotated players and were not playing for a result, so they illustrate the gap but do not measure it. The timed and measured events above are stronger evidence.

“Tennis, basketball and other sports with separate men's and women's competitions can't be compared, so the claim is unproven for them.”

They cannot be measured the way timed and measured events can, but what evidence exists points the same way, and leading women players have said so themselves. In 2013, Serena Williams said in a television interview that men's and women's tennis are almost two separate sports and that she would lose to Andy Murray 6-0, 6-0 within minutes. At the 1998 Australian Open, Karsten Braasch, then ranked 203rd among men, beat 16-year-old Serena and 17-year-old Venus Williams in one-set exhibitions, 6-1 and 6-2. In December 2025 in Dubai, Nick Kyrgios, ranked 671st after injuries limited him to a handful of matches, beat women's world No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka 6-3, 6-3, even though her side of the court was made 9% smaller and each player had only one serve. Like the soccer scrimmages, these were exhibitions, so they illustrate the gap rather than measure it. These sports depend on the same underlying abilities measured here: sprinting, jumping, strength, aerobic capacity and body size, all of which show the post-puberty gap. So the advantage is directly measured for running, jumping and swimming; for tennis and team sports it is a strong inference from those abilities, consistent with every head-to-head contest reported.

“Women are faster than men in ultramarathons and hold the long-distance swimming records.”

Not in running: among the fastest finishers ever in 50-mile to 3,100-mile races, men were 9.7% to 20.2% faster. Claims that women are faster usually average recreational finishers in tiny, self-selected fields. Long cold-water swimming is the genuine exception, where the fastest women have matched or beaten the fastest men in some events, and this article reports it.

“Men react faster, so that explains the sprint gap.”

No. Women's reaction times at the 2008 Olympics measured about 14% slower, but the study's authors concluded this was probably an artifact of starting blocks using the same force threshold for both sexes, and a study of 1,469 adults on precisely timed equipment found simple reaction time unaffected by sex. The sprint gap comes from speed after the start, not the reaction.

Conclusion

The claim is true, and FactHub rates it with high confidence. Three independent kinds of evidence point the same way. First, direct comparisons in events that both sexes contest identically. At Washington's 2A, 3A and 4A state track finals from 2022 to 2026, the boys' champion beat the girls' champion in 149 of 150 comparable finals and tied in the other, with a median margin of 17.6%, and the 8th-place boy beat the girls' state champion in 136 of 142 finals. Washington is not unusual: U.S. national high-school records, held by athletes from 11 states, show the boys' record ahead by 9.8% to 30.1% in eight events, close to the Olympic margins. At the Paris 2024 Olympics, where every winning mark was checked against the official results, the men's champion beat the women's champion by 9.4% to 15.3% in running, 18% to 28% in jumping and 7% to 12% in swimming. Every year from 2022 to 2026, 19 to 37 performances by Washington high-school boys beat a Paris 2024 women's Olympic winning mark, a comparison that shallow girls' fields cannot explain, because those marks were set in the deepest women's fields in the world. Second, growth data show when the gap appears: Norwegian youth track records show boys and girls nearly equal through age 11 or 12, and USA Swimming's national standards show the gap at under 2% at ages 10 and 11, rising every year to 12% by 18. Third, physiology explains it: adult men average about 9% taller, carry about 57% more skeletal muscle, have about 64% stronger grip, 43% more hip bone mineral, 17% more hemoglobin and 28% higher aerobic capacity, while the same measures differ by 0-7% before puberty. The American College of Sports Medicine's 2023 consensus statement and a 2018 review in Endocrine Reviews attribute these differences to the rise in testosterone during male puberty. None of this depends on drugs: the gap appears in surveys of ordinary people, in 13- and 14-year-old swimmers, and among drug-tested Olympians. The high-school and Olympic margins do not match exactly. Across five years, the median Washington champion margin is 1 to 6 points larger than the Olympic margin in most events and smaller in the pole vault, which may partly reflect shallower girls' fields in some events and years; FactHub does not count that extra margin as biological, and the national records, best against best, match the Olympic margins more closely. Likewise, some teenage girls leave sport, which may widen the gap in youth top-100 lists, but the same divergence appears in fitness tests of ordinary schoolchildren and in population health surveys, and it persists among full-time professional Olympians. The size of the gap depends on the event: about 7-12% in Olympic swimming, about 10-15% in Olympic running, about 18-28% in Olympic jumping, and more in strength measures such as grip. It is also not absolute: in one Washington final in five years, the girls' and boys' pole-vault champions tied. The main limits are that high-school athletes are not routinely drug-tested, that each meet reflects one weekend's wind and tactics, and that tennis and team sports such as basketball and soccer cannot be compared directly because the sexes play in separate competitions; for them the finding is a strong inference from the component abilities measured here rather than a measurement. Head-to-head exhibitions are consistent with it, such as a man ranked 671st beating the women's world No. 1 at tennis in 2025 on a court shrunk in her favor, and boys' under-15 teams beating women's national soccer teams, but they are illustrations. The gap is also not universal: girls are more flexible, women's muscles resist fatigue better at the same relative effort, women pace marathons more evenly, and in very long cold-water swims the fastest women have matched or beaten the fastest men. Before about age 12 the performance gap is small, so the finding applies to high-school and adult sport, not to young children. What remains unproven here is any policy conclusion; this article establishes the size of the biological performance gap, not what eligibility rules should follow from it.

How we checked

  1. Defined the claim as a large performance advantage for biological males over females in high-school and adult elite sport, with no hormone treatment involved, and excluded transgender eligibility and Washington initiative IL26-638 from the rating.
  2. Prioritized directly comparable measurements: events that both sexes run, jump or swim identically, from official results, over anecdotes and team-sport scrimmages.
  3. Built a FactHub dataset from the official WIAA results PDFs for the 2022 to 2026 state meets, using published scripts; from USA Swimming's 2024-2028 single-age time standards; and from Paris 2024 Olympic results, checking all 40 winning marks against the official World Athletics and World Aquatics results.
  4. Reviewed peer-reviewed studies from Norway, the United States, France, Australia, the United Kingdom, Canada, Switzerland and 30 European countries on when the gap appears, its physical causes, and where females have advantages.
  5. Searched specifically for counter-evidence: female advantages, reaction time, ultramarathons and ultra-swimming, and the role of doping in historical records.
  6. Recorded the limits of each evidence item and archived each source with the Wayback Machine where it would capture the page.
  7. Compared each event's margin across the 2A, 3A and 4A finals and against Paris 2024, to separate consistent gaps from single-race outliers and from events where shallow high-school fields may inflate the margin.
  8. Compared U.S. national high-school records for boys and girls, to check whether the Washington meet is typical of the country, and reviewed head-to-head tennis exhibitions and players' own statements for sports that cannot be timed or measured directly.
  9. Extended the Washington comparison from one meet to five (2022 to 2026) and reported every final in which the boys' champion did not beat the girls' champion or the 8th-place boy did not beat the girls' champion.

Editorial note: Scope: this article rates the claim that males have a large performance advantage over females in high-school and professional sport, comparing people who are not taking hormone drugs or steroids. It does not assess transgender athletes, testosterone suppression, or Washington initiative IL26-638, which is mentioned only as context. Material caveats: high-school marks come from five Washington state meets and a national records list and are not drug-tested; tennis and team sports are discussed but not measured. No external specialist review has been recorded.

Expert-review status

No external specialist review has been recorded. Every figure links to its primary source for direct reader verification.

Funding and conflicts

Funding: No external funding was received for this fact-check.

Ownership: FactHub is responsible for the article and its editorial process.

Conflicts: No known conflicts of interest are declared.

Sources

Sources are labeled by their role so readers can evaluate the evidence independently.

  1. FactHub dataset FactHub. Male and female athletic performance and physical traits (dataset)

    FactHub's tabulation of the WIAA 2022-2026 state finals, U.S. national high-school records, USA Swimming single-age time standards, Paris 2024 winning marks and physical-trait reference values, with every gap calculation and the scripts that produced them.

  2. Official results Washington Interscholastic Activities Association (WIAA). 2026 State 2A-3A-4A Track & Field Championships results

    Official results of the Washington state high-school championships, Mount Tahoma Stadium, Tacoma, May 28-30, 2026; the primary source for every high-school mark.

    Archived copy captured October 11, 2026
  3. Compiled results Wikipedia. Athletics at the 2024 Summer Olympics

    Medal summary listing every Paris 2024 athletics winning mark; used to transcribe gold-medal marks.

    Archived copy captured October 11, 2026
  4. Compiled results Wikipedia. Swimming at the 2024 Summer Olympics

    Medal summary listing Paris 2024 pool swimming winning times.

    Archived copy captured October 11, 2026
  5. Official results World Athletics. The XXXIII Olympic Games: results by discipline

    The governing body's official Paris 2024 athletics results, linking each final; FactHub checked all 24 athletics winning marks against the final result pages.

    Archived copy captured October 11, 2026
  6. Peer-reviewed study Tønnessen E, Svendsen IS, Olsen IC, Guttormsen A, Haugen T (2015). Performance development in adolescent track and field athletes according to age, sex and sport discipline DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0129014 Identifier: PLoS ONE 10(6): e0129014

    Tracks the 100 best Norwegian athletes at each age from 11 to 18 and shows when the sex gap opens.

    Archived copy captured October 11, 2026
  7. Peer-reviewed study Senefeld JW, Clayburn AJ, Baker SE, Carter RE, Johnson PW, Joyner MJ (2019). Sex differences in youth elite swimming DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0225724 Identifier: PLoS ONE 14(11): e0225724

    Compares the top 100 U.S. age-group freestyle swimmers by sex from ages 5 to 18.

    Archived copy captured October 11, 2026
  8. Peer-reviewed review Handelsman DJ, Hirschberg AL, Bermon S (2018). Circulating testosterone as the hormonal basis of sex differences in athletic performance DOI: 10.1210/er.2018-00020 Identifier: Endocrine Reviews 39(5):803-829

    Reviews the evidence that the post-puberty performance gap tracks the rise in male testosterone.

    Archived copy captured October 11, 2026
  9. Government survey CDC National Center for Health Statistics. Anthropometric reference data for children and adults: United States, 2015-2018 Identifier: Vital Health Stat 3(46), 2021

    Mean height by sex and single year of age from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey.

    Archived copy captured October 11, 2026
  10. Peer-reviewed study Janssen I, Heymsfield SB, Wang ZM, Ross R (2000). Skeletal muscle mass and distribution in 468 men and women aged 18-88 yr DOI: 10.1152/jappl.2000.89.1.81 Identifier: J Appl Physiol 89:81-88

    Whole-body MRI measurement of skeletal muscle in men and women.

  11. Peer-reviewed study Dodds RM et al. (2014). Grip strength across the life course: normative data from twelve British studies DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0113637 Identifier: PLoS ONE 9(12): e113637

    Grip-strength norms by age and sex from 49,964 people.

    Archived copy captured October 11, 2026
  12. Government survey CDC National Center for Health Statistics. Lumbar spine and proximal femur bone mineral density, bone mineral content, and bone area: United States, 2005-2008 Identifier: Vital Health Stat 11(251), 2012

    DXA bone measurements by age and sex from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey.

    Archived copy captured October 11, 2026
  13. Government survey CDC National Center for Health Statistics. Hematological and iron-related analytes: reference data for persons aged 1 year and over, United States, 1988-94 Identifier: Vital Health Stat 11(247), 2005

    Hemoglobin by age and sex from NHANES III.

    Archived copy captured October 11, 2026
  14. Peer-reviewed study Petersen SE et al. (2017). Reference ranges for cardiac structure and function using cardiovascular magnetic resonance in Caucasians from the UK Biobank DOI: 10.1186/s12968-017-0327-9 Identifier: J Cardiovasc Magn Reson 19:18

    Cardiac MRI reference values by sex from 804 healthy UK adults.

    Archived copy captured October 11, 2026
  15. Peer-reviewed study Kaminsky LA et al. (2015). Reference standards for cardiorespiratory fitness measured with cardiopulmonary exercise testing: data from the FRIEND registry DOI: 10.1016/j.mayocp.2015.07.026 Identifier: Mayo Clin Proc 90:1515

    VO2max norms by age and sex from 7,783 U.S. treadmill tests.

    Archived copy captured October 11, 2026
  16. Peer-reviewed study Lipps DB, Galecki AT, Ashton-Miller JA (2011). On the implications of a sex difference in the reaction times of sprinters at the Beijing Olympics DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0026141 Identifier: PLoS ONE 6(10): e26141

    Analyzes Olympic sprint-start reaction times and concludes the sex gap is likely a sensor artifact.

    Archived copy captured October 11, 2026
  17. Peer-reviewed study Woods DL et al. (2015). Factors influencing the latency of simple reaction time DOI: 10.3389/fnhum.2015.00131 Identifier: Front Hum Neurosci 9:131

    Measures simple reaction time in 1,469 adults on precisely timed hardware and finds no sex effect.

    Archived copy captured October 11, 2026
  18. Peer-reviewed study Tomkinson GR et al. (2018). European normative values for physical fitness in children and adolescents aged 9-17 years: results from 2 779 165 Eurofit performances representing 30 countries DOI: 10.1136/bjsports-2017-098253 Identifier: Br J Sports Med 52(22):1445-1456

    Pooled youth fitness norms by age and sex across 30 European countries (university repository copy).

    Archived copy captured October 11, 2026
  19. Peer-reviewed study Thibault V, Guillaume M, Berthelot G et al. (2010). Women and men in sport performance: the gender gap has not evolved since 1983 Identifier: J Sports Sci Med 9(2):214-223

    Tracks the sex gap in world records and top-10 performances in 82 events from 1896 to 2007, including the effect of doping-era records.

    Archived copy captured October 11, 2026
  20. Expert consensus statement American College of Sports Medicine. The biological basis of sex differences in athletic performance: consensus statement for the American College of Sports Medicine DOI: 10.1249/TJX.0000000000000236 Identifier: Transl J Am Coll Sports Med 8(4):1-33

    ACSM's announcement and summary of its 2023 expert consensus statement (Hunter SK et al.).

    Archived copy captured October 11, 2026
  21. Peer-reviewed review Hunter SK (2014). Sex differences in human fatigability: mechanisms and insight to physiological responses DOI: 10.1111/apha.12234 Identifier: Acta Physiol 210(4):768-789

    Reviews 59 studies of muscle fatigue in men and women.

    Archived copy captured October 11, 2026
  22. Peer-reviewed study Deaner RO, Carter RE, Joyner MJ, Hunter SK (2015). Men are more likely than women to slow in the marathon DOI: 10.1249/MSS.0000000000000432 Identifier: Med Sci Sports Exerc 47(3):607-616

    Pacing of 91,929 finishers in 14 U.S. marathons in 2011.

    Archived copy captured October 11, 2026
  23. Peer-reviewed review Knechtle B, Dalamitros AA, Barbosa TM et al. (2020). Sex differences in swimming disciplines: can women outperform men in swimming? DOI: 10.3390/ijerph17103651 Identifier: Int J Environ Res Public Health 17(10):3651

    Reviews where women match or beat men in open-water and ultra-distance swimming.

    Archived copy captured October 11, 2026
  24. Peer-reviewed study Goldschmied N et al. (2023). Sex differences in performance of Olympic shooters DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0291017 Identifier: PLoS ONE 18(9): e0291017

    Compares scores of 355 Tokyo 2021 Olympic shooters by sex and event.

    Archived copy captured October 11, 2026
  25. Peer-reviewed study Zingg MA, Knechtle B, Rosemann T, Rüst CA (2015). Performance differences between sexes in 50-mile to 3,100-mile ultramarathons DOI: 10.2147/OAJSM.S76490 Identifier: Open Access J Sports Med 6:7-21

    Compares the fastest men and women in ultramarathons worldwide from 1971 to 2012.

    Archived copy captured October 11, 2026
  26. News report CBS Sports. A Dallas FC under-15 boys squad beat the U.S. Women's National Team in a scrimmage

    Reports the April 2017 informal 5-2 scrimmage result.

  27. News report Goal. Australia women's team loses 7-0 to under-15 men's side

    Reports the May 2016 warm-up match result and the coach's explanation.

    Archived copy captured October 11, 2026
  28. Context Ballotpedia News. Washington voters to decide initiatives related to school sports eligibility and parental rights in public schools

    Confirms initiative IL26-638 qualified for Washington's November 2026 ballot; cited for context only.

    Archived copy captured October 11, 2026
  29. Compiled records Wikipedia. List of United States high school national records in track and field

    Lists outdoor U.S. high-school national records for boys and girls, with athlete, school, meet and date, citing meet results and news reports; used for the national best-versus-best comparison.

    Archived copy captured October 12, 2026
  30. News report CBS Sports. WATCH: McEnroe latest on Serena -- 'Men and women should play each other'

    June 2017 report quoting Serena Williams's 2013 remarks that men's and women's tennis are almost two separate sports and that she would lose to Andy Murray 6-0, 6-0.

    Archived copy captured October 12, 2026
  31. Compiled biography Wikipedia. Karsten Braasch

    Reports Braasch's 1998 Australian Open one-set exhibition wins over Serena (6-1) and Venus Williams (6-2) while ranked 203rd, and the players' ages.

    Archived copy captured October 12, 2026
  32. News report Al Jazeera. Kyrgios beats Sabalenka 6-3, 6-3 in 'Battle of the Sexes' tennis showdown

    Reports the December 28, 2025 Dubai exhibition: Kyrgios, ranked 671st, beat world No. 1 Sabalenka 6-3, 6-3 with one serve each and her side of the court 9% smaller.

  33. Official results Washington Interscholastic Activities Association (WIAA). 2022 State 2A-3A-4A Track & Field Championships results

    Official results of the 2022 Washington state high-school championships.

    Archived copy captured October 12, 2026
  34. Official results Washington Interscholastic Activities Association (WIAA). 2023 State 2A-3A-4A Track & Field Championships results

    Official results of the 2023 Washington state high-school championships.

    Archived copy captured October 12, 2026
  35. Official results Washington Interscholastic Activities Association (WIAA). 2024 State 2A-3A-4A Track & Field Championships results

    Official results of the 2024 Washington state high-school championships.

    Archived copy captured October 12, 2026
  36. Official results Washington Interscholastic Activities Association (WIAA). 2025 State 2A-3A-4A Track & Field Championships results

    Official results of the 2025 Washington state high-school championships.

    Archived copy captured October 12, 2026
  37. Official results World Aquatics. Olympic Games Paris 2024: swimming events and results

    The swimming governing body's official Paris 2024 results service; FactHub checked all 16 swimming winning times against each event's final.

    Archived copy captured October 12, 2026
  38. National governing body standards USA Swimming. USA Swimming 2024-2028 Single Age Motivational Standards

    National time standards for girls and boys at each age from 10 to 18 in every event; used to show the age at which the swimming gap opens.

    Archived copy captured October 12, 2026
  39. FactHub dataset Male and female athletic performance and physical traits

    • Tables: wiaa-finals

      Saved analysis wiaa-champion-gap

    • Tables: wiaa-finals, paris-winners

      Saved analysis wiaa-vs-olympic-women

    • Tables: paris-winners

      Saved analysis olympic-gap

    • Tables: physical-traits

      Saved analysis traits-gap

    • Tables: wiaa-finals

      Saved analyses wiaa-summary-5yr and wiaa-champion-gap-5yr

    • Tables: wiaa-finals, paris-winners

      Saved analysis wiaa-gap-by-event-5yr

    • Tables: wiaa-finals, paris-winners

      Saved analysis wiaa-vs-olympic-women-5yr

    • Tables: us-hs-records

      Saved analysis us-hs-records-gap

    • Tables: usa-swimming-standards

      Saved analysis swim-age-gap

  40. FactHub chart sex-gap-olympic-vs-wa-champions
  41. FactHub chart sex-gap-swimming-by-age

Update history

  1. Added a main image: a Paris 2024 mixed 4 × 400 m relay heat (CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons).
  2. Narrowed the title and answer to the events measured (running, jumping, swimming) with event-specific ranges (feedback 2516105126326582048-612e4c40553a36c8440699e78743fd85). Added objections on shallow high-school girls' fields in technical jumps, on teenage girls' dropout, and on comparing champions; corrected the claim that high-school and Olympic margins match; explained the 45.8% pole-vault outlier; and stated that the team-sport finding is an inference (feedback 2516105126324296494-3199073946ec8859a981741adf8c1977).
  3. Added U.S. national high-school records from 11 states to show the Washington meet is typical of the country (feedback 2516104763229140956-392dcfbb68f1bdcc60e75a1f3c6e312b). Strengthened the tennis and team-sports objection with Serena Williams's 2013 remarks and the 1998 Braasch and 2025 Kyrgios-Sabalenka exhibitions (feedback 2516104763683046696-b6bb2214040b1c76ec0bd2556fc6ba80).
  4. Moved to dataset version 2: extended the Washington evidence from the 2026 meet to all five meets from 2022 to 2026, including the one tie and the six finals where the 8th-place boy did not beat the girls' champion; added USA Swimming's national single-age standards to show when the gap opens, with a new chart; checked all 40 Paris 2024 winning marks against official World Athletics and World Aquatics results; corrected the comparison of high-school and Olympic margins with five-year medians; rewrote the doping objection so it does not rest on that comparison; shortened the title.
  5. Initial publication.

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  • Article wa-i638-yes-campaign-claims — version 2 (published) cites version 5
  • Article wa-i638-media-coverage-omissions — version 6 (published) cites version 5
  • Article girls-sports-participation-after-state-laws — version 6 (published) cites version 5
  • Article wa-i638-world-sports-policies — version 4 (published) cites version 5
  • Article wa-i638-girls-event-placements — version 5 (published) cites version 5
  • Article wa-girls-mile-record-vs-boys-finals — version 2 (published) cites version 5
  • Article wa-i638-current-rules — version 4 (published) cites version 5
  • Briefing wa-i-638 — version 5 (published) cites version 5
  • Briefing wa-i-638 — version 4 (published) cites version 5

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{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"ClaimReview","url":"https://facthub.org/n/article/boys-girls-sports-performance-gap/5","datePublished":"2026-10-10","dateModified":"2026-10-12","author":{"@type":"Organization","name":"FactHub","url":"https://facthub.org/"},"claimReviewed":"Boys and men have a large competitive advantage over girls and women in high-school and professional sports.","reviewRating":{"@type":"Rating","alternateName":"True"},"image":"https://facthub.org/node-assets-v2/article/boys-girls-sports-performance-gap/5/paris-mixed-relay/social-1200x630.jpg"}

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