In her prime, Joan Benoit Samuelson, one of the best female distance runners, should have been faster than Alberto Salazar, one of the best male distance runners.
Samuelson's running was beautifully smooth. Salazar's was not.
"He looked terrible," said Jack Daniels, an exercise physiologist at the Center for High Altitude Training at Northern Arizona University, who studied both runners in the 1980s. "She looked great." Not only that but Samuelson also had an amazing ability to use oxygen to fuel her body, Daniels said. Even though women's maximum oxygen consumption, or VO2 max, is typically lower than that of men, hers was as high as Salazar's. Maximum oxygen consumption was often considered one of the best predictors of performance in distance events.
For more information see today's Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
Subscribers can read the story here on ArkansasOnline.