You guys realise that the shorter the person, the stronger (relatively speaking) he is, right?

Strength = (height)^{2/3}

i.e. strength only increases with the 2/3 power of a person's height, hence the taller one is, the (relatively) weaker he is. This also places a limit on how tall land-based animals (including humans obviously) can get since at some point the muscles will not be able to support the mass of the creature (that's why beached whales die: their skeleton collapses under their own weight).

I mention this just in case anyone believed that short stature is an impediment to triathlon success (although shorter people do have a disadvantage on the downhills).

John (1.67m/5'5.5", 133lbs/60.5kg)

P.S. Ultimately, the size of animals rests on the values of the fine structure constant (which controls the strength of the electromagnetic force that holds us together), and the gravitational constant (which determines the strength of gravity that tries to squash us to the ground).

Sedi must be really strong then!

I honestly dont look a lot different at 133 or 150. I have a little more definition and my face is a little more cut or gaunt as my wife calls me, but I seem to carry my weight pretty evenly and I'm not particilarly thin either.

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"A society is defined not only by what it creates, but by what it refuses to destroy."
John Sawhill

From http://www.genderweb.org/general/ave_bo.phtml

IN HEIGHT FROM THE GROUND:

nominal nominal
ITEM MALE sigma FEMALE sigma FEMALE
---------------- -----|----- ------|----- -----|------
Top of Head 68.60 | 2.74 64.25 | 2.58

According to this 68.3% of the male population is in the 65.86" to 71.34" range. That's ~6'6" to 6'11" I'm less than a sigma off of average, how am I a midget?

I'm saying our criteria needs to be tightened up here. Everyone just can't jump on the midget bandwagon it just cheapens the name.

~Matt

Thats 5'6" to 5'11" not 6'6" to 6"11. BTW there are 12 inches in a foot.

So we need some guidelines for membership, 5’7” & below for men – what about women?

We might have to have a steel cage death match to decide who gets to be the team coach because I think SAC and czone are pretty close at about 5'8". You might as well add my wife to the team...she stands a hefty 5'1 1/2" and is a pretty bad-ass AGer. If you remember from an earlier thread, ASICS doesn't make kids shoes (yet), so I can't be the footwear sponsor ; )

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Shawn
TORRE Consulting Services, LLC
http://www.TORREcs.com

5'7" and below? I'm out at a stealthly 5'9"!!!

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Shawn
TORRE Consulting Services, LLC
http://www.TORREcs.com

So Francois, are we taking Welch, Delgado or Lucho Herrera as our Directeur Sportif ? Do you have word yet whether Air France or Quantas have signed up as our airline sponsor ???

 What's with all this metric system stuff. Don't you know that confuses us Americans. Let's try and keep it simple, OK? As you can tell, there are not many rocket scientists on this forum. Otherwise, we would all know by now the optimal tire width and psi for our cool bikes.

can we say 1m72 as the limit?

"...not 6'6" to 6"11."

Big midgets?

~Matt

If that is the limit (172 cm), will the whole team be able to draft behind Bjorn, or do we need to get him to bring out Magnus Backstedt as well so we have the full Swedish Deisel Engine Compliment pulling the train?

Yeah this is slowtwitch not the NBA. The NBA is probably the only place where you can find a 6'5" short guy.

the limit has to be 1m72...I was the main example for short dude for years here...so I have to be in the team

If it's 1.72m, then I will need to resign from the team immediately. This is a sad day for me. : (

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Shawn
TORRE Consulting Services, LLC
http://www.TORREcs.com

I'll go with 1.72 that's about 5"6" and some change right? Now do we need to establish a maximum bike size:) I'm riding a 48 kestrel & 49 QR.

dude, you're out...you don't belong.
Tracer the racer can join though ;-)

"If you remember from an earlier thread, ASICS doesn't make kids shoes (yet), so I can't be the footwear sponsor"

Yup...still waiting for my size 5 Gel Nimbuses... I'm being patient though! ;-)

One can actually see this relationship when one plots the world records in weight lifting in the various weight categories, against the mass of the respective weight lifters: the resulting line has a slope of 2/3; one of those affrimations of the power of science.



Wasn't there a weight lifter from eastern Europe who had swept the world championships and Olympics for many years in the featherweight category (58kg?), was really short (1.55m?), and was nicknamed "pocket Hercules"? Maybe someone from Shortwitch should take this screen name.

John

Francois.. I hate to break this to you but you are NOT 5'8:-) that's like Paulo.. he is 5'8.. if that is the case, I am 5'6:-)

I guess I'll take jgrat suggestion and become SEDI "The Pocket Hercules"!!! :-)

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The "Pocket Hercules" - jgrat

Technique sets the upper limit to where your fitness will take you...

I hate to break it to you but I never said I was 5'8'', I said I was 1m72 which is somewhere in between 5'7'' and 5'8''...Paulo is more 1m75 maybe a tad more.
but I am sure you can join the team ;-)

I knoe.. At 5'4 1/2, I am consider short. But tell you what.. I feel like a giant here in honolulu, compared to those japanese women:-)