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Men and women are very different physically, men are almost always going to be significantly stronger. We do not have the same amount of difference between people from different countries. The average man is much stronger than the average women, but the average person from Nigeria is probably not much faster at marathons than the average person from Canada.

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Does this argument still apply on Olympics? They are nothing like average people, so I'd guess both genders push the body to the limit.

According to conventional physiology statistics (where you figure most traits are normally distributed) it applies even more to the Olympics — population differences are more pronounced at the extremes, not less.

To put it another way, the difference between a near-average man and a near-average woman (per a normal approximation) could easily go either way. The difference between a top 1% man and a top 1% woman is much more likely to be skewed toward the man.

Yes, but the difference is huge.

Consider the 100m dash.

In 2016 Olympics, in the final heat, the slowest man ran 4% faster than the women's world record (which has remained unbroken for 30 years).

Innate differences between the sexes are enormous, even at elite levels.

Sure, but why does curling need to separate men and women?

Seriously, of all things, this one eludes me completely.

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