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This Atlantic article suggests that you will never win an Olympic medal in sprinting unless you come from West Africa[1]. This same population is bad at distanc

This Atlantic article suggests that you will never win an Olympic medal in sprinting unless you come from West Africa[1]. This same population is bad at distance running, where Kenyans dominate. There appears to be strong genetic components at work here. [1] http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2013/08/the-urgency-and-the-challenge-of-connecting-sports-race-and-genetics/278345/ http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2013/08/the...

moron4hire 13y ago
Distance running is the national sport in Kenya. They spend money on it like the US spends money on football. Of course, not to quite the same degree, but the point is still that it is their national sports focus. If Kenyan's are genetically superior at marathons, then Americans are genetically superior at football. Countries as large as the US, India, China, etc., have large enough populations that someone in them should match the "genetic ideal" to excel at a certain sport. It is economics that prevents them from doing so. Either their country or culture doesn't value the sport and thus doesn't spend money on it, or they must spend too much time earning to feed themselves that they can't train. Or that particular person has just never tried the sport. Or there are people who are actually more genetically suited to the particular sport but are discouraged from trying because they hear the current theories on what makes a genetically suitable athlete for that sport. All we know is that Kenya as a country has the ability to produce excellent marathon runners. To heap all of that on "genetics" is grossly short-sited.
- newnewnew 13y ago
  We know that subpopulations of humans vary drastically by phenotypes relevant to athletic performance. The Dutch average adult male height is the highest on the planet at 6'1". African pygmies separated from their Bantu relatives 4,000 - 5,000 years ago, and have since evolved to have an average male height of 4'11". Others are intermediate - the Japanese have an average male height of 5'7". Within a breeding population, height tends to follow a normal distribution. Depending on the standard deviation, there will be a few Japanese taller than the average Dutch. But there will be far more Dutch than Japanese among the very tallest men. This is a simple example, but in a sport where height matters, like basketball, there will be far more Dutch who are good at it than Japanese, and far more Japanese than pygmies. Certainly culture matters, especially in sports where intelligence matters more and raw physical talents matter less. But genetics also matter.
  - moron4hire 13y ago
    And if you select those extremely tall Japanese people and transplant them to the United States, they will be far more likely to find success in basketball than if they had stayed in Japan. The Japanese culture (assuming) does not value basketball as a sport. Being in Japan, those athletes won't have the chance to develop their skills to the degree that they would elsewhere. Yes, it could be said that the Japanese do not value basketball because they have historically not found success in it on the international scale, which would be because of their genetic predisposition to being shorter than even the Chinese. Genetics shape culture and culture can reinforce genetics. But it's not all about genetics. That's my entire point: there is no single variable that can claim why Kenyans run so well. But people want to say that it's genetics that make a good marathoner. That's just not the case, it takes both genetics and environment. This is not a novel concept, but for some reason when it comes to lay people talking on the internet about sports, they don't want to admit it. The world is complex, there are shades of grey, nothing is black and white.
  - Dewie 13y ago
    It doesn't seem that height has everything to do with genetics, if we observe the average heights of taller countries in the past. Things like diet and perhaps healthcare are also factors. When it comes to the Dutch, they didn't always use to be the tallest: - http://suite101.com/article/why-are-the-dutch-so-tall-a55753 http://suite101.com/article/why-are-the-dutch-so-tall-a55753
- abenga 13y ago
  I think genetics has a lot to do with the success of Kenyan long-distance athletes. There are forty-two ethnic communities in Kenya, yet pretty much every long-distance runner you have ever heard of is from the Kalenjin community. If it were a matter of the country loving the sport, there could be a wider spread among the communities in Kenya.
  - moron4hire 13y ago
    Do you know anything about the comparable economic stability of these communities? Do you know anything about their own cultural differences? People in my hometown love baseball. The next town over they love football. My hometown has never produced a professional or semi-pro football player, and the next town over has never produced a professional or semi-pro baseball player. But they each have had one or two people at least show up on the rosters of a professional team in their favorite sports. That's a difference of 11 miles, with highly mobile people who do intermarry between towns. There can be significant enough differences in the culture of particular communities to allow for varying sports values. I would expect smaller towns to tend to emphasize one sport over all others, to the point that the townspeople in large part will live and breath that sport in a way that people in larger communities with more diverse sports options would not.
    - konstantintin 13y ago
      yes, cultural differences and training are important for sporting success. this still can hardly explain the pattern pointed out above...
- sliverstorm 13y ago
  I thought there were documented expressions in west Africa of particular genes that seem to make for great runners, the same way the Sherpas have been proven to poses genes that make them more suited to mountaineering than populations without similar high-altitude adaptations.

moron4hire 13y ago

Distance running is the national sport in Kenya. They spend money on it like the US spends money on football. Of course, not to quite the same degree, but the point is still that it is their national sports focus. If Kenyan's are genetically superior at marathons, then Americans are genetically superior at football. Countries as large as the US, India, China, etc., have large enough populations that someone in them should match the "genetic ideal" to excel at a certain sport. It is economics that prevents them from doing so. Either their country or culture doesn't value the sport and thus doesn't spend money on it, or they must spend too much time earning to feed themselves that they can't train. Or that particular person has just never tried the sport. Or there are people who are actually more genetically suited to the particular sport but are discouraged from trying because they hear the current theories on what makes a genetically suitable athlete for that sport. All we know is that Kenya as a country has the ability to produce excellent marathon runners. To heap all of that on "genetics" is grossly short-sited.

newnewnew 13y ago
We know that subpopulations of humans vary drastically by phenotypes relevant to athletic performance. The Dutch average adult male height is the highest on the planet at 6'1". African pygmies separated from their Bantu relatives 4,000 - 5,000 years ago, and have since evolved to have an average male height of 4'11". Others are intermediate - the Japanese have an average male height of 5'7". Within a breeding population, height tends to follow a normal distribution. Depending on the standard deviation, there will be a few Japanese taller than the average Dutch. But there will be far more Dutch than Japanese among the very tallest men. This is a simple example, but in a sport where height matters, like basketball, there will be far more Dutch who are good at it than Japanese, and far more Japanese than pygmies. Certainly culture matters, especially in sports where intelligence matters more and raw physical talents matter less. But genetics also matter.
- moron4hire 13y ago
  And if you select those extremely tall Japanese people and transplant them to the United States, they will be far more likely to find success in basketball than if they had stayed in Japan. The Japanese culture (assuming) does not value basketball as a sport. Being in Japan, those athletes won't have the chance to develop their skills to the degree that they would elsewhere. Yes, it could be said that the Japanese do not value basketball because they have historically not found success in it on the international scale, which would be because of their genetic predisposition to being shorter than even the Chinese. Genetics shape culture and culture can reinforce genetics. But it's not all about genetics. That's my entire point: there is no single variable that can claim why Kenyans run so well. But people want to say that it's genetics that make a good marathoner. That's just not the case, it takes both genetics and environment. This is not a novel concept, but for some reason when it comes to lay people talking on the internet about sports, they don't want to admit it. The world is complex, there are shades of grey, nothing is black and white.
- Dewie 13y ago
  It doesn't seem that height has everything to do with genetics, if we observe the average heights of taller countries in the past. Things like diet and perhaps healthcare are also factors. When it comes to the Dutch, they didn't always use to be the tallest: - http://suite101.com/article/why-are-the-dutch-so-tall-a55753 http://suite101.com/article/why-are-the-dutch-so-tall-a55753
abenga 13y ago
I think genetics has a lot to do with the success of Kenyan long-distance athletes. There are forty-two ethnic communities in Kenya, yet pretty much every long-distance runner you have ever heard of is from the Kalenjin community. If it were a matter of the country loving the sport, there could be a wider spread among the communities in Kenya.
- moron4hire 13y ago
  Do you know anything about the comparable economic stability of these communities? Do you know anything about their own cultural differences? People in my hometown love baseball. The next town over they love football. My hometown has never produced a professional or semi-pro football player, and the next town over has never produced a professional or semi-pro baseball player. But they each have had one or two people at least show up on the rosters of a professional team in their favorite sports. That's a difference of 11 miles, with highly mobile people who do intermarry between towns. There can be significant enough differences in the culture of particular communities to allow for varying sports values. I would expect smaller towns to tend to emphasize one sport over all others, to the point that the townspeople in large part will live and breath that sport in a way that people in larger communities with more diverse sports options would not.
  - konstantintin 13y ago
    yes, cultural differences and training are important for sporting success. this still can hardly explain the pattern pointed out above...
sliverstorm 13y ago
I thought there were documented expressions in west Africa of particular genes that seem to make for great runners, the same way the Sherpas have been proven to poses genes that make them more suited to mountaineering than populations without similar high-altitude adaptations.