This is a complicated issue, and I think you are confusing things a bit. Of course, for a gene to take an effect (produce a protein) it has to be activated via

This is a complicated issue, and I think you are confusing things a bit. Of course, for a gene to take an effect (produce a protein) it has to be activated via a certain chain of chemical reactions that is triggered by environmental conditions. So, sure, genes give widely different results depending on the environment of the organism. In professional competitive sports however we have a large group of people that undergo really similar stimulus. They all train the same discipline, follow similar training regimes, eat really well etc. To think that in such situation genes do not play a huge role is I think naive in the light of what we know about biology. I also don't see what your examples have to do with it, really. By the way, I find it a bit silly that those articles about genetic differences concentrate on sports so much. Somehow it is much easier for people to swallow that our bodies are shaped by our genes, that it is to accept that a large part of our mental makeup is as well, despite strong scientific evidence for it. For the same reason I think any notion of "fairness" in this context meaningless, genes make every one of us who we are and we have vastly different capabilities concerning all activities, from chess playing, through math problem solving, to sports and entrepreneurship. There is no fairness at all in any human activity.