To wonder what Black athletes have....

[CrispyCod]

......that make them so superior in performance. It has to be genetic. I am in awe of them as they appear to glide effortlessly around the track. The Jamaican athletes are just wow! Their speed is just amazing.

Not sure why you are laughing there Charity Girl. Many of the african countries are at a much higher altitude (ie above sea level) than others nations, and the athletes have a greater stamina for endurance. You can research it on the internet.

A friend of mine wrote a paper about this when he was doing physiology at university many years ago. The thinking is that some of it is due to natural selection - not just slavery but also harsh African living conditions.

If anyone is actually interested in the extensively researched science behind this, read this

That documentary was fascinating and sad at teh same time.

I'm aware of that squeaky (Mo Farah trains in Kenya) but altitude is not 'in the air'.

I was telling DD the running thing today, too. In many parts of Afrrica children run an hour each way to get to and from school. Never mind all the treking adults have to do to get water. So there's a lot of conditioning from an early age. Friends who have worked in certain parts of rural Africa comment on how you see people running everywhere, just to commute, it's normal. Or was historically, anyway.

I suspect Jamaica gets a lot of good sprinters mainly because they had some early international success & understandably decided to focus their relatively small sports budget on excelling at that narrow event. Britain is doing similar, concentrating funds in sports with the highest probability of excellence.

You will also notice there are very few black swimmers and it has to do with how their bodies are built 'all wrong' for water, dense bones and very little buoyancy etc...

Sorry but the slavery answer just can't be right - as siad above many of the elite athletes come from countries which were never enslaved and the genetic changes which would be needed to see any difference would have needed thousands and thousands of years of "selective breeding". Agree that it's much more likely to do with cultural/societal differences which in effect lead to "training" from a much younger age than other countries - and any genetic difference is more likely due to those factors

angel. I noticed that too re the swimming.

I knew what I meant!!

(disclaimer, I am trying to watch the race too!! lol!)

Anyone who has justed watched 'Farah' win, now that's what I'm talking about.
So so proud!!!

Slavery wasn't exclusive to Britain. France,Belgium,Holland,Germany all had their hands in it with their overseas colonies, Belgian Congo has a particularly brutal history. A lot of people were sold into slavery by their own people ie other africans, rival tribes etc and it's still going on today esp in the Mid-East and Sub-continent

The swimming is to do with hair- dds friends won't come to the lido as its just too much hassle sorting out weaves and braids.

I watched the documentory with Michael Johnson, very interesting.

It is not all down to slavery though. As others have said there are genetic differences, some African countries have a tendancy to have people with a particular body structure, as do Europeans, dutch people tend to be taller, and Italians tend to be shorter.

There are other differences too, if you do lung function tests you have to adjust for race. Generally black people have a larger lung capacity than white people, who have a higher lung capacity than asian people.

When did you last see an asian sprinter?

I think there is also something about being mixed race, you inherit things from both (all) sides. And descendents of slaves are usually mixed race because of the history of slavery.

So, in very general terms:

sprinters - decended from slaves

long distance runners - from Kenya and Ethiopia (obv very general as Mo Farrah showed earlier)

Running is a cheap sport, for all sports that require equipment you have to take in factors such as income and availability of the equipment in particular countries.

Ethiopia has a single skier at the winter Olympics, he learned to ski in the US and had to form a skiing organisation. In some European countries skiing is just something everyone does, so there will always be more European and Canadian skiers than African, nothing to do with race but to do with the availability of equipment and lack of snow.

Well nerd alert when Goku on dragonball z wanted to be faster and stronger he trained in a room with 100 x gravity

And when he came back to earth (having nearly been crushed to death initially) he was very fast and strong.

This is clearly the answer for all sports in the future nods wisely

Kayano :) My DP would LOVE you!
His love of Dragonball Z/GT/whatever is most deep and profound-he has ALL of them on DVD, and rare limited-edition figures which the DC are not allowed to touch. (He is 38 FFS)

Sorry, I don't believe the breeding-in-slavery thing for a minute.

Evolutionarily speaking, that was a mere blip of time in our history [disclaimer: I am not trying to down-play the hideousness of it; I am literally speaking about chronological time].

Slavery only took in parts of the continent, and doesn't explain why caucasians are better at other physical acts, e.g. swimming; or at least as good, e.g. javelin throwing, say, or shot put.

Polynesian men are often - generally speaking - better at rugby. Their build combined with their speed.

All it is is different builds, and different ability and agility based on that. And there are zillions of little things which would have contributed to that (evolution) over the millenia humans have been on earth. So nope, sorry, don't buy the slavery thing for a second.

Jaysus...

Yes, the reason black people don't win gold at the Olympics is because it's too much hassle sorting out their hair.

*swimming, that is.

I have often wondered about the swimming bit. I remember a friend saying it was something to do with bone structure and how it was all wrong for swimming. I guess it must be true, have never seen a black swimmer. Only for first time the other day seen a black athlete compete in the track cycling (for France) and in the rowing (forget the country, maybe south Africa).
Is amazing though that the Kenyans and Ethiopians excel in the long distance running and the Jamaicans and black americans in the sprints

A friend of mine is Kenyan and he's from the Kikuyu tribe - he's fairly short and stocky and he says all that tribe are. Some of his friends are taller and slimmer and he says they're from a different tribe and its this tribe that produce all the good long distance runners. He reckons it is all genetic.

It is to do with fast-twitch muscle fibres