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.

Super humans and such a privilege to have them in the UK.

Surely it's a combination of genetics and socioeconomic / cultural factors? I don't buy the 'selective breeding' slavery argument - it was only a few generations, not enough time in evolutionary terms.

They have massively higher proportion of fast twitch muscle fibres. I think Colin Jackson did a documentary where they did a muscle biopsy on him and he was shocked at how much of a difference there was.

Can I just point out Mo Farah is of Somali origin, not Ethiopian.

Michael Johnson, whilst a lovely fella, did a documentary on theory not scientific fact.

If there were a 'master race' bred, the legacy of the Nazi eugenics programme would be coming through.

Also, with regard to Black African slavery, the descendants are throughout Latin America (which also has high altitude) and you don't see a lot of atheletes per se - a lot of footballers, but not track and field.

Same genetic make up - why does Puerto Rico and Cuba produce excellent boxers but rarely track stars?

Just to throw a bone in, probably the fittest and most capable of long distance, stamina running would be Indigenous Americans who could run, if legend be regarded as fact, up to 70 miles a day - again you don't see many descendants in any sport - largely due to the pre-WWII Eugenics programme the Americans had to wipe out the indigenous population.

The evolution of man kind has differed all over the world according to it's environment. Its difficult to have a theory or opinion without coming across racist - however I'll give it a go. . Racial qualities and above all diet come into play.

Pacific regions, short, squat, heavily build people - Samoans, Maori, etc = weight lifters, rugby players. Sports that require core strength. But one would wonder why Icelandics don't excel in this as they have the same build.

North Eastern African - which contains a lot of Arabic blood are tall, lithe, slender. Traditional diet would be fairly meat free and eating enough for need rather than the gluttony of the western world. Make good stamina runners.

Oriental Asians, traditionally short, lithe people, with little meat in diet - supple gymnasts.

You can attribute racial qualities to any sport that is dominated by a particular type of ethnic origin.

There are many theories why Black Africans are poor swimmers - I favour the fact that Olympic sized swimming pools are not common place across the continent but that of course doesnt explain why American or British Africans aren't excelling in the water.

This is a link to a Black media site, you have to wait to get past the advert newsone.com/2017166/black-swimming/ but Blacks and Hispanics have a much higher drowning rate because they cannot swim. This would partly be down to segregation, which is within living memory for a lot of people - Blacks didn't have access to public pools etc therefore it is not within their mindset to take it up as a spot. After all, you can run and train anywhere. But if your parents and grandparents were fearful of water, the chances are that fear is passed to you also.

It has nothing to do with the myth their bones are too heavy

Well said StewieGriffinsMom.

Trying to frame this debate in terms of 'race', which is a social construction and has no basis in scientific reality

I agree the names for race are made up, you don't get 'hispanics' in Europe but there are physiological differences between people with different origins.

The ECG of a 25 year old black man often looks like that of a white child.

Respiratory function has to take race into account, otherwise a 'normal racial deviation' could lead to someone being treated for a condition they do not have, or not being treated for something they do have.

Pleasse have a look at the 'survival of the fastest' documentory. There is one simpl question asked.
'Why did the 100m, mens' final in Beijing consist entirely of people descended from slaves?'.

Not black or African but descendents from slaves. It is an interesting question.

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].

Ashkenazi Jews test for Tay sachs disease before marriage and do not allow marriage between two carriers, since testing began in the 1970s, the incidence of a disease that was once common in this particular population is now lower than in the general population.

If this form of 'selective breeding' (I know, horrible term for marriage and having a family) can cut the incidence of a disease so rapidly surely another form of selective breeding could produce a particular physic.

Millions of years of evolving the most suitable body type for different environments. And some of those body types being suitable for certain types of sports.

Remember that the Olympics, and all sport, arose from things that human beings have needed to do to survive over those millions of years - run fast, run for long distances, fight, lift big weights, swim, etc

People of African descent simply come from an environment where they have developed the biology for speed.

There are sports where they don't perform well, like swimming.

It would be interesting to know how many other sports are caucasion-dominated because of historical factors, and now much of it is to do with physical differences. I wonder if, at some time in the future when all ethnic groups have spread through all sports, we might find that the African nations are actually better at almost all speed/strength/endurance sports, or whether we will find that there are events where the caucasion biology is an advantage.

Not really, because that's just deselecting one particular mutated gene. Physique is made up of lots of genetic components, and is far more complicated.

Also re swimming, surely we would be seeing a lot of black swimmers from countries such as the USA, if it were nothing to do with physique. I don't think we can dismiss the lack of black swimmers quite so simply.

I think it would be naive to suggest that people in different parts of the world have not developed differently due to genetics/environment, and that those differences do not factor in physical performance.

The unknown is how much social/economical/cultural issues also play a part.

Interesting article, thanks

Can't believe people are answering this seriously

Why is that GhostShip? I don't see a problem with it. I am very interested in genetics and it is clear that there are certain physical traits held by people from different places in the world, or in the general population that give an advantage. Usually these have developed over millions of years as a result of their environment. Did you know that sickle cell aneamia is a genetic condition that actually confers a genetic advantage? It seems counter-intuitive and of course it is, with modern medicine but it was a mutation that selected itself because it gave resistance to malaria. Even though it i pretty bloody crap for anyone affected, evolutionarily it was an advantage because people were more likely to die before they reproduced from malaria than they were of sickle cell, so that is why sickle cell is more prevelant in people from certain regions of the world. It fascinates me, please don't call the racist card, its a bit daft - recognising differences is not racism, especially when they are positives.

LMAO at mushroom soup - bless him, is he quite old?

Lucyellen - I find a problem because if a topic were made questioning a white persons superiority in a field it would be shot down.

If this wasn't the case I'd see this topic as a very interesting one :)

Even insofar as "race" is a meaningful scientific entity (questionable), it is nonsense to talk about Black or African people as a single racial group. There are several distinct racial groupings amongst African people (or people whose ancestors left Africa within the last thousand years), and huge genetic diversity, and I think that's the key. If you are looking for physical outliers: tallest, thinnest, fastest, strongest then you're more likely to find them within the most genetically diverse group.

Why would black people be more healthy?

In (Western) areas where there is socio-economic deprivation, I'd imagine black people (who often make up a disproportionately high number of such populations) would be as unhealthy as their white counterparts - given that crap, processed, fat-laden food is often cheaper than fresh fruit and veg and organic, free-range, corn-fed, sustainably-caught whatever...

And in developing countries where black people make up the bulk of those populations, they're probably not particularly healthy, what with malnutrition and such like.

Discussing physical differences between different etnic groups is only racist if it is done in a perjorative way.

If no-one ever discusses racial differences then how can there ever be any discussion about differences that are caused by factors that can and should be addressed, like social and economic factors?

That comment was a joke before anyone starts making a grab for their pearls btw

Let's turn it upside down then.

Why do Caucasians and Asians excel in swimming?