Still, it should not be forgotten that ancestry is not destiny. "From a biomechanical perspective, the answer is 'yes,' race and ethnicity do matter," says Lindsay Carter, a physical anthropologist at San Diego State University who has studied thousands of Olympic-level athletes over the years. "All of the large-scale studies show it, and the data goes back more than a hundred years." But he adds a critical caveat. It is critical to remember that no individual athlete can succeed without the X factor - the lucky spin of the roulette wheel of genetics matched with considerable dedication and sport smarts. "There are far too many variables to make blanket statements about the deterministic quality of genetics," Carter says. "Nature provides an average advantage, yes. But that says nothing about any individual competitor."
Shattering Racist Myths
The Science Behind Why Kenyans Dominate Distance Running
Even a casual mention that meaningful genetic differences exist between populations can ignite a firestorm and threaten a career. Ask Jimmy "the Greek" Snyder. Or Roger Bannister, the first man to break the four-minute barrier in the mile, in 1954. In a speech before the British Association for the Advancement of Science in 1995, Sir Roger Bannister, the distinguished neurologist and retired Oxford dean was showered with ridicule for venturing his opinion "as a scientist rather than a sociologist" that all athletes are not created equal. "I am prepared to risk political incorrectness," he said, "by drawing attention to the seemingly obvious but under stressed fact that black sprinters and black athletes in general all seem to have certain natural anatomical advantages."
That's the explosive "N" word - natural. Because of the pseudo-science that has historically plagued research into human differences, assertions that biology predetermines or even significantly influences human behavior runs into a wall of political incorrectness. That's the politics.
While everyone readily accepts that evolution has turned out blacks with a genetic proclivity to contract sickle cell and Jews of European heritage who are 100 times more likely than other populations to be afflicted with the degenerative mental disease Tay-Sachs, it is widely perceived as racist to suggest that blacks of West African ancestry have evolved into the world's best sprinters, Asians among the best divers, East Africans the premier distance runners, and whites the top weightlifters.
Yet the science is quite clear and the empirical evidence consistent and overwhelming. A look at the ancestry (or home country) of runners holding the top 100 times in eight distances, from the 100 meters to the marathon, makes it clear that African domination is deep as well as broad:
At the Seoul Olympics in 1988, Kenya shocked the running world when it's top male runners won the 800m, 1500m and 5,000 meters, plus the 3,000-meter steeplechase. Based on population percentages alone, the likelihood of such a performance is one in 1.6 billion. The Kalenjins of the Great Rift Valley adjacent to Lake Victoria, a tribe of half a million people, win 40 percent of top international distance running honors - and three times as many distance medals as athletes from any other nation in the world.
This East African domination (and by some Moroccans and Algerians who are much closer, genetically, to East than West Africans) has been slow to emerge. Ethiopia's Abebe Bikila shocked the world at the 1960 Rome Olympics when, running barefoot, he won the marathon. But most East Africans did not have the money or means to compete. By the1980s Africans began trickling into long distance running, although soccer, at which Kenyans (and East Africans generally) fair poorly, was and is the national sport.
Shattering Racist Myths
The Science Behind Why Kenyans Dominate Distance Running
Even a casual mention that meaningful genetic differences exist between populations can ignite a firestorm and threaten a career. Ask Jimmy "the Greek" Snyder. Or Roger Bannister, the first man to break the four-minute barrier in the mile, in 1954. In a speech before the British Association for the Advancement of Science in 1995, Sir Roger Bannister, the distinguished neurologist and retired Oxford dean was showered with ridicule for venturing his opinion "as a scientist rather than a sociologist" that all athletes are not created equal. "I am prepared to risk political incorrectness," he said, "by drawing attention to the seemingly obvious but under stressed fact that black sprinters and black athletes in general all seem to have certain natural anatomical advantages."
That's the explosive "N" word - natural. Because of the pseudo-science that has historically plagued research into human differences, assertions that biology predetermines or even significantly influences human behavior runs into a wall of political incorrectness. That's the politics.
While everyone readily accepts that evolution has turned out blacks with a genetic proclivity to contract sickle cell and Jews of European heritage who are 100 times more likely than other populations to be afflicted with the degenerative mental disease Tay-Sachs, it is widely perceived as racist to suggest that blacks of West African ancestry have evolved into the world's best sprinters, Asians among the best divers, East Africans the premier distance runners, and whites the top weightlifters.
Yet the science is quite clear and the empirical evidence consistent and overwhelming. A look at the ancestry (or home country) of runners holding the top 100 times in eight distances, from the 100 meters to the marathon, makes it clear that African domination is deep as well as broad:
- Blacks who trace their ancestry to West Africa, including African Americans, hold more than 95 percent of the top times in sprinting;
- Whites are virtually absent from the top ranks of sprinting; though whites have traditionally done well in the longer endurance races, particularly the marathon, their ranks have thinned in recent years;
- Athletes from one country, Kenya, make up more than one-third of top times in middle and long distance races; including top performances by other East Africans (most from Ethiopia), that domination swells to almost 50 percent.
- North Africans do well at middle distances;
- Mexicans (Native Americans), are strongest at the longest races, 10,000 meters and the marathon;
- East Asians are competitive only at the event requiring the most endurance, the marathon, and at ultra-marathons.
At the Seoul Olympics in 1988, Kenya shocked the running world when it's top male runners won the 800m, 1500m and 5,000 meters, plus the 3,000-meter steeplechase. Based on population percentages alone, the likelihood of such a performance is one in 1.6 billion. The Kalenjins of the Great Rift Valley adjacent to Lake Victoria, a tribe of half a million people, win 40 percent of top international distance running honors - and three times as many distance medals as athletes from any other nation in the world.
This East African domination (and by some Moroccans and Algerians who are much closer, genetically, to East than West Africans) has been slow to emerge. Ethiopia's Abebe Bikila shocked the world at the 1960 Rome Olympics when, running barefoot, he won the marathon. But most East Africans did not have the money or means to compete. By the1980s Africans began trickling into long distance running, although soccer, at which Kenyans (and East Africans generally) fair poorly, was and is the national sport.