[size=13pt]French book examines why black sprinters dominate the Olympics[/size]

[img]http://static.stuff.co.nz/1344082978/173/7417173.jpg[/img]

The 2012 Olympics has again seen black athletes commanding the sprint events. For French journalist Jean-Philippe Leclaire, author of "Why Whites Run Slower", this dominance can be explained by a combination of the right genes and hard work.
Ever since American runner Jesse Owens took the 1936 Berlin Olympics by storm, black athletes have generally reigned supreme in the sprints at international tournaments.

The last 25 holders of the world record for the 100-metre race have all been black and data compiled in 2007 revealed that 494 out of the 500 best-ever 100-metre sprint times are held by athletes primarily of West African origin.

The lineup for Sunday's 100-metre final at London's Olympic stadium once again demonstrates the dominance of black sprinters.

Despite the glaring statistics, the topic was somewhat of a taboo subject until recent years. Most scientists, authors and journalists avoided any quest for an explanation out of a fear of being accused of racial stereotyping.

But, in 2010, French author Jean-Philippe Leclaire, a former editor in chief of popular French sports newspaper "L’Equipe", took it upon himself to examine the evidence. Inspired by the emergence of white French sprinter Christophe Lemaitre and by American author Jon Entine's book “Taboo: Why black athletes dominate sport and why we’re afraid to talk about it”, Leclaire decided to dedicate a year and a half of his life to breaking that taboo.

Breaking down stereotypes

He approached scientists, journalists and athletes, and travelled to Jamaica -- the homeland of sprint marvel Usain Bolt -- to find out why “black power” reigns supreme on the track. In June of this year, his findings and conclusions were published in “Why Whites Run Slower”.

“I had been commissioned to write a biography of Usain Bolt at a time when Lemaitre became the first white athlete capable of running the 100-metre in under 10 seconds,” Leclaire told FRANCE 24. Lemaitre’s success on the track stirred the former athletics columnist to expand his mission slightly.

“Up to now, apart from Lemaitre and Australia’s Patrick Johnson, all the sprinters who have run the 100-metre in under 10 seconds were either born in West Africa or were descendants from slaves from West Africa,” he said.

“Lemaitre broke down all the prejudices and stereotyping, so I decided to write a book to raise the debate around this issue,” he said.

Over 361 pages, Leclaire examined the link between sporting performance and country of origin.

He studied a range of existing theories, including one that points to the so-called “innate muscle” makeup of black sprinters and another that argues that the supposed greater length of Kenyan runners’ femurs gave them an advantage. Other arguments revolved around the apparent thinner skin and lighter internal organs of black athletes.

In a 2010 study, two American academics insisted that black athletes' dominance of the sport was down to their higher centre of gravity.

The legacy of slavery and the need to escape poverty are also more controversial theories that have come and gone.

Sprinting gene.

By the end of his research, Leclaire was left in no doubt. For him, “athletic performance is largely determined by genetics and specifically ACTN3, the so-called ‘sprint gene’”.


The ACTN3 was discovered for the first time by a team of Australian researchers in 2003. It is a gene present in all humans in two forms, either the RR form which helps speed, or the RX form which aids endurance.

“Since its discovery, a lot of research has shown that the RR form of the gene gives those who hold it explosive muscle power when the body is put under a certain amount of physical stress, so it’s a natural predisposition for sprinters,” Leclaire explained.

“If you had a weak form of ACTN 3, it would be impossible to match the great sprinters,” he said.

Leclaire concluded that the genes favourable for sprinting are more commonly found in those of West African origin.

There are exceptions, of course, which explains how French sprinter Lemaitre has been able to compete in the same class as the likes of Bolt and fellow Jamaican sprinter Yohan Blake.

“Lemaitre posesses the same genetic combinations that you find in most of the athletes of West African origin. He is the exception that confirms the rule,” Leclaire said.

East Africa, by contrast, is the land of the long-distance runner.

Author John Entine believes genetics also explains the continuing supremacy of Kenya’s runners in long distance races.

“They are short and slender with huge natural lung capacity and a preponderance of slow twitch muscles, the energy system for endurance sports,” Entine wrote on the website blackathlete.net. “It’s a perfect biomechanical package for long-distance running but a disaster for sports that require anaerobic bursts of speed.”

It’s not all biological

However, anyone thinking that they’ll able to challenge Usain Bolt at the London Olympics just because they possess the ACTN3 gene can forget it.

“Sociocultural factors also come in to play,” said Leclaire. “And it’s also a question of personality. Jessie Owens, Tommie Smith, Marie-Jose Perec and Usain Bolt became who they are thanks to training and the choices they have made as well as their genetic makeup.”

The director of the Copenhagen Muscle Research Institute, Bengt Saltin, believes an athlete's “environment” can account for 20 to 25 percent of his speed, but that the rest is down to birth.

Some of the many scientists and authors who have broached the issue in recent years preach caution about a tendency to fall into the trap of racially stereotyping athletes.

Matthew Syed, author of the book "Bounce: The Myth of Talent and the Power of Practice" points out that a host of West African countries including Ivory Coast, Senegal, Congo and Angola have never produced an Olympic sprint champion.

“Just because some black people are good at something does not imply that black people in general will be good at it,” Syed told the BBC.

Source: http://www.france24.com/en/20120805-france-usain-bolt-black-sprinters-dominate-olympics

Kobojunkie:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17986906

So what is the cause?
I don't want to believe its the akpu that their ancestors fed on.

na2day!:


So what is the cause?
I don't want to believe its the akpu that their ancestors fed on.

[size=18pt]Michael Johnson: 'Slave descendants have superior athletic genes'[/size]

By JohnThomas Didymus
Jul 2, 2012

According to former Olympic champion Michael Johnson, African American and Caribbean sprinters will dominate the London Olympic games because of what he terms a "superior athletic gene," the favorable consequence of their history of slavery.

Johnson said: "Difficult as it was to hear, slavery has benefited descendants like me – I believe there is a superior athletic gene in us."

Daily Mail reports he said: "Over the last few years, athletes of Afro- Caribbean and Afro-American descent have dominated athletics finals. It’s a fact that hasn’t been discussed openly before. It’s a taboo subject in the States, but it is what it is. Why shouldn’t we discuss it?"

According Johnson, "It is currently being researched to see how much of a factor being descended from slaves contributes to athletic ability."

Sports commentators before Johnson have noted the commanding presence of Afro-Americans and Afro-Caribbean athletes at the Olympic games. Daily Mail notes that all the eight 100m finalists at the last Olympics were athletes believed to be descendants of West Africans shipped to the "New World" as slaves. Three were Jamaicans, two were from Trinidad and Tobago and two were Afro-Americans. An athlete of Dutch Caribbean descent from the Island of Curacao represented the Netherlands.

Channel4.com asks: "Why is it that all the athletes that lined up for the men's 100m final at the Beijing Olympics (2008) could trace their ancestry back to the trans-Atlantic slave trade?"

Scientists who are favorably disposed to the argument say that, given the extreme conditions African slaves were subjected to, only the fittest survived. They argue that strong selective pressure for physical fitness that their slave ancestors were subjected to may explain the tendency of African Americans and Afro-Caribbeans to produce world-record-shattering athletes.

The reigning Olympic 100m champion Usain Bolt, for instance, was born in Trelawny Parish, Jamaica — an area that was the site of several slave plantations.

Daily Mail reports that Jamaica, the last stop of the slavery trail, was the toughest for the human cargo to the Americas. A trans-Atlantic voyage in 1732 ended with loss of 96 per cent of the slaves. According to historians, only six of the original 170 slaves that started the journey from the West African "slave coast" survived.

Dr Rachael Irving, a Jamaican geneticist, reportedly said: "There was not much oxygen on slave ships so they had to use whatever they had to survive." Herb Elliot, doctor to the Jamaican Olympic team said that only the most aggressive and fiercest slaves ended up in Jamaica.

According to Daily Mail, Johnson had a DNA test done for a documentary titled "Michael Johnson: Survival Of The Fastest." The test confirmed he is of West African descent. He said: "All my life I believed I became an athlete through my own determination, but it’s impossible to think that being descended from slaves hasn’t left an imprint through the generations. Difficult as it was to hear, slavery has benefited descendants like me – I believe there is a superior athletic gene in us."

Johnson's theory has for long been a controversial subject in the US.

The controversy about genetically determined sports superiority of African Americans dates back to Jesse Owens's record-breaking performances at the 1935 Big Ten Track Championships which the Nazis had hoped would give opportunity to demonstrate the superiority of Aryan "Ubermensch.".


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXIe5GbLSUs

A disappointed Hitler reportedly commented about Owens's success: "People whose antecedents came from the jungle were primitive. Their physiques were stronger than those of civilized whites and hence should be excluded from future games."

However, many African American social scientists vehemently reject the theory that descendants of African slaves have "superior athletic genes." They argue that the theory is offensive because it encourages "black brawn vs. white brains" stereotyping. Most sociologists think that Americans and Caribbeans of West African descent excel in sports because circumstances of economic, social and cultural disadvantage predisposes them to take up sport as the most accessible avenue to self-fulfillment. Sociologists have also proposed similar social and cultural factors to explain the success of African-Americans in the entertainment industry, especially music.

African American sociologist Harry Edwards, debunking the notion of "black superior athletic gene," wrote in 1971: "The myth of the black male's racially determined, inherent physical and athletic superiority over the white male, rivals the myth of black sexual superiority in antiquity."


Read more: http://digitaljournal.com/article/327746#ixzz2CsNyxH3d

Personally I don't think it has anything to do with us being of west african descent exactly because a lot of our ancestors were central african. slavery played a role in selecting the fittest sure...but i think is has most to do with diet and lifestyle.