Posted on 08/14/2012 2:43:18 PM PDT by Altura Ct.
Jon Entine, author of Taboo: Why Black Athletes Dominate Sports and Why Were Afraid to Talk About It, takes stock of the DNA London Olympicswhere, as usual, African-descended athletes swept the running events while whites and Asians dominated in the water sports, field competition and strength events. Whats going on here?
Segregation was on display in London over the past two weekswhich, surprisingly, should spark no concerns and may even help educate us all about the wonders of human biodiversity. Let me explain.
Led by 100-meter world record holder Usain Bolt, Jamaican men swept the sprinting events at the London Olympics. It was a stunning feat for the small Caribbean nation. But as part of a broader trend, its hardly surprising. Runners of West African descent are the fastest humans on earth.
For decades, a bushel of developing countriesJamaica, Cuba, Trinidad and Tobago, Saint Kitts, Barbados, Grenada, Netherlands Antilles and the Bahamas in the Caribbean and Nigeria, Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Senegal and Namibia in western Africa, as single countries, have each produced more elite male sprinters than all of white Europe and Asia combined. Yet West African descended runners are laggards at the longer races.
Remarkably, the story of East African runners is the mirror image of the West African success story. While terrible at the sprints, runners Kenya, Ethiopia, Uganda and Somalia, along with a sprinkling of North and Southern Africans, regularly dominate endurance running.
And if you are an Asian or white runner? Forgetaboutit.
Unlike the props and costumes required for, say, fencing, or the intense coaching demanded of gymnastics, running requires only that you lace em up. Ethiopias Abebe Bikila proved this quite memorably in the 1960 Rome Olympics, whenshoeless, coachless and inexperiencedhe won the marathon.
(Excerpt) Read more at forbes.com ...
Synaps speed is just as much a physical attribute as fast twitch muscle response.
The PC crowd will never admit that genetics play a significant role in athleticism because the corallary is that genetics play a significant role in intelligence.
Correct.
If we can stay ahead of any other mammal, that mammal will either have to quit before we do, or pass out.
The big cheese drawing was how to kill a bear. You get out ahead of him going up hill on skis, then you speed past him going down hill on skis ~ you get to the bottom, get out your spear, and hold on tight. The bear will come running down hill after you at 30 MPH and he'll jump on that spear!
No way a guy with a spear can just walk up and plunge it into a bear. But if the bear will jump on a spear, that makes it a different sort of task.
'Cause he pretty much sucks at everything...
Jamaican Coat of Arms features Indians, not Africans :-)
The woman in the Coat of Arms has a couple of nice pineapples.
The author’s premise is that most sprinting records are held by people of West African descent....but how many of these record holders actually grew up in West Africa?
Very few.
Most elite sprinters may be of West African descent; but, they live on the American continents. Why is this important? Nobody really likes to talk about it; but, slave holders in the Americas essentially ‘bred’ their slaves, for a couple hundred years, to be big, tall, and strong. I know its not polite to talk about it; but, it happened.
For starters, the slave traders picked the largest and most powerful from Africa, to ship over to the US. Would you pay top dollar for Spike Lee? Nope...so no use shipping him over. Shaq, on the other hand, would bring top dollar...so he gets shipped to he America’s.
And every other step in the slave trade would be similar, with a further weeding out of the small and weak, until the plantation was filled with large powerful slaves.
Ergo, blacks in the US, and all throughout America, are more likely to be big, strong, and athletic. The same holds true for why modern cattle is larger than they were 200 years ago, or why people are able to breed really fast horses. Again, I know its impolite; and, I may be having a Jimmy the Greek moment...but its still true.
As far as swimming goes...the US team did have a black swimmer, named Cullen Jones. I think we will be seeing more and more black swimmers in the future. The reason there aren’t more right now? Here I go again: top level swimmers are usually the result of years of training, which include having mom or dad getting up real early in the morning, to drive the aspiring swimmer to practice. Also, it usually consists of multiple weekends, on the road, driving hundreds of miles to some meet. Culturally, I see this as more possible in a two parent household (I know Phelps is a notable exception). Its just easier for a stay at home parent to make the time committment to swimming, than a single mom...which is the situation most black kids in this nation find themselves.
Isn’t this the conversation that got Jimmy the Greek Snyder fired from ABC Sports way-back-when? The same conversation that also ruined the reputation of Al Campanis?
Also, you don’t see a lot of African-American distance runners. The East African runners tend to have tooth-picks for legs.
I prefer to think like a predator, if you wish to think like prey, you are welcome to it.
"Shall we make the usual bet?"
Yea try swimming while carrying someone’s TV......
And yet he is here.
Menial agricultural work does not require unusual size or strength - any ablebodied person can do it, since it was the main occupation of 90+% of ablebodied humans for the past few thousand years.
There is zero record of slaveholders intentionally breeding humans for traits, but there are extensive records kept by those same slaveholders of their progress in breeding livestock and plants.
By the way, cheetah are reportedly not very good for eating.
None of this explains table tennis in light of
how they drive.
I think it's cool that you think it's cool.
Except Bullshit.*
And I think it’s cool, that you think it’s cool, that I think it’s cool.
;^)
Take care Isabel C.
Cross country skiing ain’t a sport! It’s how a Finn gets to the liquor store.
I kid!
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