Asian athletes limited by genes or nurture

88 medals in the Olympics, including 6 in endurance events.

They suck!

I Know Asians wrote:

IMO I have dealt with approximately 20 asian runners of both sexes.

I believe there is a genetic reason why their performance is less than Blacks and Whites. Their legs for instance are shorter, their feet are flatter, and their heels and toes less developed for running.

I'm curious to know how your drew your conclusions about flat feet, heels, toes. What did you measure, and how did it differ from that of other runners?

Keep in mind that Su Bingtian (China) has run 10.16 and 6.56, and Li Xuemei (female) ran 10.79 and 7.19. The Chinese men ran 38.38 in the 4X100 in London.

Japan finished 5th in the 4X100 in London, while the Chinese ran a national record in roughly the same time as Brazil and Germany, but didn't make the final. Japan is actually doing better than most countries in the sprints except Jamaica and USA. So I wouldn't say that they don't have any explosive power, and the Chinese/Japanese distance runners combined are a joke compared to the 4X100 relay.

Note that the China national record at 10000 would not have beaten Cam for the NCAA Championship this year. The people in Japan who care about long distance running are the companies that sponsor Ekiden and such, but those people contribute NOTHING to Japan as far as winning medals--the ONLY Japanese medalist in athletics in London was a hammer thrower. China won 3 medals in London in race walks, and 2 in women's throws. China has emerged as the US #1 competitor in Olympic medals, and distance running has nothing to do with it.

Seems to me India has the most limited genetics for atletics. In a highly populated nation I have seen very few great athletes from that country other than in sports like golf (Vjay Singh) or a few marathoners in the 1970's. Their general pysique is shorter and thinner bone structure but soft. Do they still take a team to World Cross and get dead last every year?

I guess I don't follow criquet, they seem to excell in that sport.

ddffv wrote:

What????

No he doesn't. If they weigh the same, then they will have the same stride length for the same force. This is like physics 101. F=ma. Nowhere in that equation does it ask for the size of the object.

Wow, you went to 9th grade. Didn't they also tell you x1= x0 + vt?

What you fail to understand is the long-legged runner's center of mass is further ahead when the force is applied. The initial positions are not the same.

Anyhow, you look like an idiot arguing that short-legged runners have the same stride length as long-legged runners. Your dedication to moronic ideas is ruining an otherwise decent thread.

break it up wrote:

Seems to me India has the most limited genetics for atletics. In a highly populated nation I have seen very few great athletes from that country other than in sports like golf (Vjay Singh) or a few marathoners in the 1970's. Their general pysique is shorter and thinner bone structure but soft. Do they still take a team to World Cross and get dead last every year?

I guess I don't follow criquet, they seem to excell in that sport.

You can't just compare the size of the country's population and arrive at a conclusion like that. If you're going to make a conclusion based solely off of population size (a dumb metric, but whatever), then you should limit it to the number of people that actually train to be Olympic runners. I bet this number is much less than the population of the whole country.

break it up wrote:

Seems to me India has the most limited genetics for atletics. In a highly populated nation I have seen very few great athletes from that country other than in sports like golf (Vjay Singh) or a few marathoners in the 1970's. Their general pysique is shorter and thinner bone structure but soft. Do they still take a team to World Cross and get dead last every year?

I guess I don't follow criquet, they seem to excell in that sport.

Vijay is from Fiji. Not sure if he originated in India, but I know of no other Indian built like him.

Jeff Tracy wrote:

break it up wrote:

Seems to me India has the most limited genetics for atletics. In a highly populated nation I have seen very few great athletes from that country other than in sports like golf (Vjay Singh) or a few marathoners in the 1970's. Their general pysique is shorter and thinner bone structure but soft. Do they still take a team to World Cross and get dead last every year?

I guess I don't follow criquet, they seem to excell in that sport.

Vijay is from Fiji. Not sure if he originated in India, but I know of no other Indian built like him.

I might be wrong. He is a lot bigger than an Indian you usually see. It just seems to me that India is the only populated country that you never see any world class athletes come out of. In any sport. I do think most of the Asians have a slight genetic limitation in athletics but no more than Europeans.

Bad must have failed physics. ddfv is correct.

The position of the center of mass is directly over the foot when the force on the foot reaches its maximum. Before it reaches that point, the foot is in front of the center of mass and is loading up (force increasing). After the center of mass moves past the foot, the force rapidly decreases. Look at

http://www.youtube.com/user/skeletonheb/videos

for any of the videos with the force graphs underneath and you can see that this is true no matter what kind of footstrike you have.

At the same speed, if the stride rate is the same, the stride length is exactly the same by definition (speed = rate x stride length). Leg length doesn't factor in. Maybe you are saying that at the same speed, the longer legged runner will tend to favor a lower cadence compared to a shorter legged runner, but this is very individual. In race videos, when I have been paying attention, it seems that generally tall and short runners often have similar stride rates.

Even if taller runners sometimes have lower stride rates and longer strides at the same speed, that doesn't say anything about efficiency. There are trade offs either way - there must be more force applied to achieve a longer stride, but more strides must be taken with a shorter stride. What stride rate for a given speed is most efficient for any particular runner is probably pretty easy for most people to figure out by feel.

coach d wrote:

Note that the China national record at 10000 would not have beaten Cam for the NCAA Championship this year. The people in Japan who care about long distance running are the companies that sponsor Ekiden and such, but those people contribute NOTHING to Japan as far as winning medals--the ONLY Japanese medalist in athletics in London was a hammer thrower. China won 3 medals in London in race walks, and 2 in women's throws. China has emerged as the US #1 competitor in Olympic medals, and distance running has nothing to do with it.

I kind of agree with you on most of the assessments you did in previous posts BUT not this one.

Japanese has a very unique culture that's not found in other Asian countries (China, Thailand, Indonesia, India...) regarding physical exercise and that culture goes back for more than 100 years. It combines their Bushido(Bushi spirit/principles. Bushi also known as Samurai in the West) and what they learned from west of the emphasis on physical development for individuals (all kids are encouraged to participate in sports and they take it with pride and honor). People there do care about sports, be it baseball or marathoning. It is also a culture that the corporate companies share the responsibility in supporting sports for the country, hence the sponsorship (while the sponsorship has evolved, it's not like what you see the Nike sponsoring a star track team/athlete here). On the other hand, most Chinese only care about medaling. Their system is to find and (only) train the talented starting when they are young. So, if one can't medal, he/she better save the energy to trying to achieve academically. The Japanese system has a much bigger pool than the Chinese.

BTW, I'm ethnic Chinese.

Cricket is to Indians as running is to Kenyans.

Filipina Athlete wrote:

The problem in the Philippines is the head Go Teng Kok. A known abuser of women and a crook. Yet the stupid Philipinos keep him (and now one of his supporters) in power because he is a rich crook.

Yes All Filipino track runner know about this guy. He is a creepy menace to all young runners. Many have finish running due to this president CEO

I'm racially half Chinese half Caucasian. I ran track and cross country through high school and college (naia). I was decent for a female running high 4:20's for the 1500. I think I remember running against maybe three or four asians through my entire college career and none of them were above average. I knew maybe thee or four asian guys in high school and college who ran, but none of them were any good either.

I can't find the source right now, but I believe I remember reading that chinese tend to have a higher body fat percentage than people with the same BMI from other races. If this also follows for athletes then, chinese athletes may tend to have to work harder to build muscle without body fat. However, even with that, China has such a huge populations that the exceptions to the rule should provide a large enough numbers to still produce good runners.

I once had a roommate from China. This is obviously an extremely broad generalization based off of one person, but many of her thoughts about running were similar to what may have been thought about running 30-40 years ago in the US. For example, she thought that females could not run while on their period. Keep in mind that this was a college education woman who was studying in the US for a doctorate. For ladies, if those are the kinds of ideas that still perpetuate China, then it makes sense why the culture hasn't grown successful runners.

Mdrunner123 wrote:

Filipina Athlete wrote:

The problem in the Philippines is the head Go Teng Kok. A known abuser of women and a crook. Yet the stupid Philipinos keep him (and now one of his supporters) in power because he is a rich crook.

Yes All Filipino track runner know about this guy. He is a creepy menace to all young runners. Many have finish running due to this president CEO

Its not the only problem with Philippine Athletics. We are lacking a long term development program.

If that is not the case then India with a Billion or so people is not effectively utilizing its talent. But the emphasis is more on team sports such as Hockey, Cricket etc than athletics and individual type sports.

Go to Delhi and try to go for a run. No idea what running conditions are like in China, but in many parts of India training would be impossible: no sidewalks, very reckless drivers, pollution, temperature of 110-120 half the year, high crime areas. A lot more than genetics come into play.

Billy Pilgrim wrote:

Go to Delhi and try to go for a run. No idea what running conditions are like in China, but in many parts of India training would be impossible: no sidewalks, very reckless drivers, pollution, temperature of 110-120 half the year, high crime areas. A lot more than genetics come into play.

maybe even get chased by a pack of rabbie infested wild dogs.

East Asians are diverse. Some are slower, and some are faster, as is the case with Africa.

Look at East Asian athletics championships, and Japan keeps winning races, while China is the runner-up. Vietnamese and Filipinos tend not to run so fast.

The Japanese are arguably the Kenyans of East Asia. They will smoke most of the other Asian countries.

Now look at these results from the Sendai Half Marathon. How many half marathons in the US would have this many American runners going under 1:04 in sub-optimal weather?

Sendai International Half Marathon in Japan, May 13, 2018

Men’s result:

1. Ryo Matsumoto (Toyota) - 1:03:05

2. Satoru Sasaki (Asahi Kasei) - 1:03:10

3. Kengo Nakamura (Toyo Univ.) - 1:03:17

4. Akihiro Gunji (Tokai Univ.) - 1:03:23

5. Charles Ndirangu (JFE Steel) - 1:03:39

6. Takuya Noguchi (Konica Minolta) - 1:03:41

7. Yuki Kawauchi (Saitama Pref. Gov't) - 1:03:41

8. Takumi Kiyotani (Chugoku Denryoku) - 1:03:43

9. Masao Kizu (DeNA) - 1:03:44

10. Natsuki Terada (JR Higashi Nihon) - 1:03:46

Some Insight wrote:

However, it is statistically proven that on average, Asians have a longer upper body and shorter legs than whites or black people. That leaves them at a disadvantage when it comes to running (generally). Obviously, there are some exceptions, like Liu Xiang. In hurdles, a good proportion between legs and upper body is even more important.

So why are the Japanese so good at Marathoning, despite their shorter legs? My (unproven) theory is that the longer the distance, the less of importance the longer legs are, because of the slower pace you can make up for it with higher stride frequency.

It probably also helps that the Japanese have a great Marathoning culture.

On average, yes. But don't forget about the Jeremy Lin's and Yao Ming's.

Try hanging out in predominantly Asian areas in the US, like the Bay Area of California or parts of LA. There are many guys who are built almost like a prototypical South Sudanese.

You will see a lot of Asian Americans that have Nilotic-like physiques. They have very tall, lanky builds with short torsos and long limbs that are perfect for distance running, and some Asian-American runners do have this body type. I personally know quite a few of them. While there are plenty of skinny short Asians, there are also quite a few 6 foot tall Asians with athletic builds.

Oftentimes these guys are more interested in basketball, but a minority also become runners.