Can Black Americans Run Well At The Marathon?

Walt Crawford from Chicago's inner city and later attended Eastern Illinois University, ran a 2:27 marathon at the Chicago Marathon in the late 1970's.

What was Corbitt's fastest marathon?

Skuj, I don't know what besides adherence to dogma would compel someone to rule out genetic factors and rule in cultural factors in a discussion like this before even trying to gather any evidence. When you say that some will laugh at you, you're not heading off inappropriate ridicule at the pass, you're acknowledging what the better part of your head has already told you: that ridicule of such a position is entirely appropriate.

If anyone wants to take a crack at the "cultural" reasons explaining the preponderance of top sprinters from various cultural backgrounds who have one thing in common -- West African heritage -- I'd like to hear it. "Whites don't try the sprints" doesn't work, and I don't know what this leaves besides "Because I SAY so!"

The people who refuse to accept that people of different ethnic backgrounds may on average exhibit different physical capabilities are far more "racist" than those who dare to do so.

whatever helps you feel slightly better about getting your collective asses handed to you. It isn't your fault you suck, its genetics.

That's unfair. And I do not say things like "whites don't try sprints" or "because I say so". Nice try, Pal.

And your last sentence is pathetic.

See what you done. You made me mad. I don't want to get mad.

Adherence to dogma? How about you present me with the scientific genetic factors? I await....

(PS: Current world rankings does not equal scientific genetic factors. If it did, then we would have different science for every era.)

Ray,

Very nice writing of you, you know what to say right.

This Mr. Skuj is an emotional driven person he is very emotional very pushy. Not one who think of intelligent subjects matters.

Where we come from we say poorly translated:

A fool of a man with a means not identified not by the heavens the gods and our burried dead.

He remind me of a little boy who dropped his ice cream in the dirt and give tears and picks up ice cream with dirt on it and starts to eat anwyays.

MZ

Skuj,

I want to tell how HS sports are organized in the US. I played HS footbal (jv) basketball, ran track in HS, college and competetively after college.

I went to a huge Public High school mixed racially

Football

August-Summer conditioning- , drills, weights, conditioning etc.

Last week August- 40yd time trials, the whole damn team/people trying for the team, run timed 40yrds- White, Black, Asian, Outer Mongolian Whatever. Low and behold! Suprise! the ten fastest (with one exception)were black. Brilliant coaches said, hey these are the fast guys, lets put them at the speed positions, running back, corners, WRs.

Track- Some of the football guys who were very fast ran spring track. The tended to be muscular and fast. Brilliant coaches said they should run sprints. Coaches even tried to stretch a few to the 800m, they usually died an aweful death. The other runners who were not as fast/explosive ran the remaining events. Guess what? the GOOD sprinters were mainly black, the GOOd distance runners were mainly white. Funny our best 800 runner was mixed. But the 800m had a real mix of races (as it has historically on the world lists- those runners tend to be fast and some aerobic capability.)

Basketball- Fastest guys on the court were black. BUT we had conditioning drills which are called suicides. As the number of suicides grew or became longer, blacks tended to fade, others emerged.

Now, coaches who want to win sporting events in my experience do not care the race of the althlete, just the fastest or strongest (strength I found was never correlated with race) at the right position.

Then I found that many other HS had the same distribution, with a few exceptions. Even on the pro level were winning is all about the dollar, you would think race really doesn't matter but somehow the blacks tend with alarming exclusiveness play the speed positions.

Look at the list of all time fastest footbal players- they are all black. Note the fastest NBAs all black, same for track, baseball.

Lets go to Africa now- I dont see too many bigger more muscular NE Africans, but there are many from West Africa. Some West Africans even play in the NFL, no East Africans do. Senegal and other west African countries now have about 12 NBA players Hmmm?

You said that you live in New Brunswick or Canada somewhere like that. maybe you do not experience this diversity.

Why is Frances CC and distance track team full of north Africans yet thier sprinters are from former West African colonies?

Why are some of Americas best distance runners from NE africa KK, Meb, Abdi etc.

What about other Euro countries, why are thier sprinters mainly black of west african decent. Jamaica, Canada, Nigeria, Great Britain. I guess in all these instances its a matter of not encouraging west african blacks to run distance or over encouraging them to run sprints? There are no notable sprinters of east african decent that I can remember, maybe they were really discouraged to sprint and really encouraged to run distance in Kenya, Ethiopia, Morroco etc..

There are always exceptions but it remains there are physiological differnces among people wich result in ceratin sports advantages.

PS: there are studies that show that West Africans have the highest average % of fast Twitch muscles

What's Darell General up to these days?