Why so many great Caribbean sprinters?

You can't run that far on an island.....

Think about that stupidity for a minute. It'll hit you.

Maybe because these people are the blackiest of the black?

Same reason there are a lot of fast African American sprinters....they are descendants of West Africa. It's also a way to get out of poverty in the same sense that basketball is a way to get out of poverty for inner city youth in America.

Alan

Apparently you know nothing about Africa.

Dont you know boy, they eat alot of mangoes.

You don't really buy that "escape poverty" bull do you? Being pverty stricken doesn't make you faster...honest!

So you have no clue.

Alan, go back to Steroid Nation and post there. I am sure they love your rants.

those islands were the imperial breeding ground for top notch african slaves, and before that native indian slaves. all the PC people of the world dont want to admit it, but its the way it is.

you make money selling the strongest, healthiest, and most attractive slave, because at that time they were property. you werent going to by the scrawny 6ft 130lbs slave if you could afford to. you bought the strongest and most able one you could. then you breed the ones you got. its not some crazy mystery.

west africa has good athletic genetics, and when you mix those with island natives, some european blood, and other african blood (not all slaves came from west africa), you get a genetic hybrid very superior to "pure lines" like that of europe. during the viking days, the vikings stole the best looking women from the villages and we see the results still to this day.

think about it, jews dont mix with other races cause of mosaic law....now when was the last time they had genetic freaks of nature? you mix the best you can with the best you can and you will get superior genes. duh

They're so fast because

You actually make a very strong argument but, unfortunately, it is too simple, too transparent, and racially biased for the masses to embrace. Everyone are super-quick to point to West Africa when searching for "the" reason why Caribbeans/Black Americans are so fast. When was the last time someone from Liberia, Ghana, Nigeria, Benin, or Ivory Coast held a world record? What about winning an international high-caliber 100m race? Okay...When was the last time 1 individual from any of these countries (combined) ran under 10s for the 100. I think it's happened before, but I'm willing to bet the numbers are not even close to those of Caribe or America. Asafa Powell has probably run more sub-10 100's individually than all of those countries combined!

This is equally parallel with distance events. East Africans DO have a genetic advantage, despite our American narcissistic denial. This past weekend, 2 countries from one region of the world produced (from the top of my head) 10 guys under 1hr for the 1/2 marathon in 1 race. America has had 1 in is "illustrious" history. Is the argument that they work harder? I'm sure Nate Jenkins and Brian Sell would make a relevant argument against that belief. Being genetically gifted isn't a knock to those who don't have it and, in fact, makes us look even more impressive (Ritz, Hall et al) when we are able to compete with them.

Truthfully, they really do owe us a thanks.

Good points, Piedmontcat.

If somebody asked why Switzerland had so many good ski jumpers or why California had so many good water polo and beach volleyball players, an intelligent response would probably say something about a combination of environment and culture. I realize that the sprints make a slightly different demand on the body, but still: it's remarkable that whenever the issue is why black people do something well, the first response is "Genes!" or something in that direction.

An intelligent response to this particular question might, for example, look to the fact that the Caribbean nations were, many of them, originally English colonies, with English schools. Soccer and track came with that. Cinder tracks are cheap to build. I know nothing about the particulars of how the island school systems have nurtured track talent over the past half-century, but an intelligent response to the initial question would naturally look at this element. Who are the charismatic coaches, and who taught them? What sort of organizational structure has emerged, and how does it correlate with the superior times that have been referenced? What is the sociology of track culture? Are track stars culture heroes in the Caribbean and, if so, how long has that been true and who were the sporting culture heroes in a previous generation.?

Answers to these questions might help explain why West African ancestored peoples in the Caribbean achieve more success in the sprints than West Africans themeselves.

If it was all about natural selection of strong young bucks during the slavery era, than Brazil would obviously dominate the sprints, since slavery there was just as brutal as slavery in the Caribbean and there is a much larger pool of talent to draw on. Curious: not a whole lot of Brazilian track stars. Slavery in the USA was, by contrast with the Caribbean and Brazil, somewhat more benign--notably less deadly to black men--and yet American sprinters do awfully well. The natural selection argument doesn't work. Culture plays a large role, and so does the price of the requisite equipment and/or playing fields. Sprinting is cheap. So is soccer. So is basketball. So is football, relatively speaking.

Cricket might provide a useful counterpart in this investigation, since it, too, is popular in the former English colonies.

My point about Brazil was implicit: it was a Portugese colony, not a British colony like most of the Caribbean islands that produce great sprinters. The English have been into track for quite a while, if I'm not wrong. I don't believe that the sport has been nearly as popular in Portugal.

My hunch is that every English school in the former colonies had some some sort of track--like the one I used to jog on in Charlotte Amalie on St. Thomas (a Danish colony, unfortunately, but maybe we an consider the Danes honorary fellow Nordics in this context). My hunch is that this wasn't true to nearly the same extent in the northern half of Brazil. Just a hunch. But an intelligent answer to the OP's question would require that this sort of cultural divergence be taken seriously, and investigated.

And of course Cuba is not a former English colony. But here, too, sociology is important: there's long been a powerful US influence on Cuban culture (think: baseball), not to mention the sport-cultural winds swirling in from the rest of the Anglophone Caribbean (think: sprints).

The comparisons with niche sports like ski jumping, gymnastics, or even swimming don't hold up because those sports have a high barrier to entry and limited opportunity to be exposed to them, much less thrive. Of course those areas with snow and ski jump facilities are going to produce more ski jumpers than those without. The girls who start 3 hours of gymnastics a day at age 4 in an area with facilities, a strong coach, and incomes that permit it will overachieve in that sport.

With sprinting, however, the events are as much about raw talent as any sport contested, and that raw talent is very easily recognized and not difficult to develop. (Donovan Bailey started at age 24.)

Back to genetics - the most strenuous selective pressures in the slave trade were on who they took in the first place, and the slave ships, not in the transactions and work conditions. The number of dead on the slave ships would be recognized today as a holocaust, and those who survived were the healthiest/strongest. It is horribly un-PC to say, but the gene pool of Africans in the Western Hemisphere was purged via murder of its weakest elements.

The other factors mentioned do play a role, but genetics and the multiple influences on them are clearly the primary driver.

Galloping Ghost wrote:

There have been 8 Jamaican born sprinters run a sub10.00.

I count 10.

the Satch theory- the Caribbean got the strongest slaves from Africa to do hard work like cutting sugar cane.