Black American Women?

Men and women of West African descent are more inclined, both physiogically and socially, to excel in sprint and horizontal jump events. In the HJ, throws and 800, you see more of an even breakdown. In the longer races, you see more caucasian.

There have been and are exceptions for women (at least in 1500/3k/5k) of course, like Kim Gallagher, Alisa Harvey, Diana Richburg (sp?), and men (like Holman, Krummenacker, Kevin Johnson, etc.), but not many.

Obviously, black runners of East African descent (Ken, Eth, Tanz, others ... plus North African for more varied reasons) are more suited for distance.

This, as is obvious to anyone who's been around a while, is a controversial topic, with both the educated and uneducated having strong opinions. While I don't agree with EVERYTHING he says, I think the best work on this topic to date has been Jon Entine's. You can get info at jonentine.com

Truely inspired by Paula, Oprah wanted to see Jesus too so she has been running hard and last week she ran a sub-7 minute mile and lost all this excess weight. Incredible!

Meredith Rainey is also notable.

Of course, there's Essie. If she'd only aimed at competitive running instead of following her (charitable) heart...

There is a cultural thing happening in this country in regards to obesity, and the effects on black women are the worst of any group. A couple of weeks back, I recall hearing that something like 33% of black American women are obese with another large number overweight. Across the board Americans are getting fatter, and black women are leading the way.

See, black women were bred to be big....(gesturing with hands)

Doh wrote:

http://www.geocities.com/irhee/oprah.html

Truely inspired by Paula, Oprah wanted to see Jesus too so she has been running hard and last week she ran a sub-7 minute mile and lost all this excess weight. Incredible!

Dude, that is funny!!

Seems also that those that you mentioned are mixed. Include Katrina Price

Who is Kevin Johnson? Is he some rising star? related to Michael, Allen or JJ?

[quote]ds-man wrote:

There have been and are exceptions for women (at least in 1500/3k/5k) of course, like Kim Gallagher, Alisa Harvey, Diana Richburg (sp?), and men (like Holman, Krummenacker, Kevin Johnson, etc.), but not many.

Kevin Johnson was a 3:36 1500 runner from East Tenn. St. in the late 70s, early 80s. Fastest African-American miler before Holman, Lassiter and Krumm., I believe. Oh ... there's Terrance Herrington, too, but he also was after Johnson.

I really thought you were refering to the great Essie Kelly, sub 2:00 800meters

Boulder Creek Duck Racer wrote:

Meredith Rainey is also notable.

Of course, there's Essie. If she'd only aimed at competitive running instead of following her (charitable) heart...

In keeping with the topic, we're really talking about exceptions to the lack of African Americans at 1500 on up. There have been many African-American stars at 800 with both genders, including Rainey-Valmon, Kelly, Miles-Clark, Walton-Floyd and Manning-Mims for the women (lots of hyphenations there!).

I dont think that it's a racial thing at all. Think about why you run the events you do ( parents friends etc that ran it) and AFrican americans just dont have that history. Also the majority of african Americans in the country live in the cities here distance running is a lot more difficult and less appriciated.

go to jonentine.com or read the Taboo book he wrote. The scientific evidence is pretty strong, at least as far as explaining general differences. Populations of people vary dramatically, in some cases, in average physical characteristics. The physical characteristics, as related to athletic performance, are fairly significantly different in your average man or woman from Ghana or Nigeria, vs. your average man or woman from Kenya or Ethiopia. Most African-Americans, at least those here for several generations, have their ancestry in West African slaves.

It's not a black/white thing, though Entine makes the argument about blacks plain being the best athletes, whether it's endurance running or sprinting, but you see physical differences between peoples of many different nations. That's not to say we're not more alike than different as human beings, or to crush individual initiative for any athlete that wants success in any event, but just to illustrate important trends and characteristics.

Put another way:...

Say you had a chance to take a random group of 100 average 12-13 year-olds from the following places:

African-Americans from the US

Whites from the US

Kenyans from the Rift Valley

Ethiopians

Nigerians

Put them together in an experimental training program for 5k racing for, say, 5 years. It is extremely likely that, on the average, the Kenyan and Ethiopian groups are going to exceed all of the others.

Take the same groups and have them do 100 meter training instead, and the African-American and Nigerian kids are going to have the better results, on the average.

There will be exceptions in both cases, but those of West African descent (current or historical) are going to do better, on the average, in the sprints. The Kenyans and Ethiopians in the distances.

I suppose the vast majority of you know this, or are tired of hearing it, but there's at least a few, including the initiator of this thread, that this info is directed to.

the problem with that hypothesis is that people dont live in a vacum. That's why all evidence in the studies you mention are flawed. WE are influenced by our culture, family and the way society views us. The best example would be basketball. White Americans tend to assume that it's a black sport or that fancy dribbling and dunking are black things( white men cant jump). But the european players in the league are beraking all of those sterotypes, they're dunking and are as flashy as anyone else. It just goes with culture and societal explanations.

There is plenty of distance running talent among African Americans. But there are cultural factors that prevent most from not excelling in a sport that is identified with the qualities that it takes to be a great distance runners. Many more less talented whites are able to tap into the mental requirements of a hard, unglamorous, and long term process of distance running development. This is a broad view and of course there are always exceptions. But getting young black kids to embrace a simple lifestyle of monotonous work and much physical discomfort is difficult. Especially when there is little tangible reward as seen by their social group. It is not appreciated in their culture.

Also, most of them have a hard time getting past the mindset that they should be sprinters and not distance runners, especially when there are few role models historically.

The talent is out there but the psychology is different.

i agree with some of what you're saying but I dont know how many of u are from inner cities but running milegage around there is not run.

Yes that should definitely be a factor. But there are very undertrained blacks who still put up good high school marks indicative of major talent. The ones that excell further appear to me to be the ones that go on to a college program with a lot of supervision and very good coaching. I can think of a few examples of black females who ran all-state performances and came from inner city programs where they did absolutely nothing in the way of training. It would take a very cautious coach to bring them along slowly and keep them motivated to work hard enough to reach potential. I reallly hate to generalize but I think in many cases coaches shy away from the difficulty of such a project and let most cases rely on their natural talent and undertrain them too much because the teaching aspect is too frustrating and not as easy as with the others. And this talent never reaches fruition.

I realize that this is a very big racial generalization but I believe that there is much sociological and cultural differences that create a barrier for larger scale African American distance running success and participation.

There are many individuals trying to explain their points

concerning genetic advantages based upon location of birth and youth upbringing, and some statement have merit. The

single most determning factor is that the countries where

running is the MOST ABUNDANT form of transportation will have the largest amount of potential elite distance runners. In the U.S. there have been several African-Americans who have had decent elite middle distance careers; however, the number will rise once MORE african-americans enter that field. The number of elite

distance runners in the U.S. are not determined by race, it is moreso determined by the amount of talented individuals who are introduced to those events.

The middle distances would be much stronger in the U.S. if potential athletes weren't drawn into other events/sports: sprints, basketball, baseball, football, socceer, hockey etc. The key is for the UNITED STATES is drawing more athletes into that area to developed the most talented ones, regardless of their color.

Vipam