Michael Johnson says that slave descendants have "athletic genes"

Was that the BBC? They probably just asked him to say something positive about Bolt to counter the negative news. I don't know if you see their coverage much but Bolt is a big factor, generally in the form of a "frankly gratuitous montage" of clips, as the anchor actually called it recently.

Sprintgeezer wrote:

The latest genius comment to come from MJ is:

"[Bolt] could probably run 9.4 seconds, but he would have to do some major training and adjustments in the way that he runs."

I leave it to you to decide on how many levels this statement is lacking.

From what I can tell it lacks nothing. S-geezer, you're always slamming others statements/comments, yet you yourself never seem to have anything useful to say. Maybe you should think about refraining from posting until you have something of substance to post about.

Anti: "From what I can tell it lacks nothing."

Exactly.

This discussion could be read during a stand-up at Saturday Night Live. It is so separated from the reality that it is perversely grotesque. Obviously, nobody bothers to check out basic determinants of sports performance and basic anthropometric data in the current world. Otherwise you would have known that due to the benefits of the industrial revolution starting in the 19th century, modern white nations lead, by a huge margin, ahead of all other humans on the planet in terms of height. And since body height is the major advantage both in athletics and sports in general, even a simpleton can recognize the cloudkissing stupidity of this thread.

Black Americans, the only big West African population enjoying Western nutrition, are only moderately tall by current European standards (178 cm), and since their height has basically stagnated since mid-70's, their lag behind the tallest European nations has been continually increasing. Carribean nations like Jamaicans (174 cm) can be regarded as highly athletic only in the wildest imagination. Height standards in Africa are even smaller, around 170 cm, and have been generally decreasing since the decolonization 50 years ago. Compare it to the Dutch (184 cm), Czechs, Swedes, Danes, Germans, Croats, Serbs or Lithuanians (181 cm), or to the giants from Herzegovina and Dalmatia (186 cm).

So why the hell do we see so many events dominated by black athletes and the supposedly highly athletic whites are not more visible? It's very simple: They don't compete. Athletics is a dying sport with little financial incentives, and average performances in high jump, pole vault, javelin throw, hammer throw and the decathlon show a slow, steady decay since late 90's. This is a very bizarre situation, by the way, because the number of potential talents for these disciplines exponentially increases due to the continuing upward trend of body height. And hopefully, I don't have to discuss the situation in track that I explained x-times before.

You should wake up from the delusional hallucinations spread by US media and face the reality as it is.

Sports physiologist wrote:

...... And since body height is the major advantage both in athletics and sports in general, ....

Now that seems like a ridiculously reductive statement.

Europeans SHOULD be taller, given Bergmann's Rule, and all that.

aDSa wrote:

Because they were too busy playing football. Sprints only get the 2nd tier athletes.

He is a random question. I am a slave owner and I am breeding slaves. Why the heck would I be breeding for power? It doesn't take a lot of power to work a farm. What I want is endurance so my slave can work from sun up to sun down. The other question would be are african american really faster than other africans or is it just a result of more opportunity?

echoplex wrote:

if that's the case, why don't Brazilians dominate sprinting.

Only a fraction of West African slaves ended up in the USA.

CORRECT. I WAS THINKING OVER THIS DISCREPANCY, TOO, AND THEN I REALIZED THAT FOOTBALL (SOCCER) IS THE ONLY REASONABLE ANSWER. NORTH AMERICA AND THE CARRIBEAN ARE SO HIGHLY OVERREPRESENTED IN SPRINTING, BECAUSE FOOTBALL IS NOT A BIG SPORT THERE. SURE, SOME POSITIONS IN BASKETBALL, AMERICAN FOOTBALL, CRICKET OR BASEBALL MARGINALLY REACH TO SPRINTS, BUT THE AVERAGE PHYSIQUES OF ATHLETES IN THESE SPORTS LIE VERY FAR FROM THE AVERAGES OF RUNNERS. IN CONTRAST, FOOTBALL DIRECTLY TARGETS VIRTUALLY ALL RUNNING DISCIPLINES, MOST FREQUENTLY 100-1500 M.

wtfunny wrote:

Sports physiologist wrote:

...... And since body height is the major advantage both in athletics and sports in general, ....

Now that seems like a ridiculously reductive statement.

Europeans SHOULD be taller, given Bergmann's Rule, and all that.

My fancy is not enough rich to understand, what you actually meant by this post.

You don't need strength and power working a farm in the 1600-1800's? You have. Ever farmed I'm guessing.

Btw not a new idea. I remember this being said 30 years ago.

Can you point to any world class 100m runner (male) over, say, 6'7" tall? Usain's 6'5", and a very good example of an "exception to the rule", as you say.

I simply think the statement that " body height is the major advantage both in athletics and sports in general" is far too simplistic to be very useful at all. "sports in general"? Like what? There are dozens of sports where body height is clearly no significant advantage at all. And there are are too many other factors that all weigh in to make a statement like that meaningful at all, imo.

my only contribution to this discussion is an opinion that variation/selection can occur in <400 years. natural selection may take longer, but i believe what people are arguing is that it is actually a type of artificial selection. so yes, genes in a population can be tailored to creating more genetically able people. plenty of great athletes had athletic parents. sure there is some learned/nurture elements there, but there are genetic advantages too. its not 100%, but certainly above average and not luck/randomness.

its not like black sprinters are running 5s to white sprinters' 10s. it is a few tenths of a second difference. an argument that slavery or something caused a new species to evolve is ridiculous, but some sort of artificial selection process causing better athletes is not unfathomable

The weightlifting world records are all owned by Chinese, Russian, Turkish, Eastern European and Mediterranean athletes (Iran or Iraq is IRI?).

Nonsense. Slave descendents have genes just like everyone else's - blue, coarse, and made of denim (usually with a pocket or two on the sides). Michael Johnson's a fool if he says otherwise and shame on him and his pants-arrogance.

"what they dont teach you"

I will not even re-post your quote. It is the biggest bunch of racist BS I have ever read to favor whites, while putting down blacks. Total Bullsh*t!

Why do blacks dominate basketball??? They work harder at it. Why did Serena Williams win Wimbledon again......She worked hard at it. Why is Tiger Woods the all-time PGA victory leader....he has been working hard at it since age 2!

Anyone who is given an opportunity and works hard at it for a long time is going to be good eventually in any field of human endeavor.

You weak ass white guys on here need to get a life and learn to push the pace in a distance race and maybe just maybe you will finally start to win. Stop with your weak punk ass, trying to make yourself feel good or superior by putting other races, especially African-American down.

They work hard at it but are also genetically gifted. You don't get to that level by merely having talent or just hard work. You need both.

Look, I don't like nitpickers. But for your information: The average height of the current 100 m world medalist is 181.7 cm. The average height of Top All-time 20 sprinters at this distance is 181.9 cm. These values are far above the world average, and tend to increase with time. You can easily compute that only ca. 16% Jamaicans reach this height, while in the tallest European nations, it's nearly 50% of the population. So, whatever physiological advantage Jamaicans have, it is largely offset by the height factor alone.

Furthermore, Hussein is running on a very good stuff.

cenotaph wrote:

my only contribution to this discussion is an opinion that variation/selection can occur in <400 years. natural selection may take longer, but i believe what people are arguing is that it is actually a type of artificial selection. so yes, genes in a population can be tailored to creating more genetically able people. plenty of great athletes had athletic parents. sure there is some learned/nurture elements there, but there are genetic advantages too. its not 100%, but certainly above average and not luck/randomness.

its not like black sprinters are running 5s to white sprinters' 10s. it is a few tenths of a second difference. an argument that slavery or something caused a new species to evolve is ridiculous, but some sort of artificial selection process causing better athletes is not unfathomable

I can assure you that North American blacks are not endowed with any miraculous genes. If you compute average height and BMI of Olympic athletes, you will find out that BMIs of North American blacks consistently occur around the European average. Yes, around the European average! The point is that they are heavier than West Europeans, but lighter than East Europeans. They are actually even a bit lighter than in West Africa (the lowland area around the Guinean Gulf), because they are a mixture of all populations living in the zone from Senegal to Angola, who differ markedly in their physical characteristics. Some of them are very subtle, while others are much heavier.

jjjjjjj wrote:

http://www.iwf.net/results/world-records/

The weightlifting world records are all owned by Chinese, Russian, Turkish, Eastern European and Mediterranean athletes (Iran or Iraq is IRI?).

By far the most muscular humans on this planet are Pacific Islanders, but they are too little numerous and mostly not much tall. Therefore, weightlifting events are dominated by East Europeans, Central Asians and northern Near Easterners, who distantly follow them in this regard. But beware: Physiques of Arabic nations from the Near East are vastly different and much more subtle from those in the north!

Since the main physical factor in basketball is height, you can easily realize that the "basketball genes" of US blacks are a big bubble. And as for Serena, the disordered use of PEDs has already turned her into a hermaphrodite.

The "weak ass white guys" in USA shouldn't run distance races, because due to continuing, albeit very slow upward trend of body height, their physiques are unsuited for them. They should concentrate on the 400-1500 m running range, for which their physiques are best suited. The current excellence of black sprinters in the 400 m has no physical or physiological explanation, by the way, and must be almost completely attributed to psychology and culture. The 400 m is just a sprint, isn't it, and logically, it is a black distance, isn't it?