In answer to Sports physiologist (ex-Czech guy, I presume).
I have never read such a load of ...
I think you should make a difference between your
opinion and facts.Body height is the major
advantage both in athletics and sports in general? Really you should check the facts.
Football(soccer) is dominated by southern Europeans, you aren't going to tell me that Europeans do not compete in Football or that it is a minor sport,are you ?
Euro 2008: Spain.
World cup 2010: Spain.
Euro 2012 : Spain.
Spain was the shortest team in the last Euro 2012. Check the stats section in the UEFA website.
You have to go back to Euro 1996 to find a northern European team (Germany) winning a major tournament in this sport.Since then World Cup 1998: France, Euro 2000: France, WC 2002: Brazil, E2004:Greece, WC2006: Italy...
Let's talk about Basket-Ball, a sport where height is important: the only team not named USA which won Olympic gold in the past 20 yrs is Argentina (which is only populated by big and tall Nordics, isnt it ? )where Basketball is parsecs away from soccer in
term of popularity, unlike in the Baltic & Dinaric countries.Spaniards are literally crushing
European Basketball right now.
Volley-Ball: Even though Serbians are the current European champions (2011), this is a sport that has
been dominated at European level by Italy since the break up of the soviet union, and by Americans
(Northern & Southern) at World level. USA are the current olympic champions & Brazil world champs,Cuba vice World champs who took down the tall Serbian Dinarics in the semi. This is quite surprising because then again, Base-Ball is the only team sport Cubans seems to care about.
Now Handball, a German team sport: Extremely popular in Northern Europe and Germany, the rest of the continent does not really care about though. Yet a sport that has been owned by France in the past 10 yrs. Even Spain have better results than Germany in this sport.
I m not even speaking about male tennis...
Sorry guy but facts contradict your opinion. Most of the best athletes and the best teams coming from "White countries" do not come from the tallest "White countries" In if people in this board should wake up from the delusional hallucinations spread by US media you should wake and smell the coffee and leave whatever message board in which you read that body height is a determining factor in sport.
I do agree with you that there is not such thing such an "athletic gene" and I explain you why