# Your thoughts on athleticism and race? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [May 21, 2014, 7:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-thoughts-on-athleticism-and-race/688904 "2014-05-21T07:12:58Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![levdrakon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/49beb7/32.png) [@levdrakon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/levdrakon)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2014, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-thoughts-on-athleticism-and-race/688904/61 "2014-05-22T15:52:28Z")
Icelanders and Pacific Islanders both tend to excel at strongman competitions don’t they? ---
**Author:** ![DrCube](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a3d4f5/32.png) [@DrCube](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrCube)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2014, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-thoughts-on-athleticism-and-race/688904/62 "2014-05-22T20:40:34Z")
> [@Urbanredneck](#): > > If you look at the world strongman competitions most of the top ones there have been from Iceland. > > Does eating whale meat make one stronger? Eating meat definitely makes one stronger. That is uncontroversial. While there is a huge genetic component to strength, we have to be careful. Americans used to dominate weightlifting events. Now we don’t. USAW likes to claim that everyone else in the world except for them is on steroids, but that’s silly. China has a million Olympic weightlifters (people who compete in the Olympic lifts, not that they send a million people to the games each Olympiad). USAW has something like 3000, and that includes coaches and support staff. So China kicks our asses at weightlifting but that doesn’t mean it’s genetic. It means they have vastly more competitors to choose from. By contrast, in the US, all the talented kids grow up to play baseball, basketball, or football. Every other sport gets what’s left after the lucrative leagues pick out the genetic lottery winners. My guess is that there are some populations that are better at certain sports components like sprinting, endurance and strength. But that 99% of these phenomena will turn out to be, like Chinese vs. American weightlifting, cultural. Find out which sports stars get paid the most in each country (the lifetime expected value of competing in a sport, by region, for example) , and my guess is that will explain away most of these claims. What’s left will be something real, but hardly significant. Like the fact that certain African populations have marginally higher amounts of fast-twitch muscle fibers or something. For anything more complicated, it will be a wash. It simply isn’t possible, for example, for there to be a genetic propensity for something as nebulous as playing basketball. Standing vertical jump? Sure. As far as Sherpas go, doesn’t their whole culture live at high altitudes? Doesn’t a lifetime of acclimation to altitude (and a long history of a cultural appreciation of mountaineering) explain their abilities better than that they are “just born that way”? Has an identifiable genetic population lived in the Himalayas long enough (and separately enough) for a genetic change to propagate throughout their entire population? ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2014, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-thoughts-on-athleticism-and-race/688904/63 "2014-05-22T21:16:03Z")
> [@DrCube](#): > > As far as Sherpas go, doesn’t their whole culture live at high altitudes? Doesn’t a lifetime of acclimation to altitude (and a long history of a cultural appreciation of mountaineering) explain their abilities better than that they are “just born that way”? Has an identifiable genetic population lived in the Himalayas long enough (and separately enough) for a genetic change to propagate throughout their entire population? It isn’t just acclimation. “Mutation in key gene allows Tibetans to thrive at high altitude. The gene mutation is much more common in Tibetans than Han Chinese and may represent the strongest instance of natural selection ever documented in a human population” > **[Mutation in key gene allows Tibetans to thrive at high altitude](https://www.theguardian.com/science/2010/jul/02/mutation-gene-tibetans-altitude)** > > Researchers say the mutation may represent the strongest instance of natural selection ever documented in a human population ---
**Author:** ![Telemark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telemark/32/372_2.png) [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2014, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-thoughts-on-athleticism-and-race/688904/64 "2014-05-22T21:16:53Z")
> [@DrCube](#): > > As far as Sherpas go, doesn’t their whole culture live at high altitudes? Doesn’t a lifetime of acclimation to altitude (and a long history of a cultural appreciation of mountaineering) explain their abilities better than that they are “just born that way”? Has an identifiable genetic population lived in the Himalayas long enough (and separately enough) for a genetic change to propagate throughout their entire population? Yes, there are identifiable genetic mutations in the Sherpa population that give them advantages at high altitude. [http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my\_weblog/2010/11/sherpa-genetics-human-evolution-at-work.html](http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2010/11/sherpa-genetics-human-evolution-at-work.html) I believe some similar mutations have been observed in the populations that live in the Andes. ---
**Author:** ![Hector\_St\_Clare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b5ac83/32.png) [@Hector\_St\_Clare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hector_St_Clare)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2014, 1:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-thoughts-on-athleticism-and-race/688904/65 "2014-05-23T13:08:48Z")
Tibetans, the Quechua and Aymara of South America, and certain Ethiopian groups all have specific genetic adaptations that allow them to thrive at high altitude. ---
**Author:** ![elmwood](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmwood/32/3060_2.png) [@elmwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elmwood)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2014, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-thoughts-on-athleticism-and-race/688904/66 "2014-05-27T15:03:32Z")
Any thoughts on why so many top bowlers in the US are Polish? A disproportionately large number of bodybuilders around where I live are Italian-American. The reasons for those ethnic divides are most likely cultural, but what’s behind it? Why would Tony gravitate towards the gym, while Stan favors the lanes? ---
**Author:** ![runningdude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e9c0ed/32.png) [@runningdude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/runningdude)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2014, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-thoughts-on-athleticism-and-race/688904/67 "2014-05-27T16:23:22Z")
> [@monstro](#): > > It’s always funny to me because at least in America, hockey, swimming, soccer, tennis, and baseball are predominately white sports. Yet you never hear anyone arguing that whites are natural athletes because of their dominance in these arenas. > [@Urbanredneck](#): > > … > You see this with alot of white kids who get to the point they know that no matter how good they are at basketball, a black kid will always be better. This is why the NBA is 90% black. Yeah, I know it sounds racist but unless your 6’9" its probably the truth. > > As for hockey the 2 top payers on my sons hockey team are black. It is not “race” but socioeconomic background that contributes to the distribution of talent. Hockey and tennis require expensive facilities to practice on, and these sports will be overrepresented by those of a middle-to-upper class background. Hockey also requires many expensive protective equipment, and only ragtag crews in Minnesota or or the cold parts of Canada have sufficient frozen lakes to practice on without facing this considerable expense. Even basketball was once seen as a strictly indoor game, requiring expensive gyms to practice in. But then coaches starting recruiting players who grew up playing on urban streets, where they played a more aggressive game and produced a more entertaining sport. In tennis, once the court gets slightly cracked, it becomes all but unusable and needs to be repaved; but a crack in the parking lot where the kids play basketball? Doesn’t stop them! ---
**Author:** ![GusNSpot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gusnspot/32/436_2.png) [@GusNSpot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GusNSpot)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2014, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-thoughts-on-athleticism-and-race/688904/68 "2014-05-27T17:41:16Z")
> [@Telemark](#): > > Yes, there are identifiable genetic mutations in the Sherpa population that give them advantages at high altitude. > > [http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my\_weblog/2010/11/sherpa-genetics-human-evolution-at-work.html](http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2010/11/sherpa-genetics-human-evolution-at-work.html) > > I believe some similar mutations have been observed in the populations that live in the Andes. ↑↑↑ This I have read about also. ---
**Author:** ![GusNSpot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gusnspot/32/436_2.png) [@GusNSpot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GusNSpot)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2014, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-thoughts-on-athleticism-and-race/688904/69 "2014-05-27T17:47:20Z")
And some sports need certain body types due to physics to enable one to get to the highest levels as it is practiced today. Gymnastics… _I actually really dislike a sport where a judge tells you who is the better._ ---
**Author:** ![YoungKusher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/3e96dc/32.png) [@YoungKusher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YoungKusher)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2014, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-thoughts-on-athleticism-and-race/688904/70 "2014-05-28T01:19:29Z")
> [@astorian](#): > > Can anyone name a “white” sprinter (I’ll let you define the term as broadly as you like) who has run the 100 meter dash in under 10 seconds? One of my good friends, who is white, repeatedly got 100m times down close to 10 seconds in high school. Soooo yeah, like some have pointed out, white people can be fast too. He happens to be 1/4 Lebanese (almost black lol), 1/4 Cherokee Indian, and 1/2 Irish. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2014, 2:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-thoughts-on-athleticism-and-race/688904/71 "2014-05-28T02:02:56Z")
> [@astorian](#): > > Why are the fastest Canadians always black, too? ANd the fastest Frenchmen and the fastest Englishmen? Why is the Olympic 100 meter finals almost always an all-black affair? Always? Always? Really? You mean in the last decade or maybe half a century? That’s a minuscule, almost nonexistent period of time compared to what it takes for isolated groups to diverge genetically. Furthermore I posit that championship sporting events are a completely invalid sample to draw any conclusions from. There’s too much self-selection and other variables involved. If you want to prove that some genetic population possesses some physical trait, you have go much deeper into the population group and for a much longer time. And you have to define your groups rigorously. “Black” is a social group, maybe, but not a genetic group. Pointing to a Kenyan and a Nigerian and saying they’re good at sports is like saying a raven and a bat are good at flying. ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2014, 3:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-thoughts-on-athleticism-and-race/688904/72 "2014-05-28T03:46:02Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > Always? Always? Really? You mean in the last decade or maybe half a century? That’s a minuscule, almost nonexistent period of time compared to what it takes for isolated groups to diverge genetically. > > Furthermore I posit that championship sporting events are a completely invalid sample to draw any conclusions from. There’s too much self-selection and other variables involved. I disagree strongly simply because the fastest runners now by a huge margin are blacks from a few populations. They aren’t just the fastest now. They are the fastest **ever**. You have to be careful about your reference points here because historical and socioeconomic factors do have an influence but probably not in the ways that you suggest. Sporting events up until the mid to late 20th century did tend to have different ethnic groups that dominated at one time or another because of socioeconomic factors. Some events were the realm of the richer classes and some were a transient phenomenon born from a few ghetto classes. However, that is completely misleading. Look up any performance stats from the supposedly dominating groups from 70 or 100 years ago. They were appalling by any modern standard with a very few exceptions (those being black runners like Jesse Owens). Early marathon runners used to stop to eat meals along the way for god sake. It isn’t the same thing as today. Once athletic performances were open to everyone, blacks emerged as clearly superior in some events like track and field. No whites can beat the top black marathon runners or hurdlers full stop no matter how hard they try or how much they spend. Some sports like swimming or bicycling are still somewhat exclusive to whites. I could easily see a population of blacks dominating those sports as well in the next 10 - 50 years but they haven’t yet because of cultural factors. In summary, you can see a dominate emergence of certain populations of people in a given sport that they were previously excluded from but you won’t see an incredible boost in performance from the populations that have been trying to excel at it all along. They already topped out and can only get incremental improvements through better training or performance enhancing drugs. Meanwhile, there may be another population that can kick their ass every single time once they are included on a large scale. That already happened with all running sports and probably would happen with cycling if the opportunities were equal. ---
**Author:** ![elmwood](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmwood/32/3060_2.png) [@elmwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elmwood)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2014, 12:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-thoughts-on-athleticism-and-race/688904/73 "2014-05-28T12:35:27Z")
> [@levdrakon](#): > > Icelanders and Pacific Islanders both tend to excel at strongman competitions don’t they? Cultural, perhaps, related to living in an isolated island environment? I saw more bodybuilder types on the streets of Reykjavik than a typical American city. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-thoughts-on-athleticism-and-race/688904.md?page=3)