That’s right, ONE GUY! :rolleyes: I think I’ll place my bets on an West-African descent guy!
This topic seems to pop-up every couple of months on one site or another, and to be honest it gets tiring reading about it.
Regardless of race, we are all trying to help our athletes achieve their top performance with whatever traits they were born with.
Why don’t we get back to discussing areas of training where we can have a positive impact, instead of genetic factors that as a coach nothing can be done about.
It goes without saying some athletes are born with genetic traits that cannot be developed through training, so why bother arguing about it? I would rather read about training methods someone has utilised to improve physical performance.
Thats it. I do believe that it all comes down to training. And then What do we mean by good genes anyway ( for these people talking about genes. ) Is it the that you start with a time Thats very fast. Or is it someone who can improve fast. Or is it someone who can reach a limit that is close to or equal the world record? I’ve seen people that started slow. Took years and years to chop down tenth and hundredth and after a very long journey they got there! So where does genes come in here?
[QUOTE=martn76]I think it is total and utter bull shit. The reasons are what you call multivariate. One of many many many reasons that black men and women are so successful in sport is because now the racist thoughts that certain groups in the white communities around the world believed, has now turned on itself. I will give you an example. At University, we had a plethora of outstanding white sprinters capable of reaching the highest level and running 9.9 secs. But guess who were least supporting of their endeavours? Other white people, their friends their families and others would tell them that they stood no chance against athletes of black origin. They assume that black athletes just step on the track do no hard work and just drop fast times like confetti. Tell that to Dwayne Chambers who would dread doing his special endurance runs. It is hard work plain and simple, yes if you have the prerequisites then you will do well but as a black athlete myself I think its bull shit that people in 2004 are now reverse stereo typing. Remember that Borzov and Minnea came close to to running 9.9 secs. Are you telling me that they lack some mystical gene that stops them from running 9.9 secs? BULL.
QUOTE]
I think you’ve hit the nail on the head. I hear this type of crap from friends and relatives all the time.
I totally agree, forget all this bull. My cousin has ran 10.17 secs clocked 9.9 secs hand timed in the (US not ratified because the automatic clock stopped). Let me tell you that he did a hell of alot of training. Training that his training partners could not handle. He attributes it to hard hard hard work and regeneration techniques. I refuse to name him so please do not ask, just take my word for it. Down to loads of hard work,.
Valeri Borzov would be the only one I could really think of, and that was in 1972.
What about Alan Wells?
What about Vitaly Savin or Kevin Little? Or Roger Black (if you want to go out to 400m)?
About a year or so ago I remember Charlie posting that when he was in high school, people kept telling his father not to let Charlie run the 100 because he would never beat the black kids. Charlie’s father failed to pass on the bad news to Charlie, who proceeded to win every race in high school and eventually become Canadian champ three years in a row.
Regarding the idea that people of West African descent are faster because of a greater percentage of fast twitch fibers, Hasley Crawford ('76 100m gold medalist) participated in a muscle biopsy study after the Olympics. It turns out Hasley’s muscles were about 50/50 fast/slow twitch. It’s a good thing he found out he didn’t have the genetics to be a world class sprinter until after he won the Olympics.
Not to take anything away from Alan Wells, but that was in 1980 when America and all the rest boycotted the Olympics and had the Freedom Games or something like that instead. So he wasnt really facing the best of the best.
After the games, he faced everyone in Cologne and won and in Zurich, where he lost. Though, for him, the big meet was already over and he was tired from doubling in Moscow.
How about Pietro Mnnea (10.01 secs), Marion Woronin (10.00 secs)
Also Wells was just beaten into second in 200m final by Mennea in Moscow.
Definitely Mennea has something about,
it is blood.
Italian blood + Poland´s blood
mixed with local indian blood.
I meant that Wells had run both for a total of 8 runs.
Just interested in the 100m.
And we all know what sprinters were taking back then, 
FYI, I do believe hard work along with a great coach and incorporating the right training methodology can have anyone win the 100m; however, there are many of you out there that don’t want to look like a racist or imply anything close to it that you overlook much detail in the 100m olympic winners.
My roomate who is white actually got into an argument with me about this topic and I told him that I do believe in the slave-strength theory and so did he. My roomate said that it was common knowledge.
Even if slaves were not chosen to mate with each other based on being the strongest, the fact remains that they were slaves and as such worked harder than any other human being and logically would have become stronger through the generations; furthermore, these people would get mostly physical labour jobs even when slavery was starting to be abolished.
Please read all my posts in this thread and then comment.
P.S. You don’t have to accept that West-African ancestry helps to make an olympic champion and you can ignore what your up against, but then again I guess IGNORANCE IS BLISS.
Mennea was capable of running 200 m in 19"96 (wind nil and sea level)
Of course, he beat the wr but in altitude and with a wind of +2.0 m/s (the normalized time is 20"07)
Mennea won 100 m and 200 m final in European Championship in 1978 and the bronze (behind Borzov) in 1972
He ran also the olimpic final in 1976 and 1984
but these developed physical characteristics would not be passed on through the genetics…
just wondering though, do any of you know any “fast” chinese sprinters? i tried looking it up on google but I found nothing. not that I doubt myself/my race or anything (I agree, hardwork + mentalwork =success), just a little curious.
I did find that a koji ito (japanese) currently holds the asian record of 10.00…a bit behind the american/world record. Which means that 10 remains unbroken…(this is where I will step in)
actually when this happens for many generations it will be passed on, ie my dads family has been in costruction/manual labor for as far back as we can tell, his whole family are built and strong naturally, and i have never done a day of manual labor in my life and have been naturally strong…