Dominance of regional advantages in certain events

[Ted Striker]

I'd really like to continue what's been mentioned on a few threads now.

I'll start it off with Spook's post on the 'Best moment' thread, though it was discussed at length in another one (John Inverdale?) and I think it deserves a thread of it's own...

You often hear people banging on about how East Africans are just naturally better at distance running than everyone else. When the fact is that nobody, regardless of their background, stands any kind of chance in an olympic distance event without years and years of intensive training. To suggest that the Africans are automatically better at distance running takes away the credit they deserve for their achievements.

If we look at the 10k race at the olympics we see the winner was a British man from an East African background, but you also see that the man in second place was a white guy who, coincidentally, was Mo Farah's training partner. The common ground between these two is clearly their training and not their racial or cultural background. You can probably thank the crowd for the difference between the man who came first and the man who came second.

Nobody would dare suggest that white people have a natural physical advantage in a white-dominated event like, I dunno, dressage. If there's a pattern of Europeans constantly winning these events then it's because Europeans are the ones who have a culture and a history of engaging in such ridiculous games of horse-related silly buggers while Africans and Asians, to their eternal credit, do not.

I fucking hate it when quote unquote liberal types engage in what they clearly think is 'positive racism'. Hitler used the same trick to account for the success of Jesse Owens in 1936, he claimed that the fundamentally savage nature of blacks gave them an unfair advantage in certain highly physical events. It doesn't matter whether the prejudice you hold is of something 'good' or something 'bad', the fact remains that if make generalisations on the basis of race then you're being patronising, insulting and most importantly just plain wrong.

Stop me if you think I'm being a massive racist, but I'm not sure I agree with you. This does interest me though!

For starters, I don't think anyone says that a person is 'automatically' better because they come from (have ancestry in) a particular part of the world - but that they have a significant advantage having a genetic make up that is more likely to run 10k or 100m particularly better (I'm not getting stuck into slavery issues, my contention has nothing to do with it as far as I can see).

If we completely refused to believe that certain regions from don't have 'better' athletic makeup, and perhaps the first question that I'd send back to the 'regional genetic advantage neutrals' is this: Why do NO (Chris Frenchy who's name escapes me aside) White athletes come even close to being ranked in the top x amount for the 100m? Is it lack of trying? Lack of desire to be in arguably the most glamourous, stand out, marquee event of any track meet? Why do Jamaicans and Americans of Jamaican ancestry always come so consistently high?

The lure of more lucrative sports (if one can run, they can kick a ball, earn gazillions etc)?

I just can't explain it.

Granted the 5,000m runner up was an anomoly to my argument, maybe the affect is less pronounced in that event?

One thing I look for in all my sports is meritocracy - the 100m is, on that basis, no less interesting than horses moonwalking to No Jacket Required (and why I have a place in my heart for Football (aside from the fact it's for wankers) and the major US field sports).

Is there any sport where no-one has a real socio-economic or genetic advantage? Or where is it least relevant?

 

[mattie]

Jon Entine pontificated on this a few years back, and still writes a few articles about it.

http://www.amazon.com/Taboo-Athletes-Dominate-Sports-Afraid/dp/1891620398

Not read it, although I keep meaning to - people I know who've read it ( a few sorts scientists in particular) say he opens up a few interesting lines of enquiry but doesn't really prove anything substantive.

 

[SpookyFrank]

I am generally of the opinion that any observable differences between ethnic groups are overwhelmingly caused by cutural, historical, geographical and other factors unrelated to human biology.

As I pointed out on the other thread, the genetic differences between human ethnic groups are far lower than the differences within those groups. The two wild populations of Orang-Utans, which live on the neighouring islands of Borneo and Sumatra, are considerably more different from each other than Chinese people are from white Europeans for example.

There are of course regional advantages at work in sport, but regional differences in human biology are not the root cause of them but rather a mere contributing factor. Money alone is probably far more influential in shaping the results we see in things like the olympic events; to say nothing of culture, history, politics or anything else.

Remember that East African dominance of distance running events (the example that started this discussion elsewhere) has only existed for the last twenty years or so. It is impossible for there to be significant changes in the biology of a particular population over the time span of a single generation, so other factors must account for both the success that Africans are currently enjoying in these events and also the fact that a few decades ago they weren't having the same level of success. Given the history of the region in question, it doesn't take a genius to guess at what some of those factors might have been.

 

[kabbes]

Ted, as I pointed out in the original athletics thread:

If it's all about "West African twitch muscles" then where are all the Ivory Coast sprinters?
If slavery is the key then where are all the Liberian sprinters?

As with all sports, success in sprinting is about coaching and tradition. The tradition gets you take-up of the sport and coaching gets you success. Suggesting that actually it's all just genetic is insulting to that success.

and

Funny how they didn't mention Charles Lawrence Somerset Clarke, who had come fourth in a sprint event just the day before. Or maybe the 110m hurdles doesn't need special slave-activated West African twitch muscles.

 

[Ted Striker]

Ted, as I pointed out in the original athletics thread:


and

But I'm not suggesting they "automatically do well" (which is what you're implying), more that, for arguments sake they have such a genetic advantage or that their genes are almost a pre-requisite for success in that event.

To be great is the combination of these genes and years of dedication and investment (which is perhaps not evident in Ivory Coast). I feel as if I'm missing something as these are obvious logical tautologies especially to a guy like you!

I'm glad you raised CLSG but failed to mention the specifics - He won in a hurdles event. IMO the sort of athlete that chooses hurdles does so because he can't keep pace at 100m flat sprint. (Funnily enough I have the same attitude to (Insurance Brokers and UW's (actuarially sharp ones aside ofc)...If you're any good at maths or brokering financial products, you don't 'want' to go into Insurance, but I digress...)

I don't doubt there are many anomalies over the years, but the purely numerical evidence for the argument seems to be overwhelming.

 

[kabbes]

The point is that the criteria are hopelessly poorly defined.

What does "Jamaican ancestry" mean? How many ancestors have to be Jamaican? How far back? Are we talking about a "single drop" rule?

Jamaica is a country of just a few million people. Are we really saying that those from this country have significant genetic differences to other people?

Are we sure that all these sprinters have Jamaican ancestry? Or is "Jamaican" just being used as a sanitised synonym for "black"? What about Francis Obikwelu, the formerly Nigerian (and now Portugese) sprinter? So far as I know, he has no Jamaican ancestry. How sure are we about claims of "Jamaican ancestry" dominance?

People move about. A lot. And they marry other people who have moved about a lot. There is no genetic purity. And skin colour is a particularly poor way of guessing where people are from, as it happens.

The whole debate makes me worried, because it is dressed up in the clothes of science but once you scratch the surface there is nothing more scientific than homeopathy in there.