Why sprinters are black

Every winner of the m since the inaugural event in has been black, as has every finalist from the last 10 championships with the solitary exception of Matic Osovnikar of Slovenia, who finished seventh in Assuming that this success is driven by genes rather than environment, there is a rather obvious inference to make - black people are naturally better sprinters than white people.

Indeed, it is an inference that seems obligatory, barring considerations of political correctness. But here's the thing. This inference is not merely false - it is logically flawed. And it has big implications not merely for athletics, but for the entire issue of race relations in the 21st Century. To see how, let us examine success not in the sprints but in distance running, for this is also dominated by black athletes. Kenya has won an astonishing 63 medals at the Olympic Games in races of m and above, 21 of them gold, since Little wonder that one commentator once described distance running as "a Kenyan monopoly".

But it turns out that it is not Kenya as a whole that usually wins these medals, but individuals from a tiny region in the Rift Valley called Nandi. As one writer put it: "Most of Kenya's runners call Nandi home. Among athletes of the same height Asians are even more favored than whites in swimming but they are not setting records because they are not as tall.

Other papers in this volume. Registered in England as a limited company No. Connect with WIT Press:. Toggle navigation. My Basket. And since , when the International Association of Athletics Federations started keeping track of the record holders in that event, only 10 non-black athletes out of 38 individuals have held the title.

Whether the fastest sprinters are Jamaican, African or Canadian, most of them can be traced back generally to Western Africa.

The height of a person's center of gravity affects how fast his feet are moving when they hit the ground, Bejan said. Each step a runner takes is like falling except the athlete breaks the fall with his foot. So the feet of a person with a higher center of gravity will hit the ground faster than someone with a lower center of gravity. Take international news everywhere with you! Download the France 24 app. The content you requested does not exist or is not available anymore.

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