Good article about genetics and athletic ability

[Alfro]

http://www.jonentine.com/reviews/express.htm


Not really much else to say...This was a pretty good read though...

[olinerules87]

cliffnotes?

[Alfro]

Not really cliff notes but its the main part id say...you should just read the article...


HOTSPOT 1 Mexican Mountains

SKILLS: Ultra-long distance running, Ultra-aerobic THE rugged Copper Canyons in north-central Mexico are home to the Tarahumara, recognised as the world's most remarkable ultra-endurance runners. Considered the least-assimilated people in the Americas, natives still live in caves and log cabins and subsist by herding, growing crops, and hunting.

Their ancestors were probably Mongoloids who crossed to the Americas some 15,000 years ago. Like East Asians, the Tarahumara are slight and have a relative excess of body fat, which helps them excel at endurance athletics.

Their running exploits are legendary. Two Tarahumara were reportedly hardly panting after setting a world record in a 100-kilometre race to Mexico City in 1926. Two who raced in the Olympic marathon in 1968 were said to have complained "too short, too short" as they finished. The tribe slipped into athletic anonymity until 1993, when six Tarahumara competed at the Leadville 100-mile race, which tops out at 12,500ft. Wearing traditional huarache sandals, 55-year-old Victoriano Churro took first, with tribesmen finishing second and fifth. Juan Herrera won the following year in a record 17hr30min42sec. Two Tarahumara smashed the record in the Wasatch 100 in 1995, averaging less than 13 minutes per mile.

Such stunning performances provoked a backlash and ugly incidents in the endurance running community. Almost overnight, the tribal runners hung up their sandals.

HOTSPOT 2 Dominican Republic

SKILLS: Baseball, anaerobic, speed, WITH only eight million people, the Dominican Republic is the world's greatest per capita producer of baseball talent, with 70 major leaguers. Most stars, such as Sammy Sosa, pictured, are from the "blackest" of Dominican cities, San Pedro de Macoris, with a genetic background similar to that of African Americans, with some Spanish and Taino Indian genes. Black Hispanic ballplayers are most likely to make it to the big leagues, followed by players of mixed black and white heritage, then whites. Mexicans, typically with a shorter and less muscular lower body than blacks as a result of their Indian/Asian heritage, have the toughest time.

The republic, with a population one-tenth the size of baseball-mad Mexico, turns out six times as many pros. More than a third of professional baseball players are African Americans or black Latins.

HOTSPOT 3 West Africa

SKILLS: Soccer, sprinting, basketball, American football, anaerobic, quickness, jumping THE actual Eve, the first modern human, is of sub-Saharan origin. Blacks who link their ancestry to western African coastal states, from where American blacks trace their primary ancestry, are the quickest and best natural leapers in the world. West African-descended blacks almost completely monopolise sprinting up to 400 metres. No white or Asian runner has ever broken 10 seconds in the 100m. The top 200 times in the event - all less than 10 seconds - are held by athletes of West African descent, as are all 32 finalists in the last four Olympic men's 100m races. The likelihood of that happening based on population numbers alone is a nano-fraction of one per cent. This group also dominates in Basketball and American football.

HOTSPOT 4 Nandi Hills of Western Kenya

SKILLS: Middle and Long Distance Running, Aerobic WEST AFRICANS hit a bio-mechanical wall, grounded in their evolutionary history, after 45 seconds of intense, anaerobic activity when aerobic skills come into play. East Africans, who have small and slender ectomorphic body types, are hapless in the sprints yet dominate distance running. Kenya, with 28 million people, is the powerhouse. At Seoul in 1988, Kenyan men won the 800, 1500, and 5,000 metres, along with the 3,000m steeplechase. Based on population percentages alone, the likelihood of such a performance in this Texas-sized country is one in 1.6 billion.

Kenyan runners combine two seldom matched running traits: speed and endurance. They demonstrate the muscular mass to reach maximum speeds just below the West African peak, yet their endurance is as good as any in the world.

Perhaps the explanation for this paradox is that they combine the best running traits of separate lineages. Hundreds of years ago the proto-Kalenjin population migrated from the Nilotic core area north-west of Lake Turkana to the Mount Elgon region, where the group fragmented and moved to its present locations in the highlands. And whereas the West African population has remained relatively isolated, East Africa has evolved in a genetic stew, with studies indicating a mixture of about 60 per cent African and 40 per cent Caucasian genes. The Kalenjins of the Great Rift Valley adjacent to Lake Victoria - who represent 1/2000th of the world population - win 40 per cent of top international distance-running honors and three times as many Olympic and World Championship distance medals as athletes from any other nation. One tiny district, the Nandi, with only 500,000 people, has spawned runners who have won an unfathomable 20 per cent of major international distance events. By almost any measure, the Nandi region, which produced Wilson Kipketer, left, and Kip Keino, among others, is the greatest concentration of raw athletic talent in the history of sports.

HOTSPOT 5 Pacific Islands

SKILLS: Sumo, rugby, American football, flexibility, speed, size THE top stars in Japan's beloved sport of sumo wrestling are not Japanese, but quick-footed behemoths such as the 600lb Konishiki and 6ft9in, 516lb Akebono, both of Pacific Island ancestry.

The cluster of islands that straddle the international date-line in the South Pacific, including Samoa and American Samoa, have also funneled hundreds of players into American football and rugby in Australia and New Zealand.

"Football is like legalised village warfare, " explains "Throwin' Somoan" Jack Thompson, an all-America quarter-back from the University of Wisconsin in 1976.

"There is an innate competitiveness in the warrior sense in Polynesian culture." But more than cultural factors are at work. Polynesia is a hotbed of human biodiversity, with links to sub-Saharan Africa and aboriginal populations of Japan.

This genetic mixture helps in part explain why athletes from this region are large, agile, and fast.

HOTSPOT 6 Eastern Asia

SKILLS: Gymnastics, diving, ice skating, table tennis, flexibility EAST ASIANS are among the best in ice-skating and diving. They tend to be small with short extremities, long torsos, and a thicker layer of fat. As a result, athletes from this region are slower and less strong than whites or blacks, but more flexible.

This flexibility has helped the region produce some of the world's best gymnasts, like Olympic gold medallist Junfeng Xiao, below. Those same characteristics prevent Asians from being great leapers: not one Asian high jumper makes the all-time top 50. Many scientists believe this distinctive body type evolved as adaptations to the harsh climate faced by migrants to north-east Asia about 40,000 years ago. The excavation of precise tools in Asia, including needles for sewing clothes to survive cold winters, has led experts to speculate that Asians were "programmed" over time to be more dexterous. Studies indicate East Asians have the quickest reaction times, a key skill in table tennis, another East Asian specialty.

HOTSPOT 7 Eurasia

SKILLS: Lifting, wrestling, anaerobic, upper-body strength THE world's top weightlifters and wrestlers live in, or trace their ancestry to, a swathe of Eurasia, running from Bulgaria in the south to upper Mongolia in the north.

Evolutionary forces in this northern clime have shaped a population with a mesomorphic body type - large and muscular, particularly in the upper body, with relatively short arms and legs and thick torsos. These proportions tend to be an advantage particularly in sports in which strength rather than speed is at a premium. For instance, Naim Suleymanoglu, above, the 4’ 11” Turkish weightlifter is considered the greatest in the history of the sport.

Not surprisingly, this region also turns out a huge number of top field athletes - javelin throwers, shot-putters, and hammer throwers. Forty-six of the top 50 male hammer throwers of all time and 43 of the top 50 female shot-putters trace their primary ancestry to the Slavonic countries of central and Eastern Europe.

[Veeshmack]

Not really cliff notes but its the main part id say...you should just read the article...


HOTSPOT 1 Mexican Mountains

SKILLS: Ultra-long distance running, Ultra-aerobic THE rugged Copper Canyons in north-central Mexico are home to the Tarahumara, recognised as the world's most remarkable ultra-endurance runners. Considered the least-assimilated people in the Americas, natives still live in caves and log cabins and subsist by herding, growing crops, and hunting.

Their ancestors were probably Mongoloids who crossed to the Americas some 15,000 years ago. Like East Asians, the Tarahumara are slight and have a relative excess of body fat, which helps them excel at endurance athletics.

Their running exploits are legendary. Two Tarahumara were reportedly hardly panting after setting a world record in a 100-kilometre race to Mexico City in 1926. Two who raced in the Olympic marathon in 1968 were said to have complained "too short, too short" as they finished. The tribe slipped into athletic anonymity until 1993, when six Tarahumara competed at the Leadville 100-mile race, which tops out at 12,500ft. Wearing traditional huarache sandals, 55-year-old Victoriano Churro took first, with tribesmen finishing second and fifth. Juan Herrera won the following year in a record 17hr30min42sec. Two Tarahumara smashed the record in the Wasatch 100 in 1995, averaging less than 13 minutes per mile.

Such stunning performances provoked a backlash and ugly incidents in the endurance running community. Almost overnight, the tribal runners hung up their sandals.

HOTSPOT 2 Dominican Republic

SKILLS: Baseball, anaerobic, speed, WITH only eight million people, the Dominican Republic is the world's greatest per capita producer of baseball talent, with 70 major leaguers. Most stars, such as Sammy Sosa, pictured, are from the "blackest" of Dominican cities, San Pedro de Macoris, with a genetic background similar to that of African Americans, with some Spanish and Taino Indian genes. Black Hispanic ballplayers are most likely to make it to the big leagues, followed by players of mixed black and white heritage, then whites. Mexicans, typically with a shorter and less muscular lower body than blacks as a result of their Indian/Asian heritage, have the toughest time.

The republic, with a population one-tenth the size of baseball-mad Mexico, turns out six times as many pros. More than a third of professional baseball players are African Americans or black Latins.

HOTSPOT 3 West Africa

SKILLS: Soccer, sprinting, basketball, American football, anaerobic, quickness, jumping THE actual Eve, the first modern human, is of sub-Saharan origin. Blacks who link their ancestry to western African coastal states, from where American blacks trace their primary ancestry, are the quickest and best natural leapers in the world. West African-descended blacks almost completely monopolise sprinting up to 400 metres. No white or Asian runner has ever broken 10 seconds in the 100m. The top 200 times in the event - all less than 10 seconds - are held by athletes of West African descent, as are all 32 finalists in the last four Olympic men's 100m races. The likelihood of that happening based on population numbers alone is a nano-fraction of one per cent. This group also dominates in Basketball and American football.

HOTSPOT 4 Nandi Hills of Western Kenya

SKILLS: Middle and Long Distance Running, Aerobic WEST AFRICANS hit a bio-mechanical wall, grounded in their evolutionary history, after 45 seconds of intense, anaerobic activity when aerobic skills come into play. East Africans, who have small and slender ectomorphic body types, are hapless in the sprints yet dominate distance running. Kenya, with 28 million people, is the powerhouse. At Seoul in 1988, Kenyan men won the 800, 1500, and 5,000 metres, along with the 3,000m steeplechase. Based on population percentages alone, the likelihood of such a performance in this Texas-sized country is one in 1.6 billion.

Kenyan runners combine two seldom matched running traits: speed and endurance. They demonstrate the muscular mass to reach maximum speeds just below the West African peak, yet their endurance is as good as any in the world.

Perhaps the explanation for this paradox is that they combine the best running traits of separate lineages. Hundreds of years ago the proto-Kalenjin population migrated from the Nilotic core area north-west of Lake Turkana to the Mount Elgon region, where the group fragmented and moved to its present locations in the highlands. And whereas the West African population has remained relatively isolated, East Africa has evolved in a genetic stew, with studies indicating a mixture of about 60 per cent African and 40 per cent Caucasian genes. The Kalenjins of the Great Rift Valley adjacent to Lake Victoria - who represent 1/2000th of the world population - win 40 per cent of top international distance-running honors and three times as many Olympic and World Championship distance medals as athletes from any other nation. One tiny district, the Nandi, with only 500,000 people, has spawned runners who have won an unfathomable 20 per cent of major international distance events. By almost any measure, the Nandi region, which produced Wilson Kipketer, left, and Kip Keino, among others, is the greatest concentration of raw athletic talent in the history of sports.

HOTSPOT 5 Pacific Islands

SKILLS: Sumo, rugby, American football, flexibility, speed, size THE top stars in Japan's beloved sport of sumo wrestling are not Japanese, but quick-footed behemoths such as the 600lb Konishiki and 6ft9in, 516lb Akebono, both of Pacific Island ancestry.

The cluster of islands that straddle the international date-line in the South Pacific, including Samoa and American Samoa, have also funneled hundreds of players into American football and rugby in Australia and New Zealand.

"Football is like legalised village warfare, " explains "Throwin' Somoan" Jack Thompson, an all-America quarter-back from the University of Wisconsin in 1976.

"There is an innate competitiveness in the warrior sense in Polynesian culture." But more than cultural factors are at work. Polynesia is a hotbed of human biodiversity, with links to sub-Saharan Africa and aboriginal populations of Japan.

This genetic mixture helps in part explain why athletes from this region are large, agile, and fast.

HOTSPOT 6 Eastern Asia

SKILLS: Gymnastics, diving, ice skating, table tennis, flexibility EAST ASIANS are among the best in ice-skating and diving. They tend to be small with short extremities, long torsos, and a thicker layer of fat. As a result, athletes from this region are slower and less strong than whites or blacks, but more flexible.

This flexibility has helped the region produce some of the world's best gymnasts, like Olympic gold medallist Junfeng Xiao, below. Those same characteristics prevent Asians from being great leapers: not one Asian high jumper makes the all-time top 50. Many scientists believe this distinctive body type evolved as adaptations to the harsh climate faced by migrants to north-east Asia about 40,000 years ago. The excavation of precise tools in Asia, including needles for sewing clothes to survive cold winters, has led experts to speculate that Asians were "programmed" over time to be more dexterous. Studies indicate East Asians have the quickest reaction times, a key skill in table tennis, another East Asian specialty.

HOTSPOT 7 Eurasia

SKILLS: Lifting, wrestling, anaerobic, upper-body strength THE world's top weightlifters and wrestlers live in, or trace their ancestry to, a swathe of Eurasia, running from Bulgaria in the south to upper Mongolia in the north.

Evolutionary forces in this northern clime have shaped a population with a mesomorphic body type - large and muscular, particularly in the upper body, with relatively short arms and legs and thick torsos. These proportions tend to be an advantage particularly in sports in which strength rather than speed is at a premium. For instance, Naim Suleymanoglu, above, the 4? 11? Turkish weightlifter is considered the greatest in the history of the sport.

Not surprisingly, this region also turns out a huge number of top field athletes - javelin throwers, shot-putters, and hammer throwers. Forty-six of the top 50 male hammer throwers of all time and 43 of the top 50 female shot-putters trace their primary ancestry to the Slavonic countries of central and Eastern Europe.

i think thats more like 1/2 the article than cliffs
i'll read thru it in the morning
i'm tired

[roman25]

YEah very interesting article. that you the main point is its due to enviormental factors.

[Bodysteele]

HOTSPOT 3 West Africa

SKILLS: Soccer, sprinting, basketball, American football, anaerobic, quickness, jumping THE actual Eve, the first modern human, is of sub-Saharan origin. Blacks who link their ancestry to western African coastal states, from where American blacks trace their primary ancestry, are the quickest and best natural leapers in the world. West African-descended blacks almost completely monopolise sprinting up to 400 metres. No white or Asian runner has ever broken 10 seconds in the 100m. The top 200 times in the event - all less than 10 seconds - are held by athletes of West African descent, as are all 32 finalists in the last four Olympic men's 100m races. The likelihood of that happening based on population numbers alone is a nano-fraction of one per cent. This group also dominates in Basketball and American football.


Game Over.

As far as fast twitch sports are I mean.