July 7, 2011

Celebrating diversity

Track and field is interesting because its demands are simple enough that human biodiversity stands out pretty clearly. But after awhile it gets kind of dull because the same old same old demographic patterns keep showing up. (Here's my VDARE article on human biodiversity in track up through the closse of the 2008 Olympics.)

Hence, it's fun when some rare diversity shows up among the top performers.

For example, last year Christophe Lemaitre of France became the first white man and second non-sub-Saharan African to record a time in the 100m dash in the 9.XX second range by running 9.98. (A half Australian Aborigine - half Irishman once ran a 9.93 and a Pole once ran a 9.997, which was rounded up to 10.00.)

Lemaitre is a 21-year-old country boy from Savoy who had never tried sprinting until he was 15, when the French had a national competition to find the fastest 15 year old at 50 meters. He got timed at a fair and it turned out to be the fastest mark in the country.

Lemaitre appears to be the real deal. He's broken 10.00 five more times, including a pair of 9.95s. In 2012 in London, will he become the first man since 1980 not from West Africa or Southwest Africa (Frankie Fredericks of Namibia) to make the Olympic 100m dash 8-man final? Right now, his 9.95 makes him only the tenth fastest man in 2011. On the other hand, most of those who are faster are Jamaicans and one country can only enter three contestants in the 100m. Also, some of those Jamaicans might get caught. 

The Americans used to be very big in sprints (here are some pictures of an American sprinter who used to be very big), but after the 2004 Olympics, they started more rigorous drug testing while the Jamaicans didn't, and now Jamaicans win everything. 

Right now, Lemaitre looks like a very healthy young man. If he shows up in 2012 looking like a plastic action figure with giant biceps, however, and runs a 9.75 to medal, well, it would be a big whoop-tee-doo, but I'd be happier if he showed up looking human and ran in the low 9.9s.

Another candidate to break the West African lock on the 100m finals is a Zimbabwean named Ngonidzashe Makusha, who ran 9.89 at the NCAA finals. Zimbabwe is more or less in Southeast Africa.

In women's sprinting, where the records are out of reach, the big story is, as usual, American Allyson Felix, who lost out on individual gold medals in the 2000 in 2004 and 2008 to Jamaican women with biceps twice the circumference of her own. Felix should be the beau ideal of African-American respectable middle class young ladyhood, so it's always compelling to see whether she can finally win an individual gold medal her way or whether she'll go over to the Dark Side and show up in 2012 massive like her rivals. This year, she's concentrating more on the 400m and has the best time of the year in it. I wish her well.

Meanwhile, in distance running, which is dominated by East Africans and Northwest Africans, Chris Solinsky of Wisconsin became in 2010 the first non-African to run 10,000 meters in under 27:00. Also, at 6'-1" and 165 pounds, he's built like a high school quarterback. He's the tallest and heaviest runner ever to break 27:00.

The endless miles of training for distance running puts a lot of pounding on the knees, so it's usually dominated by short ectomorphs. That's why Parris Island Marine Corp drill instructors aren't usually the intimidating giants seen in movies. Instead, they tend to be feisty little guys whose knees can take all the pounding of the running they do in boot camp. 

62 comments:

Geoff Matthews said...

Are we seeing more whites in track because their parents are pushing them away from basketball/football?

Steve Sailer said...

My vague impression is that the blacks in track tend to be middle class. Back in the first half of the 20th Century, black colleges like Grambling started emphasizing track over baseball as their spring sport because in a segregated society their runners could compete with whites at least in the newspapers when their times got printed. So, track has been more middle class.

alexis said...

When I first started teaching, an older black football coach lamented the decline in the popularity of track amongst black kids, and felt strongly that the variety of individual events in T and F made them look at each other more individually rather than as a pack (football and basketball). He said that up to the 80's, track had been much more popular in the region.

Anonymous said...

"Are we seeing more whites in track because their parents are pushing them away from basketball/football? "

No, because they're not pushing them away from baseball, which is a same-season sport.

Anonymous said...

"Another candidate to break the West African lock on the 100m finals is a Zimbabwean named Ngonidzashe Makusha, who ran 9.89 at the NCAA finals. Zimbabwe is more or less in Southeast Africa."

If he speaks a language from the Bantu language family, then his ancestors came from West Africa.

Anonymous said...

I love USA swimming struggles to try to get blacks on the team.. Cullen Jones nearly threw the 100 meters -something the USA has dominated for decades - and the pc NBC announcer kept babbling how he 'earned his spot' - when it was obvious he didn't belong in the pool and was completely out of his competitive class..

Anonymous said...

tweak the rules of Football to be more like soccer and rugby and it would get a lot more of the 'wrong' kind of diversity - especially if players couldn't be coached as closely and actually had to think.

Anonymous said...

Jeremy Wariner comes to mind as a white American Olympic champion in the 400m, though he is struggling to regain his 2004-2007 dominance.

Without any formal data to back me up, I'd say that of the running events, non-Africans perform best in the
400m and 800m. In addition to Wariner, there are the Belgian Borlee twins and Martin Rooney from the UK running impressive 400 times. In the 800m, Seb Coe after 30 years is #3 on the all time list.

Also, Alberto Juantorena is the only man in history to win the 400 and 800 at the Olympics.

Anonymous said...

Am I a racist if I root for the white guy?

John Craig said...

Great summation of the track and field scene.

The vast majority of American Olympic sprinters seem to have doped in the past twenty years, and I agree with you about the Jamaicans in general, but what do you think about Usain Bolt? Maybe I'm hopelessly naive, but I actually think there's a chance he might be clean. He doesn't have that exaggerated musculature, with the convex stomach and notable trapezius muscles and huge arms so common among 'roiders. Plus he doesn't carry himself like a guy who's juicing, i.e., he's lightheartedly playful rather than trying to come across like a badass, a la Linford Christie. It is hard to believe that a guy who makes the other sprinters look, well, white, could be clean while so many of the guys he's beating are juicing. But he just doesn't have any of the other signs.

What do you think?

Anonymous said...

Speculation as to why track and field attracts middle class blacks...

1) The financial rewards and prestige are low so you must have an appreciation for self-improvement.

2) perversely, it may take a bit more intellectual depth to see beauty in a sport that is so simply defined.

3) improvements in track and field come from subtle technical refinements and long term planning of training that are quite complex.

4) more discipline is required to seek improvement when the gains are small and are not realized until race day, unlike, e.g., basketball ("you missed that free throw").

DanJ said...

West African nations themselves do not seem to systematically identify and coach talented sprinters. There should be a huge untapped pool of athletic talent there. Especially if the really fast ones outran the slave raiders and were left to pass on their genes ;)

By contrast, East African distance runners are mostly home grown, and there are serious training programs in otherwise poor nations like Kenya or Ethiopia.

West Africans do play a lot of soccer, which usually draws talent away from track and field.

Anonymous said...

Cullen Jones actually earn his spot in the 4x100 meter freestyle relay, by getting third at Trials that year with a 48.35. Yes, he swam relatively poorly in Beijing, and Phelps' eighth gold medal had to be rescued by a superhuman performance from the (widely suspected within swimming to be 'roiding) Jason Lezak. But there were no politics involved. That's the wonderful thing about both track and swimming: the only judge is the stopwatch, and there's no affirmative action. Both used to be really great, pure sports before the advent of performance-aiding drugs.

John Craig said...

Anonymous --

Alberto Juantorena --

http://openlibrary.org/books/OL3249401M/Alberto_Juantorena_%C2%A1Astro_y_ejemplo!

-- looked to me as if he had some black blood. But other than that, you're exactly right. The 800 meters (even more than the 400 meters) seems to be the sweet spot for white people. It's too long for the West Africans, and too short for the East Africans. They'll probably find a Central African one of these days who'll run a 1:39. But in the meantime, it's the event to run if you're white.

Anonymous said...

But there were no politics involved. That's the wonderful thing about both track and swimming: the only judge is the stopwatch, and there's no affirmative action
bs the 4x100 is a judgment call and there was and is heavy pressure to put black on it - USA swimming has a full time diversity officer... come on. Jones did well in 50 yard collegiate which is about the limit of most west african's stamina - 'sprints' in swimming are actually middle distance.

Anonymous said...

and there's no affirmative action
not for the relay teams.

Anonymous said...

Cullen Jones actually earn his spot in the 4x100 meter freestyle relay
i believe at this point diversity is so important to our elite, they would look the other way if he was doping.

Anonymous said...

FUN PC side note -Cullen Jones earned more in endorsements than michael phelps before the olympics - nike - a notoriously anti-white company (just gave a contract to vick) paid jones MORE...

Anonymous said...

I think Lemaitre is the real deal, remember he just turned 21 a month ago, and is therefore a quite a bit younger than most of the top guys. Usian Bolt has stated that soon he will be in the top 3 or 4 sprinters in the world. The ironic thing about Lemaitre is that ultimately his best event might be the 200m instead of the 100m, due to his height and outstanding ability to finish. British sprinter Dwain Chambers has stated that Lemaitre has another gear that is beyond what he can sprint, and Chambers is a former European champion and PED user. Lemaitre is also built similarly to Bolt in that is he very long and wiry for a 100m guy.

I think his story like that of a lot of elite white athletes illustrates what Steve mentioned earlier. That because of the developmental advantage of West Africans, a lot of athletic white guys quit too early because they are being compared to West African guys who developmentally 18-24 months ahead of them, which during adolescence is a huge athletic advantage. This guy is from an out of the way little city on the Swiss border.

Anonymous said...

celebrating Diversity means we cheer for tiger woods and black quaterbacks, but its racist to cheer for white sprinters.

Truth said...

Rah...Rah...Rah...!

Truth said...

Cullen Jones nearly threw the 100 meters... it was obvious he didn't belong in the pool and was completely out of his competitive class..


Uh...Yeah

http://rodonline.typepad.com/rodonline/2009/07/cullen-jones-breaks-american-record-in-50m-freestyle.html

DCThrowback said...

To further your point about Parris Island drill instructors, it's much easier to do pushups when your arms keep closer to the ground.

I knew a 5'5" future Army officer when I was in ROTC who knocked out 125 pushups in the two minutes alloted (passing was 42, max scoring was 82). He was 22 yrs old and probably wore a 17X32 dress shirt.

Truth said...

"celebrating Diversity means we cheer for tiger woods and black quaterbacks, but its racist to cheer for white sprinters."

Right, Peyton Manning makes all of that endorsement money because white people are afraid to cheer for him.

Anonymasaurus Rex said...

"USA swimming has a full time diversity officer"

How much mone could business and the govenrment save were it not for these "diversity officers"?

I'm being serious. Several billion, at least?

Anonymous said...

Truth- two dumb comments in a row - I specifically said he throws any race over 50 because africans don't have endurance and in swimming a 'sprint' of a 100 meters requires endurance (unlike the 100 meter track sprint which is under 11 seconds)

secondly I specifically said that you are supposed to cheer for black quarterbacks - implying we are supposed to welcome instances of blacks 'breaking barriers' but if whites do the same - for example with boxing and springing msm, sportwriters (many of whom are far left) call it 'racism'.

Got any other dumb comments?

Anonymous said...

"diversity officers"?

I'm being serious. Several billion, at least?

trillions if you factor in the cost of the 'diversity recession'

Anonymous said...

with swimming:
a. i can see diversicrats bringing back the 50 meter to the olympics so more blacks can compete
b. more likely I can see swimming declared 'racist' by the kommisars.

Anonymous said...

oops i was wrong there isn't just a diversity officer, there is a diveristy TEAM - its expanded:
http://www.usaswimming.org/ViewMiscArticle.aspx?TabId=1800&Alias=Rainbow&Lang=en&mid=8049&ItemId=3630



http://www.usaswimming.org/DesktopDefault.aspx?TabId=1653
2010 DIVERSITY RESEARCH STUDY RELEASED

A 2010 study commissioned by USA Swimming and conducted by the University of Memphis found that nearly 70% of African American children and 58% of Hispanic children have low or no swiming ability, compared to 40% of Caucasians.

Anonymous said...

@Anonymasaurus Rex
therein lies your problem, you believe its costing billions, when in fact it's making billions for the right people

Anonymous said...

http://www.alternativeright.com/main/blogs/hbd-human-biodiversity/white-lightning/

This is funny as hell. Europe has many more whites than blacks, but one white guy(among finalists made up mostly of 'European' blacks)in a blue moon managed to win the Euro championship, and THAT, according to the white nationalist author, is proof of the 'myth' of black athletic superiority. What a self-delusional therapeutic dummy.
'Caste system'? What caste system? Blacks dominate duz they're better.

Anonymous said...

"Am I a racist if I root for the white guy?"

Yes. A race-ist is a race + ist. You believe in race and root for your own race. It's like a nationalist roots for his nation. Race-ism is cool as long as it's not radical.

Dennis Dale said...

Lemaitre has shattered forever the racist myth of black athleticism!

Truth said...

"Truth- two dumb comments in a row - I specifically said he throws any race over 50 because africans don't have endurance and in swimming a 'sprint' of a 100 meters requires endurance (unlike the 100 meter track sprint which is under 11 seconds)"

Well, he didn't seem to have any endurance problems in the Olympic trials, (which, by the way Sport, is where they select the Olympic team "Olympic" and "trials" are strong hints") In which he finished third.

Now he competed in the 4x100 meter relays in which they select the top four (the "4" in 4x100 is a hint).

http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2008/07/irvingtons_jones_makes_the_oly.html

Now I know you white guys have all kinds of sophistimicated math I an not qualified to understand, but could you please explain to me why you wouldn't take the four fastest swimmers in America to run a relay?

"secondly I specifically said that you are supposed to cheer for black quarterbacks "

No, you are supposed to cheer for whomever you like, that's why they sell Tom Brady jerseys. That's why companies pay Peyton Manning huge dollars to represent products -- because the feel that viewers, readers will "cheer" for them with their wallets.

Got anything else?

Anonymous said...

Now he competed in the 4x100 meter relays in which they select the top four (the "4" in 4x100 is a hint).
you don't know anything about US swimming, do you? US swimming has so much depth (except when the choose politically correct african american swimmers) they could sweep the medals (which is why the Olympics reduced entries to two per nation - the US was doing just that.

Jones was given a spot based on 50m time. not to mention once he started winning a race here and there, he was given extra coaching, big endorsements, etc, allowing him to train more and receive expert coaching - in the same way that dana torres owing to haveing $$ was able to make a comeback that most women her age simply could not afford to do. - think about how many good- far better- white swimmers have been denied coaching, endorsements, etc so this mediocre diversity poster boy can lose races for US swimming.

i sincerely think, at this point US swimming would rather lose diversly then win whitely.

@anon 6:16 : track maybe, but change the rules of football and blacks would be reduced to the numbers one sees in rugby and soccer. Same with basketball - both are tweaked by (often jewish) owners to get more blacks and make it more enta-taining... and if you don't think jewish (owner) dominated sports aren't just as politically motivated as hollywood, you're naive.

Anonymous said...

No, you are supposed to cheer for whomever you like, that's why they sell Tom Brady jerseys. That's why companies pay Peyton Manning huge dollars to represent products
you don't get it, do you sweetheart?

Whenever there's a black quarterback the media GUSHES over them and we're all supposed to treat it as a 'milestone' 'shattering stereotypes" but no one ever calls for more white or orientals or proportional representation on basketball teams and track.

And yes, sportwriters, etc would call american fans 'racist' who cheered for a french white sprinter over US black one (as many did when many white americans cheered for underdog white teams during the Athens Olympics)

Mark Royer said...

Check out the 2011 NCAA Championship in the 110 hurdles. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTod2oLtv0s&NR=1

LSU's Barrett Nugent shows that Lemaitre is not the only flyin' Frenchman. If Cajuns count.

Anonymous said...

To get back to Football. Yes, its amazing how we're supposed to root for the Black QB because they are "underrepresented" but never for the white RB, WR, TE, DB, or LB.

But its a nationwide problem. Too many white male execs -bad - must be fixed. Too many Asian Engineers - not a problem. Too many Women nurses - not a problem. Too many Jewish Lawyers - hey what are you a Jew hater?!

Its only a problem when there are too many white males. Oh, White males, if only they'd go away - say the elite (usually Jewish) White males.

Anonymous said...

BTW, notice how all the hoopla over Tiger Woods died away so fast. Once, Tiger married a Swedish broad, and made it clear he considered himself uninterested in politics and a multi-racial, mostly Asian American, the media lost interest.

He no longer the great Black (Jewish Liberal) hope. Their Malcolm X of Golf.

Poor Tiger. He's really just another successful Asian guy from SouthCal who can't get any media love.

Anonymous said...

@mark royer -
whites and orientals do better in hurdles - anytime you add any complexity or a requirement of more training and self discipline, black achievement falls off .

but in this case its like that black guy who 'won' a swimming heat in the olympics because the two aussies he was in the heat with false started.

Truth said...

"Lemaitre has shattered forever the racist myth of black athleticism!"

SHATTERED FOREVER!!!!

(or at least he will when he stops finishing fourth.)

"you don't know anything about US swimming, do you?"

Dude, we'll try it again: What part of OLYMPIC TRIALS are you having trouble with, the "olympic" or the "trials"?

He was entered in the 4x100 (emphasis on "FOUR") relay because he he was the third (emphasis on THIRD) fastest swimmer in America in the (wait for it) OLYMPIC...TRIALS.

Truthfully Sport, I don't know how else to explain this to you

"so this mediocre diversity poster boy can lose races for US swimming."

WHAT RACE DID HE LOSE, YOU CRETIN? He has a GOLD medal! Once again, I know nothing about swimming as you said, so inform me; does swimming have a different system of medals than other Olympic sports? Do they give BRONZE medals to the winners???

Anonymous said...

WHAT RACE DID HE LOSE, YOU CRETIN? He has a GOLD medal
yes you're right, Cullen jones is the reason we got the 4x100. Just like egyptian civilization was founded by blacks, blacks invented math, and obama 'won' the nobel peace prize.

Truth said...

My friend, you can read, right?

Anonymous said...

"Instead, they tend to be feisty little guys whose knees can take all the pounding of the running they do in boot camp."

I'm allergic to "feisty little guys" especially if they are in the military or drive one of those huge classic cars.

Anonymous said...

Yes, Jones got that $2 million contract from Nike purely because he was black. And yes, that opened up better training opportunities for him that didn't exist for white swimmers who were at least as talented. And yes, coaches have the final say on relay spots are a judgment call. But after he got third at Trials in the 100 it would have been hard for the coaches to deny him one of the four relay spots in the finals. As it turned out, he did have the slowest split in the relay (48-mid, as I recall), but that couldn't have been predicted from what he had done to that point. The swimming coaches have made worse decisions before. The US lost the 4 x 100 free relay (to South Africa) in '04 because the coaches allowed a sick Ian Crocker to lead off, and his split of 50.2 was the slowest of any of the 32 swimmers in the final. The coaches put Phelps on the 4 x 100 free relay in '08 because he had done a time in the heats of Olympic Trials which would have put him among the top four in the finals (he scratched from finals because he didn't want to contest the 100 free individually). As it was, he had just set a WR in the 200 free and was obviously having an incredible meet, so that wasn't a hard call. But generally it's hard to deny a spot to someone who finished in the top three at Trials (which is why Crocker was included in '04). I'm as realistic about race as anybody on this board, but there was noting egregious about putting Jones on that relay.

Anonymous said...

@anon I'm as realistic about race as anybody on this board, but there was noting egregious about putting Jones on that relay.
There was something egregious about Jone's whole swimming career - there is a concerted effort by US swimming to find black swimminers - not the best swimmers - and they are wasting time, energy and money on people like jones.

and certainly any coach could recognize his lack of endurance, they 'can't' in our PC society.

the 'gap' will continue to exist and we will continue to throw time and money at it, and sacrifice a sport that we have done well in for close to century - not to mention giving many whites their direct experience with 'the system' that hates them.

Anonymous said...

My friend, you can read, right?
he lost his split of the race. His efforts did nothing to help the US win the medal - in fact his 'efforts' put the race in jeopardy. He sucked- there are a least a half dozen white US swimmers who could have done better.

Truth: agree or disagree - the only reason he got a contract with Nike is because he is black?

Anonymous said...

The swimming coaches have made worse decisions before.
there was another great black hope, i forget his name, who kept failing in the 4x100 (this was in the late 90s) and they kept him on, where, if he was white, he would have been pulled.

I am so #@$%@$#%@ sick of 'diversity'

Kylie said...

This seems the right place for a news item that counteracts the supposed monopoly that white males have when it comes to spree killings.

Rodrick Shonte Dantzler Celebrates Diversity

Weirdly, this news isn't getting the publicity I would have expected, considering it just happened and the black gunman had over half a dozen victims.

stari_momak said...

Cullen Jones is the exception that proves the rule. He specializes in the 50 meter, a race that didn't exist in international competition until 1990 or so. It is the shortest race, thus lending itself to the average black advantage in fast twist muscles.

@Anonymous, I am pretty sure that the alternative right article on Le Maitre was a sort of ju jitsu move, a tongue-in-cheek reflection through a fun house mirror of the every article praising black scholars, scientists ,etc.

Having said that, it does seem strange that white progress in the sprints has stopped. There was a great article by Roger McGrath about the history of white sprinters in the US -- they were competitive well into the 1950s -- indeed the early 1960s. That is, two plus decades after Jesse Owens. Why the sudden drop off. Why the dead stop in time improvements, when you'd think that just the better, springy tracks would give a tenth of a second or so.

Ola said...

Lemaitre will race against Bolt in 200m in Lausanne in about 15 minutes. I predict a time below 20.00 if the weather is agreeable. He won't beat Bolt yet, of course, but his talent is second only to Bolt. He is very young and not an early maturer (like Bolt)

Felix said...

The interesting thing about the coverage of Lemaitre is the punch line about him being the "first white man" or "only white sprinter," rather than describing him as the first NON BLACK man to break that barrier. The clear insinuation behind some of these articles

(here is a prime example: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/othersports/olympics/8415533/London-2012-Olympics-Christophe-Lemaitre-defying-logic-that-says-white-men-cant-sprint.html)

is that white men, specifically, are slow. Reading this article you'd think the major idea here is that white people are so slow that Lemaitre is the only white man to ever cross that barrier, whereas the truth is that no Asian, Arab, native American, etc has ever crossed it either. In fact, the sprinting hierarchy goes Black>>>>White>>Rest. But it's clear that the article, like most, is designed to plant the seed in people's heads that whites are just damn slow, of which this Lemaitre fellow is an exception that proves the rule.

Truth said...

"Truth: agree or disagree - the only reason he got a contract with Nike is because he is black?"

Disagree - I'm black, and Nike hasn't offered me any contracts.

No, what you intend to ask is "did he get a contract because he is an excellent swimmer who happens to be black, and the answer is 'probably.'

Now here's a question for you - So Fucking what?

Rose Huntington Whitley only got the part in the Transformers because she is pretty, she certainly can't act, but that is a matter of a private company doing what it THINKS WILL MAKE THEM MONEY.

That's the way capitalism works, Vladimir.

Truth said...

"there was another great black hope, i forget his name, who kept failing in the 4x100 (this was in the late 90s) and they kept him on, where, if he was white, he would have been pulled.


"I don't remember what his name was, I don't remember what year,I don't remember what events, and maybe I'm just making this shit up!"

Excellent addition to the thread there

Truth said...

" NON BLACK man to break that barrier. The clear insinuation behind some of these articles"

How about the "Clear insinuation" that you need to start doing research?

http://www.iaaf.org/news/printer,newsid=21099.htmx

jody said...

when lemaitre tapers in august, i expect him to go about 9.91 or so. he can definitely go 9.8 after another 1 or 2 years of strength training. i don't think he needs any sports drugs at all to run 9.8 several times. he only needs to avoid chronic injury. he's as fast as carl lewis was at the same age. would be kind of funny if he eventually ran faster than carl's best 100 time. he'll definitely beat carl's best 200 time. speaking of,

he's going to be a better 200 runner than a 100 runner. his first 30 meters of explosion out of the block are only average for a great 100 meter runner (fast compared to even a good NCAA sprinter, obviously) but his top end speed is very high even at the world level and he's tall with a great stride. he might run 200 meters in 19 seconds this year, if not, then next year for sure, again, barring a string of injuries. 1 or 2 injuries is normal for sprinters but a chronic injury problem takes you out of the training zone.

there's a guy in south africa, LV van zyl, who is the fastest 400 hurdle runner in a while. not sure if he can get down to edwin moses speed by next year, but maybe. i've been reading up on kevin young and his 12 steps per hurdle technique in this event, which i'm starting to think might require you to be pretty tall, to get that distance per stride technique down. for a good hurdler, i see about a 2.5 to 3.0 second difference between 400 meter times and 400 meter hurdle times. sometimes i wonder why none of the guys who have run 400 meters in 43 seconds have taken a stab at that 400 meter hurdle record. 'course, there's only like 5 of them ever, and wariner is the only active one.

well, andrew rock did try to switch from 400 meters to 400 meter hurdles, and that did not work out well. we never heard from him again. and this was the guy who went 44.3 and took 2nd at the world championship one year.

jody said...

there's other interesting stuff too, like kibwe johnson delivering the best hammer throw from an american in years. there was a good discus thrower, kevin young, but i don't know where he went, didn't see him at the US championship. both of these guys are african.

and of course the guy i mentioned before, jesse williams, easily winning the US high jump championship with jumps higher than any american has sailed in at least a decade. i went and checked the last 10 years for higher jumps by americans, but found none.

an australian has the longest long jumps in the world this year by a good margin.

i guess this stuff is somewhat mitigated by the fact that the talent pool in the field events is smaller than the track events, but these are still good examples of why there's not much reason to automatically dismiss out of hand the ability of any particular person.

well, if they are african or european. what would be really unusual is seeing somebody from one of the other groups doing this stuff. that happens, but it's really rare.

jody said...

i mean, you're not gonna see a mexican participating in the NBA slam dunk competition, maybe ever, but due to the "familiarity is a prerequisite for derision" principle, you get to make fun of the white players who usually can "only" dunk with authority on basic slams. "Oh, these white guys, they can't jump" the announcer gets to chuckle. but in person, i still have never seen one of these 30 million mexican-americans ever jam the ball, let alone play the game at a level even approaching "respectable". i've seen plenty of "white men can't jump" white players dunk even in pickup games. if you're 6-2 or so you only need a vertical in the 26 inch range to dunk, pretty common performance parameters for a good white athlete but nothing most mexicans can touch.

indians, they're even worse, and there's 1 billion of them. like the chinese, they are absent at the highest levels of play and no negative stereotypes are humorously trotted out at every opportunity. 100 million chinese spectators were tuning in to watch yao ming and to have a chuckle at the "pathetic" white players who "can't jump", oblivious to the fact that there's about 6 chinese guys in the entire world who can even do a simple two handed two foot takeoff jam, despite chinese recreational basketball participation peaking at something crazy like 300 million per year. and now that yao ming retired, there's just 1 asian player left in the NBA.

in the FIBA under 19 tournament you get dunks like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zV_W-h6W3LM

and while i'm not saying these are awesome dunks or anything, i've yet to see anybody but europeans or africans from the US, regularly doing stuff like that in-game. african africans don't seem to be that good at hoops, person for person. sure, a few are good NBA players, but per capita they're not common. in fact, an african african, hasheem thabeet, recently became perhaps the number 1 NBA draft bust of all-time. whether it's due to an accumulating genetic difference between them and africans in north america, who have been living seperately from african africans for hundreds of years now, or lack of interest in basketball, or simple basic lack of any basketball at all in their region, the african african national teams do not do well against the europeans.

Anonymous said...

“Maybe I'm hopelessly naive, but I actually think there's a chance [Usain Bolt] might be clean. He doesn't have that exaggerated musculature, with the convex stomach and notable trapezius muscles and huge arms so common among 'roiders.”

He weighed 168 lbs. in the season before the Beijing Olympics and had a 100m PR of 10.03. He then went up to his current 207 lbs. very, very quickly and got a lot faster.

“West African nations themselves do not seem to systematically identify and coach talented sprinters. There should be a huge untapped pool of athletic talent there.”

Poor nutrition is probably also a factor. Young adult African Americans average 1.78m (5’10”). Young, non-Nilotic Sub-Saharan African males only average about 1.67m (5’5.5”). This would reduce stride length and be much more important in sprinting than distance running, where energy economy and the ability of the legs to take a pounding are important.

Anonymous said...

Sheesh, this anonymous a moron.

"he lost his split of the race."
Yeah, he raced against a Frenchman who, at the time, swam the fastest 100m split in history (a record which lasted all of 46 seconds).

Jones placed 3rd in the qualifying heats and when you place 3rd, you get on the relay. It's pretty simple.

"whites and orientals do better in hurdles - anytime you add any complexity or a requirement of more training and self discipline, black achievement falls off ."

No. There is a paucity of blacks in world-class hurdling.... because hurdling skills match up better with those of a Cornerback than those of sprinting.

Sword said...

I followed the link in the Sailer article, and then went from the men´s 100 meter listings to those of other sports.

Women´s pole vault was the most striking: One white woman, Yelena Isinbayeva, holding 24 of the 30 best results of all time. A Brazilian at shared #26, but a google pics search showed that she is white. I then decided to check with google pics the looks/race of all female pole vaulters, until I found the best black one.

Turned out to be a long search. White women have all the 300 best jumps, with 2 chinese women in the #300-400 range. The best black pole vaulter is Yarisley Silva - who has posted the 373rd best result in history. #373! If I counted correctly, that puts Ms. Silva at #25 among female pole vaulters of all time.

So, which race could not jump?

Sword said...

Women´s soccer World Cup, 2011:

Two black teams, Equtorial Guinea and Nigeria, eliminated in the group stage.

Quarterfinals: Germany - Japan: All-asian team won over a mostly European team, with at least one black.

USA - Brazil: All-white team (stars&stripes) won over a team with several players of partial or whole african descent.

Sweden - Australia: All-white team won over another all-white team.

Britain - France: Britain, with 5 players and one coach of african heritage, loses to a French team with 3 players of african heritage.