Breeding Champions - Nature or Nuture
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As promised, I wanted to revisit my trip to the Caribbean to briefly discuss my thoughts on what is perhaps one of most vehemently discussed topics in the world of sport. Interestingly, I write this article whilst I am in the South of France training and staying with my good friend Joe. This was a topic we discussed at length on Saturday evening, and although I'm not sure exactly where we got to, I think there were some strong parallels in what we discussed to what I think I want to write today.
Firstly, I think it is important to mention that my opinion alone does not provide any answers, all I wanted to do was reflect on my experiences of Jamaica specifically to provide some further insight.
If you look at two of the most well publicised examples - the Kenyan distance runners and the Jamaican sprinters, it is easy to think that there must be something genetic in the way that they consistently produce top sprinters. However, as yet any research that has been done has been rather inconclusive. There is no doubt that genetically you need good parents to succeed, but I'm not sure this nature debate isn't really an excuse for all the other aspects that are held within nurture that we almost sometimes ignore. Let me explain further:
1. The weekend that I was out in Jamaica, there were 5 track meets across the island with over 5000 kids competing. In one meet they only ran the 100m and 200m because there was no capacity to run any other events.
2. Within the school environment, kids actually 'train' during their 'games' lessons and local clubs are in fact picking out talented athletes at a young age for additional work.
3. My own impressions of being present at an athletic meet, and working with both athletes and coaches is that culturally there is a huge desire to breed good sprinters and it is ingrained at all levels of society
4. The successful sprinters, Asafa Powell Usain Bolt are heroes for a nation that is passionate beyond belief about sprinting. Whether it is a way out, or whether it is all about aspiration, most Jamaicans want to emulate their success
I would like to throw one more example into the mix. Did anyone notice Norway's performance at the Winter Olympics? Of the total 86 medals on offer, Norway won 23 - a staggering 27%. Norway's gold medal count was 9, the same tally as the United States, a country with 64 times as many people. Has anyone mentioned the word 'genetics' with regards to this success? Not really, in fact it is referenced more a case of environment, culture, science and hard work. My experience of Jamaica only reinforces this very point - in fact thinking about it, if you truly look at the wealth of talent in sprinting and distance running can we really explain it through genetics? I'm not so sure... and if I look at why there are no (or limited) successful distance runners in the UK, I would ask the following questions: do we have the right environment? Is distance running truly built into our culture or society? Do we hold our distance runners at the top of our aspiration pyramid? Do we foster winning at all costs? Is distance running something we do when we are young as means of getting to school and back?
I'll let you dwell on those answers, but for me I'm not sure any of the above is in our favour. So when I hand on heart answer the question, I think genetics is perhaps an excuse for covering up some of our environmental and cultural inadequacies.
Nick
Comments On "Nick Morgan - Science Lab"
bit far
I think I agree with what you are saying about culture and the obvious selective advantage of having a larger pool of athletes, but disagree that the genetic differences are inconclusive. Has it not been shown that E.Africans have increased economy when running due to their lighter frames and longer more efficient muscle structure? It has also been shown that being born at altitude gives the obvious advantage of being able to carry more oxygen, and that this advantage persists to a much greater degree when the E.Africans move to sea level. As opposed to athletes born at sea level who can temporarily raise their haemoglobin whilst training at altitude, but it regresses once they are back down at sea level for a few weeks.
Dan Stevens Posted on April 5th, 2010Also think it's a little risky to describe our 'cultural and environmental inadequacies' in such sweeping terms, there is a lot in our sporting culture to be proud of. They love football almost as much as running in kenya and they haven't got a great national team! You don't need much in the way of infrastructure to produce good footballers, look at the West Africans. It's also not the fault of British distance runners that they are born in Norfolk or Devon, and not from an evolutionary lineage that was based on covering large distances day-to-day like the Kenyans. We aren't blameless, but I think we are starting with a 15 point deficit like Leeds in 2007!