FAO SCC: Jamaican sprinting success is not due to genes, nor is Eth/Ken long-distance.

It's true that the "twitch" muscle fibres (I think they're called) that give added sprinting ability are prevalent in 95% or more of Jamaicans but about 85% of white Europeans also have them. There's no significant difference in DNA between Jamaican sprinters and the rest of the world. In fact, there's no significant differences between any "race" of people.

Jamaican heros are sprinters and all of the young kids want to emulate them, raising themselves out of poverty in the process.

The Ethiopan/Kenyan long-distance running phenomenon is also not genetics. They all come from a very small area of the country that is at high altitude and have to run about 10 miles to school and back every day in their youth. They are therefore at a ridiculous advantage compared to the rest of the world!

Source of information (although some of the above may not have been quoted quite rightly) is a Matthew Syed book called Bounce. I would highly recommend it!

Posted By: JD3, Oct 31, 14:42:27