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Isn't this what got Jimmy the Greek fired?

Discussion in 'Sports and News' started by da man, Jul 5, 2012.

  1. 93Devil

    93Devil Well-Known Member

    I'm talking about all of sports, not just sprinters, and they have to have some type of access to training. So there has to be some type of setup in the country.
     
  2. Point of Order

    Point of Order Active Member

    Slave trading hub. Fixed. Damn swype typing.
     
  3. Mark2010

    Mark2010 Active Member

    can't deny there are biological factors in play here. I'd have to check the record to be absolutely sure, but I don't think a single track GOLD medal at the Beijing Olympics in 2008 was won by a white male. It's Americans and Carribeans in the sprints and Africans (particularly Kenya and Ethiopia) in the distance events. Wasn't the case even 30 years ago, when you had runners like Sebastian Coe and Steve Ovett, among others.

    I'm glad someone like Johnson has the courage to discuss something like this. Never understood why the entire subject of race had to be so taboo in so many circles.
     
  4. Stoney

    Stoney Well-Known Member

    Then, I'm not sure what your precise point is. One side your arguing deprivation/hunger as a cause, on the other you're arguing access to training/equipment etc. Two factors that tend to have an inverse relationship to each other.

    Regardless, neither factor really explains the Carribbean sprinting thing. Fact is, countries like Jamaica and Trinidad don't do this in other sports, in fact they don't even do this in ONE sport--ever hear of a notable Jamaican distance runner, high jumper or pole vaulter? me neither--in the rest of the Track and Field events hey're notably absent--instead, they only do this in a couple small areas of one sport (sprints and hurdles), but in those tiny narrow areas they DOMINATE to an extent that defies all statistical reason and seems downright impossible in relation to their tiny population bases.

    I have no idea of the reason for it, but I think it's a fascinating little statistical anomoly.
     
  5. Stoney

    Stoney Well-Known Member

    Jeremy Wariner, Nick Willis and I'm guessin there are others.

    As usual, Mark, you are wrong. Could you please refrain from polluting this thread as you have other race oriented threads of the past.
     
  6. Azrael

    Azrael Well-Known Member

    There's no science in support of that statement.
     
  7. Jake_Taylor

    Jake_Taylor Well-Known Member

    What other sports are popular in Jamaica? It has a population about the same as metro Tampa or Seattle, but those places have their best athletes playing football, baseball, basketball, etc. If just about every kid in the Tampa Bay area focused on being a sprinter, might a bunch of Olympic medalists would come from there?
     
  8. 93Devil

    93Devil Well-Known Member

    You keep bringing it back to Caribbean sprinters.

    http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1181210/index.htm

    Why then does a little place like this out out so many football players? Why doesn't Beaver High, about 10 miles away, have 4-5 current and future HOFers? Why doesn't OLSH? Or Cornell? Or Hopewell, which is right up the hill?
     
  9. Stoney

    Stoney Well-Known Member

    Devil, do you really think that Aliquippa High School producing more football players than its surrounding area high schools is really the same as a tiny nation of only 2.8 mil dominating the world of sprinting over nations that have hundreds of millions and even billions (in the case of China)? Do you have any clue how incomparably different those two examples are in terms of statistical improbability?

    I don't care about "Beaver High" or any of your other local yinzer schools, that's a silly comparison.

    And the reason why I keep "bringing it back to Carribbean sprinters" is because that's what the article in the original link was talking about--you know, the actual thread topic? A more baffling question is why you want to shift it into a discussion of Pittsburgh area high school shit.
     
  10. heyabbott

    heyabbott Well-Known Member

    What objective scientific testing has been done to prove or disprove it? Can you imagine any government funded research that's attempt to prove the point?

    And if there is some private research done it's probably like the tobacco companies finding no evidence to support cigarette smoking causing cancer.

    If an identifiable group of people can be proven to 'naturally' excel at certain physical tasks, then it would be true that others can be shown to 'naturally' excel at mental or even emotional tasks . And that can't happen.
     
  11. Herbert Anchovy

    Herbert Anchovy Active Member

    May not have been a formal study but 60 Minutes looked into the growing numbers of Samoan linemen in the NFL.
     
  12. Stoney

    Stoney Well-Known Member

    Its most popular sport, by a significant margin, is cricket.

    Its second most popular sport is soccer.

    Its third most popular sport is track.

    And it has plenty of other sports with marginal popularity levels.


    To some extent, maybe. But would Tampa or Seattle equal what Jamaica's done? Nope. Obviously no way to prove that assertion, but if there was, I'd bet the farm on the answer being no. As those of us who grew up playing football and basketball were made painfully aware of, baseline sprinting speed is something you either have or you don't. How many times did we hear the phrase "can't teach speed"? You can improve and refine it through training, but first you have to have the preliminary gifts--and to perform at the level that these world class Jamaican (and Trinidadian) sprinters have, those preliminary gifts have to be hugely special. We generally know exactly which kids have the gift on that level in every city from an early age, and it's always a damn small list.

    Do I think there's as many people with that gift in the Seattle and Tampa area as the island of Jamaica? No, I do not. Again, can't prove it. But, based on the observational evidence I've seen, my instincts strongly tell me no.
     
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