There had been suggested opinion that physical difference among black people might have enhanced their athletic ability in sport. Nowadays, we are able to see black athletes dominating certain sports such as football, basketball and track & field. Many scientists have tried to prove this by examining black athletes’ physical characteristic, and stated that blacks could gain advantage in sports that perform throwing and jumping events because of their longer forearms and hands. In addition, longer legs and narrower hips help black athletes to run faster than other races.
The article “Great Speed But Little Stamina” stresses that black athletes are disadvantageous on sport that require great stamina because they have lower breathing capacity. However, I started to question the statement because of the dominating performance of Kenyan marathon runners. If we look at the world top ten lists of fastest marathon runners, all ten of them are black athletes (1 Ethiopian and 9 Kenyan). I heard that Kenyan live and train at 2400m of high altitude land, which this environmental condition might help them to perform better at lower altitude. But my question still lies with the contradicting opinion introduced in the article by looking at the outstanding performance of male black marathons runners.
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