Black Distance Runners

                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.

Media Coverage in Sport: Good or Bad

               I think the media plays important role in illustrating the image and spectacle of sport. The different types of media include newspaper, wire services, magazines and television. As large population gets access to those media, certain sport or athletes gain enormous amount of attention. This is crucial because sport also contains entertaining aspect. While media is having positive effect on sport, there are also some negative influences of media. 

                Media helps sport organization or league to generate astronomical amount of revenue. Media companies pay television rights to illustrate sporting events, while those sports shown on the media gain sponsorship. Media coverage also produces role models for people. Watching greatest sports player on television or in newspapers allow people to look up to those athletes. On the other hand, I think the media coverage can sometimes cause problems. Sports players often complain about media’s too much attention to their private lives, which this will definitely affect the players’ performance. Another fact is that since television shows various kinds of sporting events, people often feel less interested in buying a ticket and going to the actual game; this can result significant drop in ticket sales.

Mass fitness vs. Elite competitiveness

               It was interesting to learn how United States stressed the physical fitness of the citizens in the twentieth century. After the country had figured out that the level of American youth’s fitness are tested way below the European children, the government tried to provide a mass fitness. John F. Kennedy emphasized that the government must ensure sport participation as a basic and continuing policy. However, as the Cold War rivalry between United States and Soviet Union began, the federal government decided to significantly consider American amateur sport.

                I think the sport is playing important role in gaining political prestige, even in the present days. We simply think that number of gold medals won by country is its level of ability in their sport competition. However at the same time, there is a competition going on in the political fight. Dominance in sport competition especially at Olympic Games portrays a relationship between political nature and the sport. I think it’s true that ideological rivalry still exists even though the Cold War has ended.