yanling said:
The fact that the personal bests of white sprinters today seem to have declined, in general, from the best recorded times for white sprinters from the 1950s-1980s tells me that one or more of the following might be true:1. white sprinting prospects are not coached properly2. white sprinting prospects are never prospected for in the first place3. white sprinters from yesteryear used performance enhancing drugs4. whites do not even bother trying to compete anymoreIt seems inconceivable to me that no white sprinter today can run faster than Armin Hary did in 1960. Or faster than Japanese sprinters like Nobuharu Asahara (PB 10.02) and Shingo Suetsugu (PB 10.03). <span style="font-weight: bold;"></span>What's the deal?
This is a very interesting topic and one that i have given much thought. It's doubtful that there is any one definitive answer, so just about any opinion put forward will be true to some extent.
As one involved in high school sports, one cannot help but notice that there are three basic categories of programs: 1)perennial powerhouses, 2)middle of the pack, and 3) perennial losers. I find it hard to believe that the perennial powerhouses and the perennial losers have superior and inferior "gene pools", respectively, from which to draw. So what are the reasons that one program wins most of the time and the other loses most of the time? I think that the answer is relevant to the dominance of blacks in, in this case, sprinting.
First of all, the cream does TEND to rise to the top, but there are mitigating factors. I think (actually am 99% sure) that in some cases the best athletes achieve their potential and in others they do not. If you follow high school sports closely, you may notice that at some schools (the perennial powerhouses) there are consistently athletes who exceed the school record of the perennial losers. Because of a superior gene pool? I doubt it. I think that the main factor is attitude and expectations. In one case the expectations are high and the attitude is that those expectations can be achieved. In the other the expectations are low and the attitude is can't do, rather than a can do.
There are many blacks who are very fast runners. They don't do so well just because of affirmative action. Give them credit for their talent. But, it's very possible that the situation regarding white sprinters is skewed for reasons other than talent. Maybe, in the USA, the expectation for whites is that they just cannot beat blacks and, if you want to coach a winning sprinter, you have to recruit and train blacks. The conventional wisdom is that white sprinters are too likely to not be good enough, and black sprinters are much more likely to be better. And, the white athletes also select themselves out of sprinting because they percieve their chance of success as low.
So, that my two cents worth on the topic and all sensible replies will be greatly appreciated.