Abstract
Introduction: Elite performance in sports is known to be influenced by heritable components, but the magnitude of such an influence has never been quantified.Hypothesis/Objectives: We hypothesized that having a former world-class champion in the family increases the chances of an athlete to repeat the achievement of her or his kinship. We aimed to measure the heritability of a medal in the Olympic Games (OG) among Olympians and to estimate the percentage of the genetic contribution to such a heritance.Study Design: Twin-family study of a retrospective cohort.Methods: All the 125,051 worldwide athletes that have participated in the OG between 1896 and 2012 were included. The expected probability to win a medal in the OG was defined as the frequency of medallists among Olympians without any blood kinship in the OG. This expected probability was compared with the probability to win a medal for Olympians having a kinship (grandparent, aunt/uncle, parent, or siblings) with a former Olympian that was a (1) non-medallist or (2) medallist. The heritability of the genetically determined phenotype (h2) was assessed by probandwise concordance rates among dizygotic (DZ) and monozygotic (MZ) twins (n = 90).Results: The expected probability to win a medal in the OG was 20.4%. No significant difference of medal probability was found in the subgroups of Olympians with a Non-medallist kinship, except among siblings for whom this probability was lower: 13.3% (95% CI 11.2–14.8). The medal probability was significantly greater among Olympians having a kinship with a former Olympic Medallist: 44.4% for niece/nephew (33.7–54.2); 43.4% for offspring (37.4–48.6); 64.8% for siblings (61.2–68.8); 75.5% for DZ twins (63.3–86.6); and 85.7% for MZ twins (63.6–96.9); with significantly greater concordance between MZ than DZ (p = 0.01) and h2 estimated at 20.5%.Conclusion: Having a kinship with a former Olympic medallist is associated with a greater probability for an Olympian to also become a medallist, the closer an athlete is genetically to such kinship the greater this probability. Once in the OG, the genetic contribution to win a medal is estimated to be 20.5%.
Highlights
Elite performance in sports is known to be influenced by heritable components, but the magnitude of such an influence has never been quantified.Hypothesis/Objectives: We hypothesized that having a former world-class champion in the family increases the chances of an athlete to repeat the achievement of her or his kinship
Previous studies have shown that heterozygous mutation of the HFE gene, which improves oxygen transport, was doubled in endurance athletes compared to the general population and was 12 times more frequent among those reaching international podiums (Hermine et al, 2015)
Without willingness and directed training, traits expressed in sports performance cannot be revealed; (Ericsson et al, 1993; Baker and Horton, 2004) (2) the second particular feature is related to high-level athletes from families that have not been involved in sports
Summary
Elite performance in sports is known to be influenced by heritable components, but the magnitude of such an influence has never been quantified.Hypothesis/Objectives: We hypothesized that having a former world-class champion in the family increases the chances of an athlete to repeat the achievement of her or his kinship. A polymorphism in the ACTN3 gene, for instance, has been shown to be associated with muscular performance (Yang et al, 2003, 2009; Papadimitriou et al, 2008; Eynon et al, 2009), while greater frequency of polymorphism in genes associated with sustained effort, such as the ACE or the COL5A1 gene, has been found (Montgomery et al, 1998; Brown et al, 2011; Ma et al, 2013) These inter-individual variations determine a predisposition to a particular type of effort as well as the athletic level, since the frequency of polymorphisms favoring specific performance increases with the sports level (Eynon et al, 2009, 2012). The genetic contribution to elite athletic status is still barely understood (Pitsiladis et al, 2013; Wang et al, 2013)
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