Success, Race and Athletic Performance

Abstract

The relative success of athletes with African ancestry in sports such as track and field has been a topic of interest in the popular press and to a lesser extent in the sports science and physiology literature. Historical focus has been placed, to a large extent, on sprinting and, to a lesser extent, on the long jump. More recently, attention has shifted to the success of East African athletes in the middle distance and distance running events. A common question is whether structural, compositional and/or physiological differences between performers of African and European ancestry (most often American Blacks and American Whites) may explain the apparent performance advantage of Black athletes. The purpose of this paper is to examine the limited scientific evidence for or against racial differences, primarily in running performance and other physical outcomes. The available evidence indicates considerable overlap and relatively <i>small differences</i> in a variety of biological characteristics between Blacks and Whites, athletes and non-athletes. By inference, observed differences in running success between Black and White athletes are likely related to non-biological factors, which need serious scholarly attention and elaboration. The potential interactions between biological, social, and cultural factors related to performance deserve systematic consideration with this timeless debate of athletic performance. Some empirical research (see Stone, Lynch, Sjomeling, & Darley, 1999) supports the concept of Environmental Adaptive Aptitudes (EAA) (Proctor & Harrison, 1999) as a more holistic approach to investigate this issue.