Question: so is it true tht race can effect the speed of how fast people can run; e.g. black people in the 100m? (Usain Bolt) :D

Chris Cooper answered on 25 Mar 2010:

This is a complicated question. Part of the problem is that “race” as such doesn’t exist. So if you look at the US population most people share genes with black people (interbreeding goes everywhere). The most controlled study looked at a small geographical group of East African Kenyan runners who were very good at long distance running but those elsewhere in the country were worse. All the Olympic champions were from this small region.

When this was looked at genetically it turned out there was no difference between the winners and losers. The most likely (still not proven) is that the kids in the successful part of Kenya ran 5 miles to school every day from age 7! Fancy a go at that?

A lot of sport is about role models and how fast you think you can run. So at 800m (2 lap races) most of the best UK times were made 20 years ago (Sebastian Coe, Steve Ovett, Steve Cram), But if you look at world times the best ones were made recently. So it is not that black runners are going faster – we are going slower as we think we can’t win!

But a very good question!