gonna be politically incorrec wrote:
ok I am an indian american runner and I have a few things to say on the topic...
the reason indians might not be as good is simply the same reason why africans are so much better than everyone else GENETICS. im not saying that indians could not have a few good runners but genetically we might not be as capable in any type of athletics as other people. we make up for that in smarts.
also and probably more importantly, culturally indians never really cared much for sports. the emphasis is on education. so people aren't really good runners there because they emphasize other things in their culture.
I disagree; GENETICS has nothing to do with it!
There are a lot good young Asian-American athletes competing for U.S. high schools. Go to a track meet in NJ or anywhere in the U.S. that has a large Indian population and you will see young Indians who are competitive in sprints, distance and field events.
GENETICS is an easy copout, granted some athletes are born with certain GENETIC advantages, but are usually also disadvantaged in other ways. U.S. athletes have the best training, nutrition and overall infarstructure, whereas China and India could produce great runners by shere volume; East Africa has altitude, perfect body builds and great tradition....any race can produce great runners if they focus on it.
- I trained two Indian girls, who were very talented; I will tell you that there is absolutely nothing unique about Indians that precludes them from running. The parents of the two girls eventually pulled them off of the track team becasue it distracted from school work, which made no sense to me becasue the team was full of straight students. Culturally, Indians are very career minded and see the U.S. as the land of opportunity and take advantage of the 'vocational' opportunities, but fail to realize that sports is an intergal part of the American experience and that it not all about getting into a good college and getting a good job.