Usain Bolt
The first athlete that I will be looking at is Usain Bolt, a Jamaican sprinter who currently holds the world record in the 100m and 200m sprint. Bolt also holds the record for gold medal finishes with 6 Olympic gold medal finishes and 11 world championship finishes to his name. Has his success been down to a strict training regime and countless hours of dedicated work or was he born to live a life in the blocks?
Usain Bolt was born on 21 August 1986. He spent his childhood playing football and cricket on the street with his brother, "when I was young, I didnt really think about anything other than sport."
His potential to run became recognised at his primary school races where he at the age of 12 became the fastest 100m sprinter in the school. In secondary school, he was encouraged to pick up track where Pablo McNeil, a former Olympic sprinter, and Dwayne Jarrett because his coaches. A strong partnership grew and Bolt skyrocketed to success. Has his secret been purely hours of dedicated work or has it been in his genes?
A study has revealed that Jamaican sprinters tend to be faster due to the symmetry in their knees, how small a difference this may sound, actually has a much larger impact. Due to their knees being more symmetrical, when sprinting their knees keep in a straight line instead of moving side to side slightly as most sprinters of other nationalities tend to do. As well as the knee advantage, people from West Africa, including Jamaicans, have in their genetics more 'fast-twitch' muscle fibres. This results in energy being produced from the bodies sugars rather oxygen and this is ideal for short, intense bursts of activity such as sprinting.
So there we have it, it may not be down purely to genetics but Bolt has been handed many advantages over his fellow sprinters. The symmetry in his knees and increased fast-twitch muscle fibres capacity are purely down to genetics so we cannot say for certain that he was always going to be an Olympic champion sprinter but it seems that it is more genetics than practice in this case
