Just look at the starting line of a 100 or 200-meter world-wide or Olympic final to understand how there is a clear supremacy of black athletes in speed sports. In particular, there are almost always individuals (eg Jamaicans, Canadians and Americans) descended from populations of West Africa.
One of the most reliable theories to explain this supremacy regards the differences in some morphological characteristics. In particular, it is well known that black individuals tend to have, in proportion, longer limbs and shorter torso than those of the white race; this characteristic, to an expert, is clearly evident to the naked eye. This also translates into a difference in the center of gravity, which in black sprinters tends to place itself in a higher position.
During the run launched a greater space of fall of the center of gravity ensures, at the same other physical characteristics, a greater speed. The downside is that long levers express more power only if they have the space to do it; when this is scarce, as in the first meters from the blocks (short passes), short and muscularly endowed athletes have an advantage, while the taller ones (see the Jamaican Usain Bolt) start their comeback from 30 meters onwards.
If we move from the race to the Olympic weight-lifting disciplines, we realize that athletes with opposite physical characteristics stand out, with a low center of gravity and proportionally short limbs with respect to the bust. Same thing for swimming, where a wider and longer bust benefits flotation. It is no coincidence that in these sports it is quite rare to see black athletes among the finalists
Unfounded, even if apparently logical, is the "old" and repeated theory according to which the deportations of African peoples, from which today's Caribbean and African American black athletes descend, would have selected the most resistant individuals at the expense of the weaker ones, who died of hardship during transport across the Atlantic or hard work on plantations.
To make the hypothesis that correlates the greater speed of colored athletes to their particular skeletal characteristics particularly plausible, there is also the fact that it is an unchangeable quality with training. Other determining characteristics, such as the enzymatic pool (CPK concentrations), the muscle mass / fat mass ratio, the capacity of recruitment of motor units and the ratio of fast fibers (including those adapted by the intermediate ones) / slow fibers are in fact strongly influenced by the 'work out.
