Big strong athletes better than small weak ones

[DimPrawn]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sciencean...er-rivals.html

Incredible finding. Blown away.

[Mich the Tester]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sciencean...er-rivals.html

Incredible finding. Blown away.

Believe it or not, for sports scientists it’s quite interesting, although perhaps the conclusion appears obvious to others; it confirms something I’ve thought for a long time. Look at the sprint events; lots of people suggest that it’s always going to be black athletes winning, because mostly black athletes have won the 100 since the war; all sorts of theories abound as to the genetic reasons for this. What people appear to have missed though is that it’s nearly always the tallest athlete who wins the race; Bolt, Bailey, Christie, Lewis and Wells were all 6ft+ and the tallest men in the race. So when scouting for the sprinters of the future, perhaps sports coaches should take a bit more notice of height and care a little less about ´race´. Tall runners have long legs and their skeletons offer plenty of room for developing large muscles without the leg muscles getting in each others´ way. The german hurdler Florian Swarthoff, who rivalled Colin Jackson as the best of his time, was a very tall man who ran 13.05 for the 110 hurdles. His 10.57 PB for the 100m would not indicate an ability to run a time like that over hurdles; the problem for a tall sprinter is coordination; sort out the coordination and he’ll gain metres; that’s what happened with Usain Bolt; he sorted his coordination out and improved by half a second in a couple of years.

Obviously there’ll always be exceptions, but a good big guy will usually beat a good little guy.

[xoggoth]

How come we only have size groupings in boxing and weightlifting? We should have a little weedy people hurdles class.

[Mich the Tester]

How come we only have size groupings in boxing and weightlifting? We should have a little weedy people hurdles class.

Hmmm; Colin Jackson was the great exception to the rule, and one of the greatest hurdlers ever at 5ft 11. OK, not a small guy, but certainly shorter than his competitors; he had a nearly perfect technique, perhaps because he was forced by his lack of height to develop a perfect technique.

Anyway, there are sports for small people where big people can't compete with them; horse racing, cycle racing, gymnastics to name a few.

[Mich the Tester]

The researcher chappy says “In antiquity, body weights were roughly 70 per cent less than they are today,”

Were the Athenians and Romans really that small? Little two foot tall guys weighing 4 stone?
I'll tell you what; a two foot tall man running a 14 second 100 metres would be, inch for inch, phenomenal. Think what a 6 ft Athenian could have done!

I think not; did he actually say 17 percent and the journalist didn’t care to think about what he’d written down?

[The Lone Gunman]

The researcher chappy says “In antiquity, body weights were roughly 70 per cent less than they are today,”

Were the Athenians and Romans really that small? Little two foot tall guys weighing 4 stone?
I'll tell you what; a two foot tall man running a 14 second 100 metres would be, inch for inch, phenomenal. Think what a 6 ft Athenian could have done!

I think not; did he actually say 17 percent and the journalist didn’t care to think about what he’d written down?

Possibly "70% of what they are today"?

[Mich the Tester]

Possibly "70% of what they are today"?

Sounds more like it.

[TimberWolf]

The fastest land animal is the cheetah, which is pretty light.

[EternalOptimist]

Possibly "70% of what they are today"?

deffo.

I tried to get into an ancestors suit of armour. no way, it was way too tight


except in the kn0b department, there was plenty of room there for some obscure reason. must be a design fault

[xoggoth]

Those codpieces always looked like empty boasting to me.