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Chariots of Silicon
ToddML writes "I just spotted this article at wired.com which talks about the current deficiencies of the U.S. long-distance running program, and more importantly, what is being done about it. An interesting story from both a gadget perspective, and for the source of the program -- private industry."
But it isn't because of the shoes.
It's simply that the African athletes are naturally endowed with highly developed athletic ability. If you were to take two athletes, one white and one black, and trained them in the same manner, you will find that the black athlete will excel in endurance, strength, and power quite a bit beyond the white athlete's performance. This is made obvious by the repeated drubbing of white long distance athletes in the Olympics and other world athletic competitions.
So why doesn't America use black athletes in long distance events? Simply because of the dominance of America in the shorter sprinting events. The limited pool of black athletes can only be divided so much. Short distance sprinting and long distance running are not interchangeable, they are completely different styles. While a short distance sprinter may be able to become a world-class distance runner, the reverse is never true. So in order to garner more medals, America designates black runners as short distance competitors and leaves the less talented (relatively speaking) white runners to long distance events.
One interesting case is the women's marathon in the last Olympics by a Japanese. Short, with short legs and thus a short stride, she held on and placed first in the event.
I have been pwned because my
The core feature of this (apart from all the bio-monitoring) seems to be the idea of keeping a whole house at equivalent air pressure to 12,000 feet. This lets the athletes train at sea level, while resting at altitude (which is seen as a 'good thing').
But doesn't it open the athletes up to altitude sickness? Granted, 12,000 feet is low to get this, but it's generally caused as much by the change in altitude as the absolute altitude (So generally if you take a week climbing to 16,000 feet you're much less likely to be afflicted than if you do it in a couple of days). Oddly enough, it affects fit people as much as (or often more than) the unfit, so I do wonder whether they have any problem with this.
Incidentally, I know that 20,000 feet is about half an atmosphere, so I guess they're talking about 2/3 (sea-level) atmosphere at 12,000 feet.
They should have two categories for sports like distance running and track-and-field, one would be drug- and tech(blood doping, etc)- free, the other would be "anything goes". It would be interesting to see the steroid-charged atomic supermen in the "anything goes" category competing against each other. I wounder how fast we could engineer a human body to run?
If you cant beat 'em, spend loadsamoney out-teching them.
Whats the frigging point of having impeccably fair races, drugs testing, etc., when countries can do this sort of thing, giving athletes an unfair advantage over poorer nations' competitors? Granted, the results have yet to be seen but I doubt it will make them any worse athletes. The winning seems to count more than the sportsmanship and fairness.
A bit like U.S. foreign policy, then :-|
Ali
Ph33r m3!!!