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Is there a biological reason that there are no black swimmers?

I've been watching the olympics, and have not seen a single swimmer who is black. On the flipside, there is hardly a runner who isn't black. Is there a reason for this?

Public Comments

1. umm, cullen jones...he's black
2. cat says the reason is simply because they are black
3. theres one
4. i have only seen ONE black swimmer and he was from the USA. idk but in my gym class, we swim and all the black people go to the shallow cuz they cant swim. idk its weird. but its funny theyre are so very fast at running.
5. Alot of blacks were living in inner city areas where there weren't available pools or places to swim. Therefore they didn't learn, so there weren't many that did. But that is changing now.
6. well there was a movie about black swimmers, i forgot what it was called, but i think it might have had bernie mac..R.I.P. and some other people that are known in movies like that.
7. Honestly, most of my black friends either.... A. Are afraid of water B. Don't know how to swim!
8. weird ive never though about that......hmmmmm....
9. well usually black guys can run faster. but i thought i saw a black swimmer the other day in the olympics
10. Statistically, blacks like to be dryer and warmer. Im not sure about black swimmers, but not alot of white people are good at basketball.
11. A black guy won a gold medal for the US.
12. There is one Black American swimmer. They did a profile on him and he talked about nearly drowning at 5 years old, so his parents put him in swim lessons. He now sponsors programs to teach black kids how to swim. Outstanding role model! Statistics show that a ridiculously high percentage of kids who drown are black. There is no biological reason only the lack of training. as far as running, the same is true on the other side, there have been many successful white runners in history.
13. I really hope you were being sincere about that question because it is a good question and I would really like to know that answer so if someone with a good answer knows the answer, answer it.
14. Good question. I had read some old (50's) research articles that claimed that black people have less buoyancy (i.e. they float less) than white people, but I thought it was some old-fashioned racist belief. So today I checked for scientific literature again, and to my surprise I found a study that confirms this. In this 1997 article http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/54909/abstract?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0 the authors compared male swimmers and found that, while they were similar in arm span and trunk flexibility, the white swimmers had more body fat and higher buoyancy. ********** EDIT: This doesn't mean that black people can't be professional swimmers, of course. But people tend to enjoy the activities they are good at, and there's nothing wrong with diversity; it's what makes a species (such as Homo sapiens) able to survive.
15. No, biolgical we are all the same everything is skin deep. Here are some swimmer Byron Davis/Michael Norment/Maritza Correia/Sabir Muhammad/Keiko Price
16. Thats a good question and the answer is probably a mix of biological and socio-economic reasons. Example of a biological reason: Black people in general have bigger heavier ankles that are not flexible and this is incredibly important for swimming. Not only do they have a less powerful kick because of it, they are also more likely to cramp their calves and feet. The good thing is that the unflexible ankles make them very fast sprinters. Socio-economic: Swimming is a very expensive sport and parents have to make big sacrifices to get them to where they are. Maybe the majority of black families cannot make this sacrifice (a lot of white people can't either)
17. I'm watching the olympics right now and i saw that there are no black swimmers and this question just popped into my head. It's probably just because blacks aren't as good at swimming than other events or sports like basketball. In basketball there are practically no whites. Why? Because they haven't excelled in it =] Makes sense?