Race is all about RACE

2008 Beijing Olympics is over and was full of record breaking moments, most noted among them were in swimming and athletics events. I remember the discussion which I had with my friend last weekend regarding the correlation between race and medal winning. I opined that people of African origin has got many innate qualities which gives them an edge over athletes of other race. My friend didn't accepted this conjecture straight away, probably because he is a hardcore egalitarian and simply doesn't believes in counting race as a factor in any argument, he believes in "equality". As this Beijing fever is over now, now I have the chance to support my opinion with some data. If we have a look into the medal standings' athletics section we would find that 90% of the track events', which only deals with proving ones running capabilities, gold medalist's are of African origin, either a native or diasporic African. Look into the USA's case, it topped this particular section and all of the gold medalists were black(I am not a racist but I guess referring people of African origin as Black is not offensive). Leave aside the count of golds secured by nations like Jamaica, Ethiopia or Kenya, even the lone gold winner from Great Britain in women's track events is black. Look into the history of running and you will find this turf ruled by many great black sprinters, some deified and some humiliated after doping scandals. Michale Johnson, Carl Lewis, Marion Jones are few names from the past which comes to my mind because I grew along with their records and controversies. No doubt, the rise of African-Americans from slavery to the status minority group and then contributing to the nation as Olympians is attributed to the pluralistic society of USA but there must be some other factor which helps this minority group to emerge as creme de la creme athletics.


Having put forward all these pieces of information and opinion, I am not trying to make you interpret that race is the deciding factor in all sports but it is, and it must be, one of the factors which makes a champion. Race determines ones genetic, sociological and metabolic factors and all these are as important as training and socio-political support to any sport. Lets have an analogy here. Even if you put in your best Labrador against my Grey hound for a sprint, I am not going to be worried at all. But yes, when your hound is pitted against mine, I get worried. If we have a look into the finalists of men's 100m event you can't help but notice that almost all of them are blacks. It's not that the selection system of countries like USA and Britain deliberately picks black athletes due to their ethnic lineage but because of the fact that blacks are naturally gifted or rather are evolved to perform better and hence they emerge as gold winners. Probably, it is time for us, read India, to capitalise on our diversity, and the greater responsibility now lies on the hands of state governments. But what should be the course? A systematic and diligent approach, like China, should be the key to reach a respectable position in the Olympic medal tally. Of course, Punjab should focus more on boxing, wrestling, weightlifting and others which demands more from sports person's strength and power. Needless to say that folks from north-eastern states can also prove to be Olympic winners in many events, especially women. These are just some examples. All states can contribute to India's success only if they act wise and prudent and for that the important thing which we all have to do is discover our potentials, of course based on race, and focus on that.

What so ever may be the extent of belief of egalitarian folks and proponents of the so called equality, denial of the fact that nature has moulded us differently, depending on myriad factors, will be tantamount to fallacy. To me it's a great paradox. On one hand, we have millions being poured to check on doping and on the other we have the nature, the perpetrator in this case, who has already doped a few. Expecting an all-black race in the men's 100m final event in London Olympics will not be racism but truism. While thinking about the future of Olympics one wonders, how it would be 50 years down the line? Will it really hold any value? What will happen if mankind moves ahead with the implementation if genetic engineering. Won't nations use genetic engineering to produce men and women with hyper abilities, which might undermine the crux of any sports event. Probably I would stay alive to see it myself, but as of now all I can say is that the world is not all about being equal and running the race, it about knowing that there are differences, and the privileged few may have both overt and covert edge, and one has to put in more effort to reach the summit.