I'm African-American, and, unkike most of my peers, grew up as a swimmer. I think the lack of minorities in the sport is just a lack of exxposure. If you go to any inner-city neighborhood, you'll find very few pools and velodromes, but a filled to capacity basketball court on every block.

Related story (swimming though, not triathlon):

http://www.swimnews.com/News/displayStory.jhtml?action=get&id=3209

There were a few discussions along these lines in the past:

http://forum.slowtwitch.com/gforum.cgi?post=69082

http://forum.slowtwitch.com/...a%20olympics;#188538

In Canada it is pretty well zero. If someone needs to spot me at a race, I ask them to look for the one Indian guy.

I have a funny story from 1994 ITU World's in Wellington NZ. Team Canada was sharing a hotel with Team South Africa. One of the smartass guys on our team, went up to one of the South Africans and said, "How come you only have white guys on your team ? Where are the Africans on you team ?". The South African fellow replied, "First of all, I AM African. Secondly, where are all the Black guys on your team ?". There was a moment of awkward silence. Out of over 100, there were two minority guys on our team and I was one of them.

In Canada , in general, the kids of Indian immigrants are not encouraged to do sport. You either get a PhD in Physics, become a medical doctor or you are loser. Becoming an engineer is somewhat acceptable. Thus, there are very few of us who are actively encouraged by our parents to engage in sport. I can't speak for other minorities, but I get the feeling from my friends with Chinese parents that pretty well the same dynamic applies.

There are a few of us around in North America. Vinu Malik, the CEO of Fuel Belt is a kick as Ironman age grouper. Jay Srivastsa from Los Gatos is also a pretty quick fellow and has done multiple races at Kona. He's also split 3:15 in an Ironman !

Dev

As a swim parent who works alot of meets, I see alot of Chinese coming into the sport of swimming. Many clubs in Toronto have a high number of Chinese members but I will say that our club has very few minorities. Those that are here are mostly younger kids so maybe the parental attitude towards sports is changing. Second generation parents perhaps?

J

"I'm African-American, and, unlike most of my peers, grew up as a swimmer"

Interesting point. I know three Afro-Canadians that have told me point blank "black people can't swim" . One of them even came originally from the Caribbean. We both know this isn't true, but it's their perception. An old girlfriend of mine could swim but never would claiming that her hair was the issue. Other black women have told me the same thing.

I assume it's a cultural thing but to answer the original post, at tris I've been to they're mostly a "white thing" from what I've seen, but I do notice some minorities, in fact there seem to be a fair number of oriental competitors with smaller numbers of black or east Indian participants.

Some of our regulars here are minority members. Jaylew, Dev and Tricheermom come immediately to mind.

"In Canada it is pretty well zero"

Dev,

You're either not noticing or you're doing different tris from me. I'd say it's 95% white but there are minority competitors. In fact I know personally three local Kingston area oriental trigeeks. In Ottawa this year I actually thought I'd look for you as the "east Indian guy", but I saw three of you so didn't bother introducing myself.

Cervelo guy, OK zero is an exaggeration, but perhaps 2-3% max. To the poster above, most of us second generation guys and gals are actively putting our kids in all kinds of sport programs. I guess this comes with affluence. Most first generation parents were just struggling to build a new life, build a career in a new country, integrate with society and often send money back home to help support aging parents and extended family. Sport was low on the priority list. For second generation folk, sport is much higher up the list. The soccer team I coached this summer has about 50% minority kids (mainly Indian and Chinese descent) and 50% European descent.

"If you can read this, then you don't play football"

Dev,

I definately agree that it's often a second generation activity, at least with certain cultures. I think you nailed the immigrant experience perfectly. Not that I would know personally, but from what I've read it usually takes until the third generation to be fully integrated. Your generation is still caught in the middle, generally speaking? My ex wife was a daughter of Italian immigrants so I saw this in her also.

Tim Duncan, the star of the San Antonio Spurs basketball team, was quite an excellent swimmer he was a young teenager. Supposedly, he was training to go to the Olympics (in swimming) when he was younger, but people recognized his basketball potential, he went to Wake Forest and the rest is history. The silly guy gave up countless hundreds of dollars for the millions of dollars that he earns as one of the best basketball players in the NBA.

Rainier Wolfecastle, the Arnold-esque character on the Simpson’s, was asked, by a reporter, how he sleeps at night after some very unflattering news came out on him and he replied (with his thick Austrian accent), "On a big pile of money with many beautiful women."

   

Another great thing about Miami -- white folks (Americans, anyway) are the minorities. Races here are dominated by Latinos.

SM

Ditto here in New Mexico. I wouldn't say that white folks are the minority at races but there is a pretty large group athletes that are either hispanic or Native American. There are some Navajo runners out here that are just plain fast.

I completely agree with your point about asian parents wanting their children to focus on their education more than sports. Coming from Japanese descent, I did very little sport as a youth. There was a bit of baseball thrown in but once high school, university started, it was "study, study, study". Even post graduation, I think a general immigrant Asian trait is to "succeed", and to impress other families. So, we have to be in successful jobs, get married, buy a house yadda yadda.

Most of my asian friends are certainly like this; some following it more religiously than others but point being that success can only be measured by money. Most work long hours and are exhausted by the end of the day and can't fathom how I could possibly workout once, let alone twice a day. I think also there may be the success angle; even when I invite some to an easy run, bike or even to come to a workout, they shy away saying "I'll be the last one". They have a tremendous fear of doing something they're not good at.

Last but not least, exposure. I had no idea what tri was when I was younger; especially around Japanese school. All we did was play soccer. (Zzz) I liked biking but was always intimidated by pack racing (never knew about TT). Its hard to get interested in a sport without people to look up to. How many asian pro-cyclists do you know? (Although I saw on cyclingnews some Jap is joining Discovery - yay!)

man I'd love to meet a cute Japanese triathlete...

ps. Statistically, the club I train with has 3 asian guys, and 1 african-american woman out of oh... 80 odd registered athletes.

In the Pacific Northwest, participation is mostly white, of course. However, there are more than a few Asians at the races in Portland and Seattle, close to the same perecnteage as I have seen in big running races. I would guess 5 percent or more. There are plenty of people who run and do tris whose parents or grandparents are from China, Korea, the Phillipines, Japan. I know a few. Latinos are not unknown to triathlons in the West either, just look at the names in the results.

"man I'd love to meet a cute Japanese triathlete... "

You should have met the gal that my bike was parked next to at my last tri of the season. Now that was one hot looking Japanese lady. I chatted her up a bit, but couldn't do too much since my wife had her bike parked on the other side of me!

Kinda funny actually. I got to T1 just as she was leaving, passed her on the bike and was leaving T2 just as she was arriving and she passd me me at the end of the run. We said "hi" at each moment.

where? what tri? who? hahaa. just kidding. I'm too much of a banana anyway. I guess doing tri just adds to my "white"-ness.

Tim Duncan's older sisters represented the US Virgin Islands at the Olympics. He probably would have went to the games as a swimmer as well, but a hurricane (I think it was Hugo) demolished the only competition sized pool on St. Croix. Rather than wait for it to be repaired, he switched to basketball, and the rest is history.

Hey watch that banana comment! I am one and possibly Khai and PowerGoyaza (taking the liberty of speaking on their behalf!) But we are on the asian coast of Canada where there are alot of us bananas.

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Simple Simon
Where's the Fried Chicken??