This turns into a Black Mirror episode if they find genetic markers for elite athletes, especially if they're able to get down to a sport specific genetic marker.

If you've got a 4yr old kid who could be an olympic sprinter, the tendency would be to push them down that path and it begins to eliminate a lot of free will.

Let people self select into the sports they want to participate in. Plus it's the hard work that deters most people from reaching their potential, not genetics

I actually doubt that genetic testing will reveal a lot more world-beating performers who are totally undiscovered, at least for the well-penetrated sports. That includes running, swimming, and even cycling (via x-over).

Super gifted athletes in their respective fields stand out very quickly even in casual sports. Like so much so that they will have numerous adults constantly pushing them toward and into that activity.

For super fringe sports, I think this would be true, but triathlon has enough overlap with running (where you are super easily identified even if you never run competitively) that superstars will stand out.

In terms of picking the absolute BEST world champion, I doubt genetic testing will ever work for that as it's obviously a lot more the genetics. The genetic markers eventually though, have a good chance of identifying the majority of folks who even have a shot although we might be surprised how 'duh' this moment becomes when you realize that looking at their parents and even the simplest athletic testing will likely outperform the genetic markers.

In the pre-internet and pre-modern-tech era, undiscovered talents were definitely the norm (was literally how they discovered Kenyan runners early on, having no idea they could crush the world in running until they saw them in person) but now the information and global reach is too broad.

For sure there are would-be phenomenal athletes that either 1) never got into sports or 2) never found the "right" sport, however, what I find is that in MOST (certainly not all) cases a great athlete is a great athlete. All things considered, with sufficient training time in a sport, that great athlete would be great at almost any sport they try (think team sport athletes venturing into endurance and vice-versa). Another example I always think about, especially growing up in Canada, is given the propensity for young US athletes to go the football route vs ice hockey, if those same athletes had played ice hockey instead, would the US be the most dominant country in ice hockey? I'd bet they would be, however that debate brings up a whole host of socio-economic issues..

Good point, I always think of it as football vs. track & field (many double up anyway) but I do agree that many just happen to be good at sports in general. I am curious if anyone knows if the 3rd brownlee was a good rugby player or if that was just a school sport.

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808 > NYC > PDX > YVR
2024 Races: Taupo

It just doesn't matter to some extent. You can have the most gifted athlete in the world but you can't instill natural passion without some sort of crazy human psychology / inception experiment as well. Rising to the top is a perfect menagerie of ingredients/genetics/luck. PED are just there for some to help jump above what they would otherwise be capable of naturally.

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well here is something to consider, the Yates brothers are identical twins, meaning they are genetically identical. So are they equally talented or gifted? Is Adam better than Simon or vice versa? Twin studies can tell a lot about the effect of genetics on human outcomes. I am sure there are otehr elite examples of identical twins in sport. I happen to work for a pair of identical twins and though they have many similar attributes they are not identical in their abilities. When I have had this very discussion with one of them they admitted that the otehr brother was better at one sport and they at another though they were both high level university athletes in wrestling one was just better than the other. Personality wise they are like two sides of a coin. I can easily tell them apart and they have very different personalities. Genetic markers do not tell a full story. For a gene to be active it must not just be present but it must also be switched on or off. The switch can be triggered by environmental or other chemicals or changes.

Depends what you mean by 'great'.

If 'great' means as good as they were in the sport that they've shown world-class perfomance in, NOPE. No way.

If 'great' means a FOMOP AGer who jumps to soccer and then becomes a FOMOP club soccer player, sure, that's easy.

World-beating sports require physical traits that are super-specific to the sport required. Some more than others, but it's always there. The world's strongest man will NEVER equal (or come close) to that level of performance had he taken up triathlon, nor vice versa.

And this has been tested in natural experiments already. Olympic gold prepubescent gymnasts beat the world, then hit puberty, gain just a few pounds and inches of size, and then can no longer compete at that level despite no lack of training, skill, or experience. It's not like they just give up all of a sudden - they do it as long as they possibly can, but the reality is that with the body changes, only those that are lucky enough to not change too much can hold on.

I don't disagree that someone with a great athletic, disciplined, and competitive mindset can do pretty well across a variety of sports. At the amateur level, it's likely enough to push them to the FOP of nearly any sport with enough time and training. But at pro/elite level, fuggetabout it.

NBA basketball is a great example of this. You know how many kids in the world, and especially the US, have trained like a pro since elementary school (read about the AAU basketball circuit for top players - it's like a pro league), dedicated their lives to solely going to the NBA, and simply because they don't grow to be 6'7+, they literally have no chance, even in the G-league for the NBA. These guys train and play like true sports pros, but the level of play at the NBA and the physical traits required are too specific, even for these guys to have a prayer.

I agree that my statement was overly simplistic, and while I agree with a lot of what you said, if we take the assumption that "great" means elite/pro, I disagree; there are plenty of individuals who have been elite level athletes across multiple sports. I don't necessarily mean world championship level, I'm talking about elite level or professionals. Heck even within the endurance sports realm off the top of my mind; Heather Jackson was an elite ice hockey player and now a pro triathlete and Primoz Roglic was an elite ski jumper and now World Tour Cyclist.

In terms of powerlifting, while my opinion may be controversial; I'd classify that as a completely different type of "athleticism" and largely non-transferrable.

Yes, there are def successful x-over athletes from very disparate fields. Still they are the small minority rather than the norm. And the ones who are pretty successful are still typically doing something sort of related to their original field. An elite ski jumper has tremendous leg ability - it's skeptical whether Roglic would be able to become a world-class or elite swimmer despite his aerobic engine. Throw him into basketball, almost certainly fuggeatbout it.

Heather Jackson I agree is one of those outliers. Typically, hockie goalies don't have traits that match up with triathlon! Again, she is the big exception, not the norm.

A common norm of folks crossing over are D1 runners, swimmers crossing over to tri. Not all of them make it to a similar level, but a lot do, and it obviously has to do with the combo of talent and mindset required to compete at D1 or pro/elite.

And in terms of powerlifting, we don't have to focus on that. Any strength-based sport where physical weight and sheer muscular power gives you a big advantage would exclude most triathlon-gifted folks. NFL football, rugby, CrossFit elite, bike short track sprinting, running short track sprinting (there's a great video where a pro boxer crushes Mo Farah and the Brownlees in a short sprint, it's not even close!), we could go on and on - sports where our triathlon heroes would be absolutely crushed in a semipro/elite field, even if they had spent 5 years dedicated solely training for that event.

Among this same line, I had a long conversation with a friend we were visiting with in Germany, about Professional/World Cup Soccer. He felt that if the athletes here in the USA that play in NFL, most notably defensive backs, had been playing soccer from their youth on, every country would be playing for 2nd. Two other non-football athletes that were mentioned were Russell Westbrook and Allen Iverson.

This friend was a former, lower level pro soccer player in Germany.

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Formerly DrD

Outside or two rare examples I can think of, this has been disproven by pro athletes.

Michael Jordan was the GOAT in basketball, but horrible at baseball. On the other side Bo Jackson was a great football player and baseball player. Dion Sanders did the same ... however, both are considered power sports.

Genetics play a HUGE roll in who excels and who doesn't when it comes to sports. The top marathon runners in the world, no matter how hard they try will never be an offensive lineman in the NFL (or any position for that matter) due to genetics. The same goes for an offensive lineman in the NFL, they will never be a world class distance runner.

Athletes can sometimes move from similar sport to similar sport ... Endurance sport to endurance sport or power sport to power sport. The top levels of each can become good armature athletes in sports they are not predisposed to, but will never get beyond that level.

Without the proper genetics, one will NEVER reach the top of the sport any sport ... at the top level they are all genetically predisposed to be there and hard work makes the difference.

Just ask any low level pro what the difference between them and the top in their sport ... they will all tell you there was a genetic difference between them and the top level guys and no matter how much work they put in, they were never going to get to that level.

This is totally a myth. In his single season in AA, he hit .202. For someone who hadn't played baseball in at least 15 years and showing up to AA? That's actually pretty good.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/register/player.fcgi?id=jordan001mic

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Washed up footy player turned Triathlete.

Yep.

Genes + Environment + Chance. The last one is hard to accept for scientists.

Yep.

Genes + Environment + Chance. The last one is hard to accept for scientists.[/quote]
I'm sure over time we'll see some genetic testing and manipulation being important in sports. At the moment companies are offering testing but aren't more effective than having your kids do a 50m run in determining future performance.
As others have said genes are important but psychology and local culture will determine which sports are available and desirable. I'm sure Usain Bolt would have made a great 100m swimmer or speed skater but they were never available to him. He did Ok without a pool or rink anyway

100 agree

If triathletes were paid the same as NBA, NFL and MLB players. Triathlon records would fall like dominos

Amongst other things because the "grocery list" would be similar

This is totally a myth. In his single season in AA, he hit .202. For someone who hadn't played baseball in at least 15 years and showing up to AA? That's actually pretty good.

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And Jordan was in his 30s when he made the attempt. Not many guys who try out for a pro team at that age are even considered for a minor league team spot. He was an exceptional athlete in baseball too.

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Take a short break from ST and read my blog:
http://tri-banter.blogspot.com/

Exactly. Had Jordan concentrated on baseball or football instead of basketball early on in life, he most likely would have been an excellent pro at either.

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Formerly DrD

You wouldn't necessarily need a genetic test to identify your outliers. Just test teenagers as part of gym class, etc.

For example Lizzie Deignan (nee Armitstead) took up cycling because she was identified as a teenager through the UK's Olympic sports program as having the right type of endurance characteristics to become an elite cyclist.

This was prior to London 2012 games, where she then came in silver in the RR, and is of course still one of the top cyclists in the world.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lizzie_Deignan

The problem that they have is that they are looking at the problem in the wrong way. The issue is that you need to take a systems approach and look at it from a multifactorial standpoint; and this is not something that most researchers do. The reason for this is quite simple...the experimental size grows logarithmically, and once you have the data, very few understand what do do with it all and how to draw conclusions. This same problem exists for important problems as well; for example in human health. We are just starting to find/develop/and(or) use some of the tools that provide these kinds of answers, but with so few that understand this approach, the acceptance lags behind the ability to generate answers.
Now with all this said, I will agree with what others have said regarding the difference between ability and the utilization of that ability. Im not sure if that could also be encompassed by looking at enough variables (i.e. with a test at birth)...it might be possible...but not with what is available today.
Stephen J

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I believe my local reality has been violated.
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The Yates brothers are fraternal twins, not identical. Most of the above is still true, though genetically they're again different.

https://www.cyclingnews.com/...-the-yates-brothers/

Agreed, I think some people get their indication on Jordan's baseball skill by his portrayal in Space Jam...

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808 > NYC > PDX > YVR
2024 Races: Taupo