The Sports Gene
Storyboard Text
- 1: The Sports Gene discusses how genetics play a role in people's abilities to do certain sports.
- 2: Another thing that The Sports Gene addresses is even if one was born without certain advantageous genetics in sports, skills that can help people succeed in that sport can still be acquired.
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- "While the rest of the jumpers took such lengthy approaches that they had to start on the running track, Thomas began on the infield, as if he were using the high jump equivalent of the short tees at a golf course. He stutter-stepped his way to a miss at 7’3” –each jumper gets three attempts–lower than he jumped in that first meet at Eastern Illinois." (Epstein)
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- "Meanwhile, Holm was cruising, passing over 7’3”, 7’5”, 7’6.5, and 7’7.73” without a single miss, as his father watched through a video camera and pumped his fist in the stands." (Epstein)
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- "The guy in pole vault shoes who thinks high jump is “kind of boring” was crowned the 2007 world champion. On his winning jump, Thomas raised his center of mass to 8’2”. Had he any semblance of the back arch that every other pro jumper does, he would have shattered the world record." (Epstein)
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- "Ishikawa noted both Thomas’s long legs relative to his height and also that he was gifted with a giant’s Achilles tendon. Whereas Holm’s Achilles was a more normal-sized, incredibly stiff spring, Thomas’s, at ten and a quarter inches, was uncharacteristically long for an athlete his height." (Epstein)
- "...a longer Achilles tendon allows an athlete to get more power from what’s called the “stretch shortening cycle,” basically compression and subsequent decompression of the springlike tendon. The more power that is stored in the spring when it is compressed, the more you get when it is released." (Epstein)
- "Neither Ishikawa nor Hunter would suggest that the sole secret to the jumping success of Holm and Thomas is in their Achilles tendons. But the tendons are one puzzle piece that helps explain how two athletes could arrive at essentially the same place, one after a twenty-year love affair with his craft, and the other with less than a year of serious practice after stumbling into it on a friendly bet. " (Epstein)
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