Kavi Reads

As someone who loves running and is currently training for another half-marathon, it’s incredibly fascinating to listen to the stories of various athletes and learn about what made them so astonishingly successful. And it makes it even better when the book is recommended by the author of one of my absolute favourite books, Hope Jahren (Lab Girl). The Sports Gene is sportswriter and runner David Epstein’s take on what makes athleticism so personal and why everyone can’t be Michael Phelps or Eliud Kipchoge. It’s the classic debate of nature vs nurture in sports. But the answer is far from a simple dichotomy. Can anyone become Roger Federer through sheer will? Is it just a matter of getting your 10,000 hours? Not afraid of diving into controversy, Epstein also explores topics such as why are black people more successful NBA players, what makes Kenyans exceptional runners and whether the separation of men and women is genetically justified.

Reading the book, I wouldn’t have guessed the book is written by a sportswriter. David approaches his subject like a scientist, stopping to examine the uncertainties and taking care not to overgeneralize. He does what he can with the limited data available because after all, there are only so many elite athletes out there and you can only learn so much from them. But whether we test every athlete down to the last gene or not, it doesn’t take away from the fascinating stories he shares of the lives of these athletes. One thing was always clear in all his chapters. No matter how naturally talented you are, you still have to put the work in to be able to compete. He distinguishes between hardware (nature) and software (nurture) and agrees that, in elite athletes, one is useless without the other. But he also looks at cases where the hardware matters to such an extent that genes really cannot be ignored. In the second chapter itself was a story of a high jumper who trained so hard, it made his Achilles tendon hard enough, giving him an incredibly stiff spring that he was able to break records. His life revolved around jumping. And along came another who was, without any training, able to jump just as high. Turns out this man was simply gifted with a giant Achilles tendon, a blessing for high jumpers. But he wasn’t really interested in jumping. So who is the better high jumper?

Along with pulling athletes and events from history, David also connects his own time running to the story. He remembered another guy in the varsity team, Scott who, unlike David, seemed to have a natural talent and seemed to be endowed with some gene for speed. David, on the other hand, had to work his way through by training harder. Yet, in the end, they both trained to the point of vomiting and performed fairly equally. David speculates that while he had low baseline ability, he also had a rapid training response that allowed him to improve quickly, while Scott began with a high level of baseline talent but less potential to improve. So who is the better runner?

But the most captivating stories for me were the runners. And that was not surprising. As someone who loves the activity, I will always be drawn towards stories of men and women who live for running. Among them, my favourite was the one about ultrarunner Pam Reed. When her flight was delayed, she didn’t join her fellow passengers in cushioned seats on their phones. She, instead, went to the parking garage and simply started running laps for the next hour. And this was a day after her Ironman triathlon that she finished in 11 hours and 21 minutes. While not to that extent, I can certainly relate to the feeling of uneasiness when sitting still and the relentless drive to be in motion. Even in college, unless the bus is right there, I would always choose to walk to class, even if it took longer.

And then there was the account of Kenyan runners, also known as the Kenyan people. Running is almost second nature to them. Kids with no previous training are able to run a mile in under five minutes. Part of that was thanks to the better running economy Kenyan boys have because of the longer legs relative to the rest of the body compared to Danish boys. Epstein would certainly not be surprised that fives years after he published The Sports Gene, the man who beat the previous world record for a marathon by the largest margin since 1967, Eliud Kipchoge, is Kenyan. Does that take away from Kipchoge’s achievement? Of course not. If it was all about the natural advantages, every Kenyan would be Eliud Kipchoge. The results are far from conclusive and only give one possible explanation to the Kenyan running dominance. And this is something that certainly comes across in the book as well, for which I praise Epstein.

Overall, I thought the book was excellent. Epstein doesn’t find the sports gene (nobody has). Neither does he discover, as his subtitle promises, what makes the perfect athlete. But what he does give is an illuminating take on what makes great athletes great. And if nothing else, the book certainly inspired me to run even more, to the detriment of my ankles. And who knows, maybe it was always something in my genes that prevented me from being good at anything remotely athletic as a kid. But, then again, that didn’t stop me from running a half-marathon. And it won’t stop me from running a full (though it might prevent me from ever winning one. So many unanswered questions).