Why are the fastest runners of African ancestry, the fastest swimmers white European ancestry?

Is a cultural thing?  According to research the fastest swimmers are of white European ancestry, but the fastest runners are of African ancestry.

The record books show there is a difference.  Folks of African ancestry are shown to be better at running.  Swimmers, on the other hand, are dominated by those considered white.

And indeed athletes are getting faster and stronger, and the clear divide between racers in terms of race and body type are definitely part of what has been identified as a difference.

Indeed in Hawaii, a long distance from Africa for certain, the same situations hold true.

The research on these differences was done five years ago at Duke University, as Adrian Bejan, Professor of engineering at Duke's Pratt School of engineering, told us then that one reason for the differences in athletic performance with athletes has to do with the center of gravity of the individual.  That center, he says, is higher on the body of blacks than whites.  These differences are not racial but biological.  The research was published in an online a paper online in the International Journal of Design and Nature and Ecodynamics, with Bejan, and co-authors Edward Jones, a Ph.D. candidate at Cornell University currently teaching at Howard University, and Duke graduate Jordan Charles who reviewed and explained what the results of the study might mean.

"There is a whole body of evidence showing that there are distinct differences in body types among blacks and whites" said Jones, who specializes in adolescent obesity, nutrition and anthropometry, the study of body composition. "These are real patterns being described here -- whether the fastest sprinters are Jamaican, African or Canadian -- most of them can be traced back generally to Western Africa"

Swimmers, Jones continues, tend to come from Europe, and therefore tend to be white. He also pointed out that there are cultural factors at play as well, such as a lack of access to swimming pools to those of lower socioeconomic status.

It all comes down to body makeup, not race, Jones and Bejan said.

"Blacks tend to have longer limbs with smaller circumferences, meaning that their centers of gravity are higher compared to whites of the same height" Bejan said. "Asians and whites tend to have longer torsos, so their centers of gravity are lower"

"Locomotion is essentially a continual process of falling forward" Bejan said. "Body mass falls forward, then rises again. Mass that falls from a higher altitude falls faster. In running, the altitude is set by the location of the center of gravity. For the fastest swimmers, longer torsos allow the body to fall forward farther, riding the larger and faster wave"

The researchers said this evolution of body types and increased speeds can be predicted by the constructal theory, a theory of natural design developed by Bejan that explains such diverse phenomena as river basin formation and basis of animal locomotion (www.constructal.org).

In the Honolulu Marathon last year athletes from Kenya scored victories.  This was the 42nd Honolulu Marathon.  Wilson Chebet, it was said, waited until the last miles to make his push to finish first.  Joyce Chepkiri, on the other hand, was out in front at the first of the race.

The Honolulu Marathon is in December annually, with runners competing from around the world.  It is an event that brings out hosts of spectators, along with the participants, as well as volunteers who offer water cups, and sometimes cloths for the forehead, every 4+miles.

This year the African runners were celebrated again.

In 2012 Missy Franklin took center stage at the Olympics for swimming.  The top medalists for swimming over the years have included Michael Phelps, Mark Spitz and Jenny Thompson, however, all of predominantly Caucasian ancestry.

The pattern has continued since the research of five years ago.  The research indicates why that is and why it is likely to continue in the future.