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Comment by danenania | Hacker News Reader

Well, Bolt himself was born into a poor family. Someone who has the genetic potential to be that fast is going to spend their whole early life being the fastest kid anyone around them has ever seen. Sure, some might not pursue it seriously for whatever reason, but any kid with that much inborn talent is going to know that they are fast, and others will know it too--that kind of thing gets noticed.

It's a bit like if a 12 year old is 6'6" and athletic... there's a pretty high chance someone is going to try to teach that kid to play basketball.

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So we're digging our heels in that no one could ever be faster than Bolt.

> Well, Bolt himself was born into a poor family

Sure, but what about the really fast kid who was shot in Somalia or the other one who lost a leg to an unexploded antipersonnel mine. Or as innocuous as the really fast kid who didn't like the pressure of competition.

What about the people who were simply born earlier? Technology showed up in the 2 years that's making people even faster. Those throughout history were not given the same opportunity, but if they were, could they have been faster that Bolt? Possible.

Your skepticism requires that everyone be given an equal chance which simply isn't grounded in reality.

I mostly agree. Someone could definitely be faster. But I think you're underestimating how much of an outlier he is.

Culture matters too. It isn't a coincidence that Bolt came from Jamaica, which has a tradition of high level sprinting. If he was born poor in the US, my guess is he would have been a wide receiver or basketball player and only would have focused on running if it was clear he had no future in a more lucrative/higher status sport.

Not everyone wants the results of concentrating on a certain sport/job/hobby, even if they are naturally great at it. For example, many women (or men for that matter) might not want the physical result of being the world's best body builder, even if they are genetically predisposed for it. Being the world's best horse hockey might also not appeal to many, the prestige probably goes most too the horse and not the jockey. I'm sure there are other activities which are lacking in some aspect, which would make people who would excel at it turn away.

Also, as it takes some time to get past the amateur level and explore whether one actually had generic potential to be great at a sport, and that there are more sports than time, there's an element of chance whether someone hits upon the right sport.

I think you’re overestimating the difference between an elite runner and the average (fit) person.

Usain Bolt is only about 15-20% faster than a decent high school runner. The difference was even less when Bolt was in high school.

That kind of difference isn’t even noticeable unless you’re timing it or racing. It’s not something that’s immediately obvious to everyone.

"Only" is not an appropriate term there. Everybody races when they're a kid, and it tends to be a win a bit, lose a bit, and always by a margin of couple of steps. Beating somebody by even 5% is an unbelievably huge margin in a race that is extremely visible.

In a 40 second race a 5% margin would be 2 seconds - enough to quickly turn around, sit down, and feign some yawns as you wait for the #2 guy to come in. A 20% margin? That'd be 8 seconds in a 40 second event. It'd look plainly comical.

I can’t remember ever seeing little kids running anywhwre near a 40 second race. 10 seconds is probably a bit long for an impromptu race.

Also Usain Bolt was 15-20% faster at his peak than a decent high schooler. He was nowhere near that when he was in high school. In addition to genetics he was also training much more than a decent high school runner would.

A huge component of genetic potential is a greater response to training. Someone like Usain Bolt could easily slip under the radar just by being uninterested in running.

You never played football, tag, or even ran track in PE? I'm also not entirely sure where you're getting your comments about his high school stuff from. He won both the world youth and junior championships while in high school, and was the fastest man alive in his age group - a record that stood until quite recently. He ran a 20.4s 200m in 2003 at the age of 17. His ultimate personal best and still world record would be 19.19 in 2009.

Incidentally he also wasn't interested in running. He was much more interested in football, but seeing one kid Bolt across the field led others to convince him to try out track and field.

I played American football as a kid, but I know plenty of kids who never played any sports outside of PE. And PE was mostly just jogging around a track, dancing, and other non competitive actives. Plenty of kids just half-assed PE, and never would have demonstrated to anyone any genetic proclivity for sprinting.

>Incidentally he also wasn't interested in running. He was much more interested in football, but seeing one kid Bolt across the field led others to convince him to try out track and field.

Being seriously into any team sport makes being identified as a gifted athlete of any kind much more likely. Most kids are either not involved in team sports or aren't trying hard enough to really be noticed even if they are genetically gifted.

In addition in many countries almost half of the kids are overweight, obese, or just out of shape, which probably swamps out any genetic benefits in terms of sprinting.

>He ran a 20.4s 200m in 2003 at the age of 17. His ultimate personal best and still world record would be 19.19 in 2009.

That's about 10% faster than what's considered a good time for someone that age, and that was after, by that time, a ton of practice. My point was that he probably wasn't beating other "fast" kids by 20% margins.

My overall point isn't that when participating in athletic events, a genetically gifted kid isn't going to be noticed. My point is it's very possible for a kid with Usain Bolts genetics to go unnoticed, simply because they aren't interested in sports.

The differences in speed between young kids are likely small enough that it's not obvious just from playing tag a few times that this kid is freakishly fast. And many kids will just never run 40 second races. It's very possible that whatever genetic advantages Usain Bolt had didn't even show up till puberty.

Maybe the kid is just bookish and doesn't play outside much, maybe he plays with older siblings so his natural ability is dwarfed by the extra year or 2. Maybe he gets fat because his parents feed him too much etc...

One thing I want to hit on is how Usain would look against a normal person. Imagine Usain, at his best, (at 17) runs a race against the 200th fastest other 17 year old, of all time, at his best. How do you think this would look? From your comments I suspect you think it would be a photo finish. We can actually answer this precisely with a bit of math (and record keeping).

The current 200th highest world record for a U18 is 21.04. Usain's record is 20.13 (my mistake). In the 200m you're generally looking at around 4.2 strides per second with each stride covering around 2.4 meters. So we have all we need. The difference at the end would be (21.04 - 20.13) * 4.2 * 2.4 = 9 meters, or more than 30 feet - multiple car lengths!

And that 200th fastest 17 year old of all time is not just a "fast kid". He's a physical outlier several sigmas away from the mean that would be creating similarly lopsided finishes at nearly nearly every local, state, and even national competition he entered. But Usain is just on an entirely different level than even that. So Usain racing against anybody even remotely normal would look like "fast kid" vs "extremely slow kid."

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Basically it's not really possible to fail to notice this sort of achievement. In PE he'd casually run laps around everybody without even trying. And by football, I don't mean any sort of team event - just a bunch of kids grabbing a football, imagining some nets, and playing. Nobody would be even close to being able to keep up to him. Literally anytime there is any sprint movement in anything, he would be on top - by far.

As for the hypotheticals beyond this, I don't know. We might have to just agree to disagree. I tend to think people are drawn to the things they're good at. And with running it's basically impossible to not notice that you're this many sigmas away from the mean. It's not like we're talking the best Polo player.

>or more than 30 feet - multiple car lengths!

Yes in a 200m foot race someone who is 5% faster is very noticeable (in a 20m race, which is closer to what little kids are doing, it's much less noticeable at 1 meter). But by that time Usain Bolt was already a well trained athlete competing in organized events, so of course he was noticed.

My argument can be broken down into 2 parts.

1. If we accept that Usain Bolt's genetic speed boost is the same throughout his life, so that at 4 years old he had a 10-15% boost compared to other other fast 4-year-olds with similar fitness levels--I'm saying that given the kinds of running and games 4-year-olds play, and who they play them with, that isn't a big enough difference to guarantee that someone notices it. That is, it isn't guaranteed to swamp out other variables. Bolt at 4 wasn't likely faster than his 6-year-old cousin or any faster in a short race than the kid who starts half a second before him. Hypothetical fat Usain Bolt at 4 wasn't likely faster than his fast 4 year old friend. Hypothetical indoor sheltered Bolt who never played outside, probably wasn't faster than his fast friend who ran outside all day long.

2. We shouldn't accept that his genetic speed boost stays the same throughout his life. It's very unlikely that Usain Bolt was the fastest 8 month old in the world. It's very likely that at least some of the physiological differences that enable his freakish speed didn't develop until puberty. Kids are not scaled down mini adults.

Kids generally stop running around for fun outside of organized activities well before puberty. Potentially giving hypothetical Usain 2, plenty of time to develop other interests based on other things that he might also be good at.

A deconditioned couch potato 12-year-old isn't going to be lapping his peers who play soccer every day after school, no matter his genetic potential--especially if he doesn't care enough to really try.

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