The Sports Gene Book Report

In The Sports Gene by David Epstein, there are multiple story lines followed and introduced, discussing some of the top athletes in the world. Almost every chapter in the book discusses the same question, “Is there a sports gene?”. Epstein provides great insight and detail in examining this question by explaining the findings in labs from all over the world, along with elaborating on the growth in athletic abilities over time. Through a review of the book, the question of whether there truly is a sports gene or not will be examined. In Chapter Two, we examine “A Tale of Two High Jumpers”. The first high jumper introduced in the story is Stefan Holm, a world-renowned Olympic athlete, who has been practicing high jump since the age of 19. Despite …show more content…
The next event Holm had to prepare for aside from the 2008 Olympics was the 2007 World Championships in Osaka, Japan. There, Holm ended up facing a competitor whom he probably had no idea existed. After eight months of legitimate high jump training, Donald Thomas, a former Lindenwood University and Auburn University high jumper, arrived at the 2007 World Championships. Prior to his arrival, his high jumping career started off with a bet with a former Lindenwood University high jumper, betting that Thomas could jump higher than his counterpart. Despite the lack of training Holm had compared to Thomas, when they both arrived at the same height in high jump at the World Championships, it was what many consider the “underdog” that came out on top. Thomas cleared 7’8” with ease. Thomas clearing the height with such ease grabbed the attention of many sports scientists as they examined his genetics. Although Holm had an achilles that could withstand 1.8 tons of force, Thomas had an achilles that was ten and a quarter inches long and much stiffer than Holm’s. The stiffness of an achilles is partially influenced by an individual's versions of genes involved in making