At the high-school level and below, it is almost 100% stroke and strength. Some of the best swimmers are shorties that just spend more time in the water. That doesn't translate to junior Olympic levels, though. Zero Tyrannosaurs at that level.

A is A said:

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Oscar Diggs said:

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Whos Line is it Anyway classic, wait for it 40 seconds in

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Damn. That was a 0.00 reaction time.

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Herb Melnick with the zinger.

BusterAg said:

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akm91 said:

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Sure do see a lot of asians excel on swim teams.

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Yeah. But the comparative advantage thing doesn't hold. What sports are Asians known to dominate? Badminton.

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There are many asians that are swimming collegiately as well as winning medals in international competitions. Heck my boys when younger were coached by 1992 Women's 400 IM gold medalist when they were swimming club in Cali.

I don't understand. I'm not arguing that there aren't a lot of Asian great swimmers. I thought we were talking about why black swimmers seem to drop out at a pretty young age.

BusterAg said:

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At the high-school level and below, it is almost 100% stroke and strength. Some of the best swimmers are shorties that just spend more time in the water. That doesn't translate to junior Olympic levels, though. Zero Tyrannosaurs at that level.

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For the most part true, but there are always outliers. Japan, for instance, has had international success with smaller that average swimmers -- 5' 8-9", which is tiny for a male pro swimmer. I'm sure there are others.

ETA: I see your post above. NM

WestTexAg12 said:

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I'll tell you this…

85% of my "Iron Ducks", aka swim failures, at Marine boot camp were black
10% Hispanic
5% white/other

That's just how it went. It's body structure and anatomy.

It isn't racist, they just overwhelmingly suck at it.

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I see a lot of responses on here taking issue with your observation and conclusions.

I think the major part that has been left out is culture, priorities and expectations.

When I went through Army ROTC Advanced Camp in 1992, we had about 250 cadets in my cycle. On swim day, we had to do some sort of super lame swim test:

• If you could swim, you got to continue to get pushed off the 10m board in full BDUs while blindfolded and holding an M-16 rifle over your head.
• If you could NOT swim, you headed to the shallow end of the pool and learned "drown proofing"

Across the 250 cadets, there were about 35 Black cadets. Of the 35, exactly one cadet from "The Ohio State University" was the only Black cadet who could swim. Not to put too much of a Biden point on it but there were a few poor whites (like less than 5) who couldn't swim either.

As we were waiting in line to climb up the ladder to the 10m board, one of my peers referred to the shallow end as the "dark end" of the pool which was pretty true.

I didn't think it was a big deal because I still bought into the White privilege narrative, assumed Blacks were poor, didn't have access to pools, etc. But that all changed once the 34 Black cadets who couldn't swim started making fun of Mr. Ohio State.

What do you think you're White? Accused him of "Ack'in' White", etc.

This was long before I learned about "The Slave Mentality". But after this experience, I totally got it.

It's not that Blacks can't swim for any biological reason. They can't swim due to culture. As Ye once said "that sounds like a choice".

This is the just latest in a long line of outdoor activities.

Baseball was racist about 10 years ago, cause there were more whites than blacks

Camping was racist about 3 years ago, because apparently the majority of campers are white

National Parks were racist in the past 2 years, because apparently the majority of campers are white

Hockey became racist, what 2-3 weeks ago...

Now Swimming is Racist, because apparently the majority of swimmers are white

Upcoming:

Water Skiing
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Curling