Chinese Men Are Not Sprinters

Chinese Men Are Not Sprinters

There are Chinese divers and Chinese gymnasts represented at the

Olympics every year, and we participate in a plethora of other sports,

but this one omission from the pantheon of athletes persists to this

day, in both national and international competitions. The Chinese do

not run.

Therefore, at the beginning of my second year on the track team, I

felt a little discouraged.

During my freshman year, every meet I attended had one common

denominator: the fast runners were African-American. Their long, lanky

limbs stood in sharp contrast to my own, genetically-predisposed

skinny and short ones. This, I thought, looking down at my legs, was

not the physique of a sprinter.

When my mother dropped me off at the High School track early one

Saturday morning, I had little hope. I set my gym bag down next to the

tree where my team had gathered, and I surveyed the field: typical --

stereotypical, even. The shining, muscular bodies glistened as they

stretched and warmed-up. My own legs trembled in the cold as I passed

the time by cheering on my own teammates, but it wasn’t long before I

heard the ominous “Last call for the 100 meters! Last call!” intoned

into a megaphone. Gulping hard, I walked over to the starting line and

surveyed the track in front of me. I wondered if the practicing I had

done since freshman year, exhausting my body with repeats,

conditioning, and weight-training every day, would have any benefit

when my shoes hit the pavement.

My competitors seemed to be doing their best to intimidate me. The

seven of them jumped up and down around me, towering into the sky and

stretching their formidable leg muscles. I pulled off my warm-ups, and

the cool air on my exposed skin made me shiver.

The next fifteen seconds seemed to pass in the blink of an eye. When I

was finished, I barely remembered running the race at all, and was