I am slow. And now I know why. It's my damn parents' fault.

Or, something like that, according to this piece in the Sacramento Bee that would make Al Campanis choke:

To have any chance of getting into the Olympics you have to pick the right parents. All the hard work and discipline and coaching, all the early nights and good nutrition and sacrifice - and you're only halfway there at best.

OK, OK, so genes play a role, a big one. But what I found most interesting in the piece is how much other nations try to steer young people into sports for which they might be best genetically 'suited':

Massimo Testa, an internationally known physician and director of the UC Davis Sports Performance Program, says hard work and desire can take an athlete only so far.... "Everybody can improve. That is the good thing," he said. "The bad news is there is an upper limit."

In his native Italy, athletes are sized up early and steered toward certain sports far more than in the United States, said Testa, largely because this country has a much larger population and, thus, a greater talent pool.

"The American system can produce top athletes, but we don't know how many are wasted," he said.

Kenya, which has dominated the marathon and other long-distance events for years, places so much emphasis on sifting for genetic superstars that it has every Kenyan run a time trial before leaving high school, Shaffrath said. The good ones are encouraged to attend training camps, well aware that international success can bring monetary rewards to their impoverished villages.

Such evaluations are made only at the elite level in the United States, and the testing data are used to refine training programs to make successful athletes reach new heights.

All this makes me wonder what I would have been best at. Let's see, I can't run, I can't jump, I can't swim, I can't do a lot of things. So maybe speed chess?