Professional Documents
Culture Documents
L3 U01 LB RC
L3 U01 LB RC
Olympic
Champion?
1 How does a person
become an Olympic
championsomeone
capable of winning
5 the gold? In reality,
a combination of
biological, environmental,
and psychological factors,
as well as training and
10 practice, all go into Weightlifters such as U.S. national champion
Shane Hamman have incredibly strong leg muscles.
making a super athlete.
Perhaps the most important factor involved 90 percent slow-twitch muscle fibers. These
in becoming an elite1 athlete is genetics. 35 generate energy efficiently and enable an
Most Olympic competitors are equipped athlete to control fatigue and keep moving
15 with certain physical characteristics that for a longer period of time. When we exercise
differentiate them from the average long or hard, its common to experience
person. Take an elite athletes muscles, for tiredness, muscle pain, and difficulty breathing.
example. In most human skeletal muscles 40 These feelings are caused when the muscles
(the ones that make your body move), produce high amounts of lactate and cant
20 there are fast-twitch fibers2 and slow-twitch remove it quickly enough. Athletes with many
fibers. Fast-twitch fibers help us move slow-twitch muscle fibers seem to be able to
quickly. Olympic weightlifters, for example, clear the lactate from their muscles faster as
have a large number of fast-twitch fibers 45 they move. Thus, the average runner might
in their musclesmany more than the start to feel discomfort halfway into a race.
25 average person. These allow them to lift A trained Olympic athlete, however, might not
hundreds of kilos from the ground and feel pain until much later in the competition.
over their heads in seconds. Surprisingly,
a large, muscular body is not the main A crowd of 30,000 runners of all ages heads streams
requirement to do well in this sport. It is across a bridge during the New York City marathon.
Some athletes abilities are naturally enhanced How do athletes adjust to such intense
by their environment. Those raised at high 100 pressure? Louganis explains how he
60 altitudes in countries such as Kenya, Ethiopia, learned to control his anxiety during a
and Morocco have blood that is rich in competition: Most divers think too much
hemoglobin. Large amounts of hemoglobin . . . , he says. Theyre too much in their
carry oxygen3 around the body faster, enabling heads. What worked for me was humor.
these athletes to run better. Cultural factors 105 I remember thinking about what my
65 also help some athletes do well at certain mother would say if she saw me do a bad
sports. Tegla Loroupe, a young woman from dive. Shed probably just compliment4 me
northern Kenya, has won several marathons. on the beautiful splash.5
She attributes some of her success to her
countrys altitude (she trains at about 2,400
70 meters or 8,000 feet) and some to her cultural
background. As a child, she had to run
ten kilometers to school every day. Id be
punished if I was late, she says.