Pinheaded excuse

The USA ended up beating China in the total medal count at the Olympics, 104 - 88, and beat them in gold medals as well.

Yahoo News ran an article this morning with the headline, "China's response to 2012 Olympics: American physique tough to beat."

My first reaction to seeing this headline was, aha, finally, someone is injecting a note of realism when it comes to racial differences in athletic ability. Since the 1984 Olympics, there have been 64 finalists in the men's 100 meter dash; every last one of them has been black. One would have to be willfully blind not to see the obvious genetic correlation there. On top of that, both blacks and whites are generally larger and stronger than Asians, so that's a disadvantage as well.

My only surprise was that this admission was coming from a nominally communist country. In the past, communist countries have been the most aggressive about insisting on all forms of egalitarianism.

Then I read the text of the article. Evidently the China People's Daily had analyzed the matter and come to the conclusion that Americans "had bigger chests and heads."

I can't think of a single sport where having a large head is an advantage. There are some sports where tactics count, but the correlation between brain size and IQ is only .3 to begin with, and most of the tactics employed in Olympic sports aren't all that complicated anyway.

And I can think of many sports where the weight of a large head is a disadvantage.

A larger chest often goes hand in hand with a generally stockier, stronger build. And to the extent that a larger chest harbors more lung capacity, that can help in some events. But a larger head?

The only Chinese who need larger heads are the lamebrains who came up with that excuse.