DNA Tests and Talent Identification

According to the N.Y. Times, parents can now use a DNA test to determine their child’s sporting future.

In health-conscious, sports-oriented Boulder, Atlas Sports Genetics is playing into the obsessions of parents by offering a $149 test that aims to predict a child’s natural athletic strengths. The process is simple. Swab inside the child’s cheek and along the gums to collect DNA and return it to a lab for analysis of ACTN3, one gene among more than 20,000 in the human genome.

The test’s goal is to determine whether a person would be best at speed and power sports like sprinting or football, or endurance sports like distance running, or a combination of the two. A 2003 study discovered the link between ACTN3 and those athletic abilities.

The article and the parents make a big deal out of nothing. The test does not determine whether a young child will develop into a professional athlete. Basically, the test apparently measures the body’s ability to produce the effects which lead to the develop of fast-twitch muscle fiber.

However, the ability to produce fast-twitch muscle fiber does not make a kid into an elite athlete. Instead, it simply suggests that he may be more likely to succeed in a power sport than an endurance sport.

“It seems to be important at very elite levels of competition,” Dr. Stephen M. Roth, director of the functional genomics laboratory at the University of Maryland’s School of Public Health said. “But is it going to affect little Johnny when he participates in soccer, or Suzy’s ability to perform sixth grade track and field? There’s very little evidence to suggest that.”

The athletes who reach an elite level, however undergo years of training and experience which influences their development. These factors determine an athlete’s potential success as much as a player’s genetic make-up. Sure, an athlete with a predisposition toward fast-twitch muscle fibers has a better chance to be a sprinter than one with a more aerobic predisposition. However, if the athlete burns out early because his parents push him into one sport too early or if he never develops a passion for the sport or if he does not receive adequate coaching, he will not develop into the champion sprinter.

Talent development is a multi-faceted process. The DNA test is not the answer. Every study suggests that talent develops; it is not born.

~ by Brian McCormick on December 2, 2008.