Scribd
Upload
89 views3 pages

Matching Feature Exercises II

Uploaded by

khusnul.sholaikhah98
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
89 views3 pages

Matching Feature Exercises II

Uploaded by

khusnul.sholaikhah98
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 3

Matching Feature Exercises

Reading the Game

Thirty-five years ago, a hundred tennis-playing children were tested for general athleticism.
One girl was rated by the psyd1ologist leading the analysis as 'the perfect tennis talent'. She
outperformed her contemporaries at every tennis drill, as well as general motor skills. Her
lung capacity suggested that she could have become a European champion at 1 ,500 metres.
The girl's name? Steffi Graf. who went on to win 22 Grand Slams.

I was reminded of Graf's innate sporting talent during a recent conversation with the
geneticist and former Economist journalist Matt Ridley. We were discussing the common
argument that greatness, even genius, is the result of 10,000 hours of dedicated practice. This
has been the sales pitd1 of several widely read books, the subtitles of which include The
genius in all of us' and 'Greatness isn't born, it's grown'

If nurture is so dominant and nature such an irrelevance, then an unavoidable question


follows: how many people, of all those born in 1756, had the potential, if they were given the
right opportunities, to be as good as Mozart? Or in this case, how many women, of all those
born in 1969, had the potential to become as good at tennis as Graf? According to the logic
that a genius lurks in all of us, the answer must lie somewhere between 'most' and 'many'.

Ridley's answers were a bit different: four Mozarts and about 30 Grafs. There was mischief,
of course, in attaching numbers to sud1 hypothetical questions. But his answer rang true.

The surprise here is that the idea of talent finds itself on the ropes, beaten and bruised by
those who believe in nurture alone. Acknowledging a role for genes, any role, can feel almost
immoral. When I was quizzed by a newspaper about the genetic arguments in my book Luck,
the interviewer sounded surprised - even though he agreed - that I dared to take on the gene-
denial industry. His reticence was understandable. The anti-genes lobby often suggests that
it is a short hop from recognising the existence of genetic talent to believing in eugenics.
Personally, I'm pretty confident we can distinguish between the two

The role of innate talent in elite sport, just as it has been written out of the causal narrative,
is actually in the ascendant out on the pitch. Consider the example of modern tennis. In the
late 1970s and 1980s, tennis was still catching up with the implications of professionalism.
John McEnroe enjoyed going for a burger mud1 more than going to the gym. It fell to the
underrated Ivan Lendl, a less talented all-round player than his elite rivals, to dedicate his
whole life to the pursuit of self-improvement. To protect his joints, Lendl pioneered aerobic
training on bikes rather than road running. He even installed an exact replica of the court at
Flushing Meadows, home of the US Open. in his own back garden in Connecticut. Less gifted
than McEnroe, Lendl relied on being fitter and more prepared. He used nurture, if you like, to
make up for a shortfall in nature. And it worked. Lendl overhauled his rivals and spent 270
weeks as the world number one.

One up for nurture. But what if all the top players hire nutritionists, masseurs and specialist
coad1es?That is what happened within 20 years. The upshot was that for 302 weeks between
2004 and 2009, the world number one was Roger Federer, widely rated the most talented
player ever to pick up a racket. This view hardly needs anecdotal support, but if you're
sceptical, perhaps you can take his greatest rival's word for it: 'His DNA; Rafael Nadal says,
'seems perfectly adapted to tennis:

During the amateur era and the early decades of professionalism. tennis players came in all
shapes, sizes and training regimes. So it was possible to gain a significant edge through sheer
hard work. But when a sport becomes fully professional and global, and nurture equilibrates,
nature once again has the upper hand.

You might also like

pFad - Phonifier reborn

Pfad - The Proxy pFad of © 2024 Garber Painting. All rights reserved.

Note: This service is not intended for secure transactions such as banking, social media, email, or purchasing. Use at your own risk. We assume no liability whatsoever for broken pages.


Alternative Proxies:

Alternative Proxy

pFad Proxy

pFad v3 Proxy

pFad v4 Proxy