Posted: February 4, 2005

Science of Sport: Quick test shows if speed is in genes

If you could find out whether your children have the speed to sprint like Donovan Bailey or the endurance to row like Silken Laumann, would you? An Australian biotechnology company marketing its new “Sports Gene Test” claims it can help people decide in which sports they should specialize.

The test can be ordered over the Internet and involves a simple mouth swab that clients then mail back to the lab. Results indicate who has more “fast twitch” muscle fibres — needed for sprint/power events such as the 100-metre dash — or “slow twitch” muscle fibres, better for endurance sports such as rowing.

“This test will be of major interest to elite athletes, serious competitors and teenagers already involved in sport and wanting to progress to the next level,” says Deon Venter, a company director of Genetic Technologies. “It indicates in which sport, or which event within a sport, an athlete is more likely to excel.” It used to be that the only way to find out whether you had more fast- or slow-twitch fibres was through an invasive muscle biopsy: inserting a needle into the muscle, plucking out a few fibres and examining them under a microscope. Not the kind of thing you’d do through mail order.

Now this easy, painless, $100 test could change the rules of the game for coaches, parents and athletes. Who wouldn’t want to know how to best use “your genetic advantage,” as the company calls it?

Molly Killingbeck, for one. The athlete services manager at the Canadian Sport Centre Ontario won a silver medal in the 1984 Olympics in the women’s 4x400-metre relay.

As a track coach, Killingbeck likes the idea of using the test to help athletes decide which events they might focus on. As a mother, though, she bristles at the prospect of testing her five-year-old son and “streamlining” him at such a young age.

“I think kids should learn to throw a ball, to kick, to skate, so you’re not focusing on what they’re going to be as athletes,” Killingbeck says.

“If someone had told me when I was six years old I was meant to be a sprinter,’’ says Killingbeck, ‘‘I think that would have affected my personality, my whole life. Even if you look at someone like (1996 Olympic gold medallist) Donovan Bailey, he came to the sport late, but he was able to get to the summit. He didn’t start sprinting at a world-class level until his early 20s.”

Of course, there are many elements besides genetics that go in to making a champion, such as nutrition, coaching, equipment and psychology. Clients must sign waivers acknowledging as much when they send back their swabs.

The test works by identifying variations in the ACTN3 gene, of which everyone has two copies, one inherited from each parent. Studies in an Australian lab in association with the Australian Institute of Sport showed that having a variant (known as R577X) in both copies of one’s ACTN3 gene might be associated with a natural talent for endurance events. The absence of the R577X variant from both copies of the gene pointed to a predisposition for sprint/power events. Those with the variant in one of their two copies of the gene may be equally suited for both types of events, though data does not fully support this conclusion yet.

Test results could help athletes fine-tune their training. For example, in team sports, athletes with different profiles could do more or less weightlifting. It could also assist club, college and national teams with talent identification, already an area where Australia is at the vanguard.

While news about the test is spreading fast Down Under, marketing in North America will begin in a few months, Venter says. The company plans to spread the word to sport organizations and a lab in Toronto is ready to process tests if there is the demand.

Though the product hasn’t hit Canada yet, the president and chief executive officer of the Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport reflected on its implications when told about it. Paul Melia says that, if coaches or parents are going to pursue testing, they should first ask themselves why.

“If it’s going to enhance their children’s sport experience, it could be justified,” Melia says. “But, if they think it’s a way to invest in their pension plan or live vicariously through their child, I don’t think it would be a good thing to pursue.”

Web Links: GTG.com.au.

Source: Alison Korn, Ottawa Citizen