The Sports Gene What Makes the Perfect Athlete

Is Usain Bolt a superhuman one-off? Are sports stars like Paula Radcliffe and Tiger Woods born or made? Could we all be Olympians if we trained hard enough? In this ground-breaking and entertaining exploration of athletic success, award-winning writer David Epstein gets to the heart of the great nature vs. nurture debate, and explodes myths about why top sportsmen excel. He shows why some skills that we imagine are innate are not, and why other characteristics that we assume are entirely voluntary, like an athlete's will to train, might in fact have important genetic components. Through revealing conversations with leading scientists and Olympic champions, and interviews with athletes who have rare genetic mutations or physical traits, Epstein forces us to rethink the very nature of sport.