ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces the reader to key concepts in genetics and to the methodological approaches in the study of the genetic bases of sport performance. Genetic science and technology plays a key role in sport medicine and, hype notwithstanding, genomic science has made significant strides towards understanding the genetic pathways to sport excellence. In genetics, monogenetic traits are a minority, and result from modifications in a single gene. Many factors that are relevant for sport performance can be measured and quantified, such as body composition, aerobic power and muscle strength. Although research into the genetic basis of sport performance has blossomed only in the last 15 years, early studies date back to the end of the 1960s and the first research concerning the applications of genetics in sport. Chromosomes are nothing other than discrete, compact units of the genome where deoxyribonucleic acid molecules are organised and that carry many genes.
