Just when you think that you have heard the craziest things, our comes something else in the news that tops it. 

A company in Boulder, CO is offering genetic testing that will determine whether or not you have the next Micheal Jordan or Tiger Woods on your hands. 

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.

Hey, I have an idea.  Why not wait until your child is older and, oh call me radical here, observe with your own eyes whether or not your child has any athletic ability.  I have a couple kids who are freakishly good athletes.  (Didn’t come from my gene pool, I have to say.) And their athletic ability was obvious.  There was no need for testing.  There was no trying to fit them into the “right” sport. 

So if you decide you want to take my advice and just wait, you can send me a check for $149.  M’kay?  Thanks.

The one thing that I admitedly do find intersting about the study is how it applies to people who have already been identified as athletes. I do think that it is interesting that there are specific genetic  markers that seem to link to athletic ability and it would be fascinating to see if the results hold true across the board.