(NECN: Ally Donnelly) - A new genetic test might help you find out if your little athlete might one day score big in sports.
Wobbling in her exersaucer, 6 month old Calla Goldstone is still trying to master her grasp, but could the cooing baby girl be the next Venus Williams or Mia Hamm?
"We kind of already have an idea of where her talent might be," says her mom, Andrea Goldstone. "I'm curious to see what the results say."
The results are from a DNA test being marketed to parents around the world. For $170, Colorado-based Atlas Sports Genetics claims it can help predict your child's natural athletic ability.
The process is easy: swab the inside of your child's mouth, collect the DNA and send it off to the Atlas lab for analysis. Three weeks later they zip back your results.
"It's a good predictor of which sports you could guide your child into," says Nat Carruthers of Atlas Sports.
What Atlas zooms in on is the ACTN3 gene -- one of more than 20,000 in the human genome. We all have it, one copy from each parent, but in every DNA dance there are twists and turns, variants that make us all unique.
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This test is looking for a particular protein or lack of it. Some scientists say: if your child has one variant, they'll be better at power sports like football or weightlifting. If they have the other, they could excel at endurance sports like long distance running or cross-country skiing.
Julie Levassuer says she suspected her youngest, 5 year old Matthew, might be the athlete in the family when just shy of 3, he demanded to know why bigger kids didn't use training wheels.
"He's just a bundle of energy," said his father Dickie Levassuer. "He's got great coordination for his age. His balance, he's powerful, he's fast, hard to contain."
Julie and her husband Dickie thought it would be a neat to have Mathew tested.
"It just seems like it's cutting edge," said Levassuer. "Genetics is pretty amazing stuff. It's fairly new, and to try to tie something like this into athleticism and future, his career is pretty cool."
Matthew doesn't know much about DNA, but says he'd like to be a sports super star for one very simple reason: "I wanna give my mom a hundred bucks that fills the house and goes over the whole world," he said.
So how did he test? The Atlas packet told the Levassuers Matthew could excel at endurance sports.
"Track and field, road cycling, he rode his bike so early, rowing," said Julie Levassuer.
Baby Calla's dad was a swimming standout. Mom, Andrea, was a 3-sport high school All-American in field hockey, softball, basketball.
"It says mixed pattern sports which I would guess, makes sense," she said.
Atlas says Calla's DNA should point her to combo endurance/power sports like tennis or gymnastics. But what does this all mean? Are we talkin' a mini Mary Lou or Tom Terrific here?
"It's a very interesting area of research," said Dr. Michael Murray. "But, using it to predict athletic outcomes is tricky business and probably not ready for prime time."
Dr. Murray is a geneticist at Boston's Brigham and Women's Hospital. He says the science to predict athletic ability is likely coming, but discovery is in its infancy. The ground for testing, he warns, is riddled with landmines.
Will parents use the data to try and bully their kids to excel at a sport? Will they discourage their child from a sport because they didn't test well? And don't forget -- Murray cautions --many star athletes are made not born -- genetic testing doesn't account for nutrition, training and heart.
It may be one factor amongst hundreds or thousands of factors.
Both families we interviewed were grounded.
"Whatever sport she likes, and wants to participate in, great," said Goldstone. "If she doesn't want to participate in sports, that's fine too. "
"Now we're gonna have this in the back of our head like a fortune teller or something like that," said Levassuer. "You know and they tell you something about yourself and you can say 'yeah that applies to me!'
To look into our crystal ball and see if the kids became superstars, tune in, in 20 years.
