From strictly a structural perspective there is no advantage to having high cut calves. In fact I could make a pretty strong argument (and an observable one) that low cut calves give an advantage during initial acceleration and certain types of jumps if other key ingredients are in place...more potential force and force absorption. ** However, it's not all about that one body-part. Pay attention and observe people - high cut calves correlate with other positive athletic qualities such as narrow hips, longer legs, better nervous system, more fast twitch muscle, broaders shoudlers and lower body-fat...typical pit bull build. Those things all combine to make better athletes.
Plus it's an innate west african characteristic and for that reason alone will tend to correlate with athletic success.
Low cut calves correlate with whiteness. wider hips, shorter legs, bottom heavy lower body (quad vs glute dominance), slower nervous system, heavy build, etc.
So it's all the other things accompanying low cut calves that make them disadvantageous IMO. Doesn't mean you can't become an explosive athlete because of that one quality.
Take a look at samoans for example - a group that usually combines naturally low cut calves with other postivie physiological athletic qualities...you're not gonna have a difficult time finding explosively athletic samoans.
**One of the things I've observed is noticeable in that clip of Holme above - the landing is extremely smooth and quiet like a feather hitting a pillow. The foot deforms a bit more than a typical "high cut" calf person, but you can see more initial acceleration off of footstrike. Holm also has extremely long femurs and very narrow hips which you won't often find on someone with that type of lower leg build.
