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How small does it have to be, to be relatively small? Population of Europe is 743 million. Population of America is 579 million. Population of Japan is 127 million. Population of Brazil is 207.7 million. Population of Russia, Australia, South America ... Population of India, China ... In 1990, Kenya's population was about half of today's population, at 23 million and Ethiopia was 48 million. When we look at where Kenyan and Ethiopian elites come from, most of them can be narrowed down to specific smaller groups, like Kalenjin, Nandi, and Oromo, while large parts of Kenya and Ethiopia produce few, if any, elite athletes. In one study, Kenyans were found to have 80x more elite athletes than other nations, per 20 million people. The same study found, that corrected for population, that Kenyans outperformed the rest of the world by a factor of 1700 (in 1997 World Cross Country) The fact is that relatively small populations largely outperform the rest of the world. My last point was as absurd as your previous point. There is no ethical issue to suggest that a good combination and expression of genes are a factor, along with environment, talent, training, mentality, lifestyle, and being fully fit at 110 pounds. By all means punish the dopers, but do it without the false claims and accusations.
East Africa had 4 of the top 6, in a race with 33 countries in total. In a race with 293 finishers, all 12 scorers for Kenya and Ethiopia finished in the top 55. Why not count the juniors too -- they took 8 of the first 8. Out of 139 finishers, all 10 East African juniors participating finished in the top 18. Let's not just look individual results. It's a team sport. Ethiopia and Kenya took 1st and 2nd in both the senior mens and junior mens events. How can you do any better than that? How dominate do you have to be to call it domination? That's an impressive display of depth of talent in 1985 -- before EPO, and before Gabriele Rosa.
Coevett wrote:
Well just looking at the top 10 results for the 1985 world cross country, I wouldn't say Africa dominated.
Ethiopia yes had 3 of the top 6, but Portugal had 2 of the top 11 and the winner (Carlos Lopes). Ethiopia had a young population of 40 million and Portugal an already aging population of 10 million. Carlos Lopes, btw, would have been football player, but his father forbid it and so he joined the local track team instead.
I've never questioned the talent.
Bit of a coincidence the massive drop in times at the point EPO was introduced into the pro peloton though, isn't it?
O.K, so lets say Africa made a leap forward in the 80s, and then, you'd have to admit, another great leap forward in the 90s. I'm just curious to know why they haven't really gone any further forward, despite the fact that the populations of both Kenya and Ethiopia have doubled since 1994, when their domination in terms of times, was at its peak. I mean all the causal factors that explain why Africa went from 'producing superb athletes' (like Rono and Bayi etc) in the 70s to dominating in the 90's surely continued to be present, and with the population growth alone (and decline in European population) you would expect now at least twice as many elite African runners and complete and utter domination. Instead, you have slower times as well as white runners becoming more competitive again.
I detest political correctness and the idea that there are no differences between races, and I certainly agree with Deano that African athletes who were born at altitude have an advantage from that, and most East Africans obviously even if not born at altitude have an advantage from being geographically close to places where they can train at altitude. I'm open minded as to whether at 10K and the Marathon East Africans might have some small genetic advantage, but certainly at 800 the evidence would be that if anything white people have the genetic advantage, and any advantage Kenyans have at 1500m and even 5000m is marginal at best.
trollism wrote:
rekrunner wrote:
East Africa had 4 of the top 6, in a race with 33 countries in total.
In a race with 293 finishers, all 12 scorers for Kenya and Ethiopia finished in the top 55.
Why not count the juniors too -- they took 8 of the first 8.
Out of 139 finishers, all 10 East African juniors participating finished in the top 18.
Let's not just look individual results. It's a team sport.
Ethiopia and Kenya took 1st and 2nd in both the senior mens and junior mens events.
How can you do any better than that?
How dominate do you have to be to call it domination?
That's an impressive display of depth of talent in 1985 -- before EPO, and before Gabriele Rosa.
I've never questioned the talent.
Bit of a coincidence the massive drop in times at the point EPO was introduced into the pro peloton though, isn't it?
Moses Tanui went from being easily beaten in Commonwealth Games by Eamon Martin to being worked champion in 1 year after he met Rosa at the time EPO became widely available.
ukathleticscoach wrote:
Moses Tanui went from being easily beaten in Commonwealth Games by Eamon Martin to being worked champion in 1 year after he met Rosa at the time EPO became widely available.
Yeah...rekrunner should put that into his pipe and smoke it. Lol.
ukathleticscoach wrote:
Moses Tanui went from being easily beaten in Commonwealth Games by Eamon Martin to being worked champion in 1 year after he met Rosa at the time EPO became widely available.
Let me guess. Situps? Box jumps? Form work? Got serious with training?
Renato,
Interesting, especially about Cornelius Chirchir, WJR holder over 1500m with 3'30.24. It seems like the financial incentive of becoming WR holder would produce enough motivation to train, but he slowly fell off from 3'30 in 2004 to 3'40 a few years later.
Along those lines, can you speak about the extra talent of Daniel Komen, who produced the still standing WR of 3000m?
ukathleticscoach wrote:
trollism wrote:
I've never questioned the talent.
Bit of a coincidence the massive drop in times at the point EPO was introduced into the pro peloton though, isn't it?
Moses Tanui went from being easily beaten in Commonwealth Games by Eamon Martin to being world champion in 1 year after he met Rosa at the time EPO became widely available.
I'm beginning to like you again. Yes I remember that race, it was puzzling among running circles where I come from, nobody could believe that he could improve so much in one year. But then again Gebrhiwet improved from running a 3k equivalent of c13:30 for 5,000m to running 12:47 in one year yet we are supposed to believe that an elite 5,000m runner couldn't improve on his best times set as 18 year old (when testers didn't know who he was).
Yes. This.
The functional reserve capacity is really a theoretical explanation of what I actually said but this isn't an exact science if we do not know Gebremeskel's metrics for his total lung capacity, his residual volume, his functional reserve capacity and his tidal volume. We would also need to know numerous metrics like stroke volume, hematocrit, stride length, wind, heat, hydration and have all of these in real time. Personally I seriously doubt that he even knows what his functional reserve capacity is. From your line of argument you are siding with Venti by saying that Gebremeskel can run 12:40 or better because his 54.8s last lap at Saint Denis in 2012 was only possible if prior to the last lap he was running below steady state maximal aerobic power for 5,000m but again this is only possible if replicable (the backbone of any scientific test). A good example is looking at the athletes 1st & 2nd best times, for Bekele it was 12:37 & 12:40, for Geb it was 12:39 & 12:41, Komen 12:39 & 12:44 for Gebremeskel it is 12:46 & 12:53 (I think). If you know what sort of watts and joules Gebremeskel uses please tell us. Again this in no way proves that Ndiku or Gebremeskel can run 3:26/27 for 1500m. Going from 329.5 to 327.0 is only 0.08mps difference but in reality it is gigantic in terms of lactic acid accumulation (if that is the correct terminology). It also seems to gloss over the speed at VO2max argument that has better reasoning. You do know that Olympic rowers might have the biggest lung capacity and functional reserve capacity?
I've made the point several times already that raw population numbers can be misleading. For example, Japan's population might be 127 million and Kenya's population might be 55 million, but there might be twice as many 18-35 year olds in Kenya than Japan.
New Zealand has a population of 3 million yet I'm pretty sure it outperforms the rest of the world in Rugby by many orders of magnitude. When you say 'Kenya has 80 x elite athletes compared to other countries' you mean distance runners, one area of one sport. There are many reasons why Kenya and even small areas of Kenya could be producing so many elite distance runners and genetics doesn't necessarily have to be one of them at all, and if it is, it could mean simply that Kenyan genetics is such that just about the only sport in the world they can excel at is distance running, so almost uniquely on Earth, an entire nation's elite athletes are funneled into one sport - distance running.
I remember back in my year at school the 'best distance runner' was also the best footballer. As far as I know, he never ran or jogged at all, just played football every day. There was never any question of his 'talent' at distance running leading him to become a distance runner or even competing even at an inter school level. He just played football, and ended up playing for a non league team. In Kenya, every schoolboy is marked out as a potential Olympic running champion. Every schoolboy dreams of becoming the next Bekele or Rushida. In fact, it seems every Kenyan schoolboy runs to school (in Europe/USA most parents drive their kids to school and wont even let them take the bus in case they are kidnapped by Muslim grooming gangs or psychopaths wearing clown masks). If you add in the fact that EPO and other drugs can be handed over by the local pharmacist as easily as aspirin, and 25 year olds can easily claim to be 14 to get into junior international competitions, there would be something deeply odd if Kenya didn't totally dominate distance running at this point, even if they had no genetic advantage whatsoever.
Coevett wrote:
25 year olds can easily claim to be 14 to get into junior international competitions,
A bit of a stretch but it is going on and guess why?
"In lane 3 the current World Junior Champion" they get on the invite list to earn an income. There is one exception to this, as Renato will point out, and that is Bekele, who might even be younger than his listed age.
Have you all noticed ventolin doesn't use the word "the"?
Subway Surfers Addiction wrote:
ukathleticscoach wrote:
Moses Tanui went from being easily beaten in Commonwealth Games by Eamon Martin to being world champion in 1 year after he met Rosa at the time EPO became widely available.
I'm beginning to like you again. Yes I remember that race, it was puzzling among running circles where I come from, nobody could believe that he could improve so much in one year. But then again Gebrhiwet improved from running a 3k equivalent of c13:30 for 5,000m to running 12:47 in one year yet we are supposed to believe that an elite 5,000m runner couldn't improve on his best times set as 18 year old (when testers didn't know who he was).
Did you say 18 year old!
Several causal factors are not the same today as in the '90s. Primarily financial incentives have dropped, forcing talented athletes to the roads. Doubling the talent pool aggravates this even more, as more athletes would compete for less money on the track. In the '90s, the great leap forward can be attributed exclusively to a handful of talented athletes, combined with financial incentives to break the records, and the existence of heated rivalries. Only three people have run faster than Coe, and they are all Kenyan. Times have not evolved much in the last 36 years, suggesting both genetic differences and EPO plays next to no role in the 800m.
Indeed, saying Kenya and Ethiopia have a combined population of 150 million people is highly misleading, when the talent comes mainly from well identified limited subsets of the population. We should look at the population of individual tribes or groups producing the talented athletes. A Nandi is 23x more likely to be an elite runner than other Kenyans. In Kenya, soccer is more popular than running. There are many reasons why Kenya and even small areas of Kenya could be producing so many elite distance runners and doping doesn't necessarily have to be one of them at all.
As long time readers know, my non-moving goalpost position is, if EPO can produce massive drops in times, EPO should have produced these massive drops in other populations worldwide, not just selected populations in East Africa and a handful of athletes from North Africa. As any good scientist knows, the results should be repeatable. EPO could be a good explanation for a broadly observed massive drop in times, but, as a globally available, globally undetectable, and globally effective endurance super-drug, it is a very poor explanation for a local dominance lasting decades, starting one decade before EPO was introduced into the cycling peloton. And it is counter-intuitive to observe the remaining populations stagnate and plateau, at a time when a globally available endurance super-drug would be just what they needed to be able to compete. If we think that lack of testing in East Africa (only a relevant argument since 2009) is the difference, this was not a barrier in the '90s, when no test existed anywhere, and EPO was well known worldwide, thanks to its popularity in cycling. Testing also seems to be not much of a barrier today, as only 1% are caught, while 57% dope. 56%, likely an under-estimation, of athletes today are reaping the full benefits of EPO, available by micro-dosing, without detection. One of the new factors of the '90s, in East Africa, was the introduction of European training, and professionalism. I haven't seen this real possibility realistically ruled out. The best debate tactic for dismissing this idea appears to be mockery and ridicule. Again, we could believe EPO helped East Africans, thanks to "European training and ergogenics", if this was corroborated by EPO similarly helping Europeans also thanks to the same "European training and ergogenics".
ukathleticscoach wrote:
trollism wrote:
I've never questioned the talent.
Bit of a coincidence the massive drop in times at the point EPO was introduced into the pro peloton though, isn't it?
Moses Tanui went from being easily beaten in Commonwealth Games by Eamon Martin to being worked champion in 1 year after he met Rosa at the time EPO became widely available.
Indeed, there's non-genetic reasons available as well as non-doping. The fact is the total domination of not only the competition of the era but the all-time lists in the 90s co-inciding almost exactly with the availability of EPO does need explaining, especially when even today the lack of testing and easy access to EPO in parts of Kenya is being well documented.
LOL, Kenyan national football (soccer) team is currently ranked 111th in the world behind such 'countries' as the Fareo Islands. The average attendance at a Kenyan top flight soccer match is just over 2,000 (and that's a big improvement over the years before). The average for the English Premier League is 38,000 and even for the league below that it's 20,000. In China and India - not known for producing elite footballers - the average is also over 20,000.
Pretty sure the crowds for the Kenyan Olympic trials last year was over 2,000 LOL
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7621RfnTpUhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_attendance_figures_at_domestic_professional_sports_leagueshttps://www.supersport.com/football/kenya/news/120523/kpl_attendance_soarshttp://www.fifa.com/fifa-world-ranking/ranking-table/men/index.htmlThe 'genetic' difference might just be that white guys like Cram or Ovett could have been world class soccer players, or excelled at any number of sports (and Ovett clearly demonstrated that as a teen). Guys like Kiprop perhaps could only be elite distance runners, or maybe cyclists. Today, guys like Cram and Ovett almost certainly would be footballers (or even cyclists as Steve steered his son Freddy into as opposed to running). Cram has said that himself.
People today look at the running motion of somebody like Kiprop and conclude it's the physique and motion of the optimal middle-distance runner. Then they see Kenyans with that look dominating in general and conclude Kenyans are physically superior. Well maybe the coaches here can give good scientific reasons why it is, but maybe it's just selection bias. It's not the perfect running physique, its simply the perfect physique to be good at nothing but running.
I don't know how true it is that the elite Kenyans come from a tiny tribe in Kenya. I know that Rushida, for example, comes from one of the largest cities and which is also synonymous with a doping culture (not saying Rushida is doping, I hope he's not). Seems again a bit colonialist and patronising to be talking about Kenyans in terms of tribes. Do they still talk in that way and identify with their 'tribe'? I mean it's a highly developed industrial modern society today, is it not, with most people moving to a few big cities now for decades?
Am I living in the twilight zone? The Boston Marathon weather was terrible!
Des Linden: "The entire sport" has changed since she first started running Boston.
Matt Choi was drinking beer halfway through the Boston Marathon
Ryan Eiler, 3rd American man at Boston, almost out of nowhere
2024 College Track & Field Open Coaching Positions Discussion