Why doesn't Bogota, Colombia produce world class distance talent?

I remember reading once that Kalenjin in particular have only moved to (moderate!) altitude relatively recently (a couple thousand years), which is enough time to evolve minor altitude adaptations that aren't very specific (e.g. better oxygen transport). Tibetans on the other hand have lived at extreme altitude for a very long time, and so their adaptations were more serious, but also very specific towards living at altitude. Therefore, Kalenjin have adaptations that allow them to thrive aerobically either at altitude or sea level, while Tibetans have adaptations that allow them to thrive extremely well at altitude, but may even hurt them at sea level.

Has anyone heard something similar? I don't know where South Americans would fit into this story since their ancestors for the most part have only been at altitude for ~500 years, but the altitude is very high.

Maybe they get oxygen poisoning/sickness if that's a thing from their body taking in too much oxygen.

I could see them having higher oxidation levels = more free radicals as a result of their bodies being adapted to produce more red blood cells.

A better question is why is Mexico city not a hub for distance talent. It is the largest city in North America with a population of 9 million above 7,000 feet. The greater Mexico city area has 20 million people above 7,000 feet as well.

They prefer soccer, cycling and skating. IMHO.

It does, and it all goes into futbol.

500 years? Peru has some of the oldest civilizations in the world going back to 3,200 BCE, though the earliest ones were closer to the coast. Cuzco and other high elevation cities have been inhabited for well over 3,000 years. The Chavin culture lived in the Andean highlands above 7,000 feet and dates to 1200 BCE, the Moche also were also living in the same area about a 1,000 years later around the time of Christ. Boliva's population is over 60% indigenous, Peru over 30% so we are talking 1,000s of years of living at altitude for huge swaths of the population.

All kids in Colombia aspire to be the next James Rodriguez (pronounced as "Hamez").

Mexico had some very good distance runners in the 80s/90s. Genetically speaking, Colombians and Mexicans shouldn't be too different I would imagine, they might just be a hidden gem.

My friend Pedro Grajales competed in the 1964 and 1968 Olympics, Allan Hancock College in 1966-7, and I'm not sure if he ran at the UNR after that. We won the California state track meet in 1966 and 1967, the latter with 100 points. Migual Tibiduiza later followed that path along with our coach, Jack Cook, from Hancock to the University of Nevada at Reno.

Pedro said the tracks in Columbia were always way too crowded with soccer players for good training.

worldathletics.org

Pedro GRAJALES | Profile | World Athletics

Link:worldathletics.org/athletes/colombia/p...

Yes, there are some potentially good distance runners in Latin America. The only problem is that most of them will never even attempt to become a distance runners, because it's not part of their culture.

It works the other way too. The US has some athletes with amazing soccer potential, but they choose to go into other sports instead. Imagine if the US had no track, no baseball, no football, no basketball, no tennis, and no hockey, and they all played soccer instead.

Wasn't Jairo Correa at UNR actually better than Miguel (not Domingo tho)?

Says Victor Mora won South American 1/2 marathon champs in La Paz sub 1:11. Do the altitude adjustment for that. 8/11/1981.

All this is proof altitude doesn't work. 9 million Mexico City can't churn out quality runners in droves? There is no scientific proof altitude works. It works great when RACING AT ALTITUDE.

Eider Arévalo was 2017 world champion in the 20km walk. Maybe all their good runners specialize in race walk.

Any running tradition that used to exist in the Inca period is long gone, and so no one runs in the Andes, or at least no one ran when I spent a summer in Bolivia at altitudes over 13,000' in Potosi, and some time in Sucre at maybe 7-8k'. Running could be great up there. Of course, the build of people is also very different than in Kenya. A lot of people are short and have short legs and are stockier. Nevertheless, I'm sure they could be great if it were part of the culture. I was only able to run 2-3 miles in workouts, and they were tough, mostly shorter repeats. I could only manage 6:13 in spikes after 4-6 weeks in Potosi on the dirt track, at a time I had a pr of 5:06. But running was very easy in Sucre after that, and I felt like lightning back at sea level in the U.S. and had a good xc season and was MVP--of a mediocre team--and 16th in the league, and then ran 1:22 for a half marathon, beating the league's 4th place finisher by 2 minutes. My training was very, very sub-optimal, but the altitude training seemed to help a lot.

Futbol is also incredibly popular in Bolivia, even watching other Latin American teams in the World Cup occupied everyone, and all the kids played futbol. There is some basketball, but running is not on the radar even though there are quite a few tracks around futbol fields.

On a population level, running success isn’t primarily about altitude, but rather about the evolutionary pressure on the group’s ancestors to be good runners.

Air quality is notoriously awful in a lot of these high altitude Latin American cities, including Mexico City. I wonder if that has any effect on people's desire/ability to run.