Is It Official..are Ethiopians better runners than Kenyans?

Captain Fantastic wrote:

Man, I am trying to help you out here. No one has dominated the 10k in national competitions in recent years like John Korir (although he hasn't lived up to hype internationally).

Exactly my point.

Korir ha;d the misfortune of winning the Ken yan 10k trials only to blow it at the international event. He not only falls short but he also disappoints. He is a disaster.

He should never ever represent our country.

I agree with native son.korir should never ever be in kenya's national colours and he was very lucky to have had a chance coz there are more patriotic and better 10k kenya runners like micah kogo,josphat ndambiri,matathi,kipchoge,mike kigen,longisiwa,ndirangu etc i.e they are about 50+ 10k runners who are many times better than korir and how he was selecetd is questionable.

As for whether ethiopia is better than kenya.I'll be honest with you by saying this;Ethiopia has about 5 outstanding individual athletes i.e kenenise,defar,Dibaba,Haile and once in awhile sihine.other than those 5 the rest are the same as other excellent international runners from other parts of the world .on the other hand kenya has thousands perhaps hudreds of thousands outstanding runners who are of world class level.Secondly kenya has the best 800m,1500m,3000m steepleeches,half marathon and marathon runners.Do this names ring a bell? martin lel,robert cheruiyot,sammmy wanjiru,janet jepkosgei,pamela chelimo,asbel kiprop,kipsiele koech.they are all kenyan runners who have been outstanding performers this year.

So in my opinion Ethipia is not better than kenya but ethipia has some awesome individual athletes who desereve alot of praise and credit.

Ak must never pick the following runners:- Daniel Komen,John Cheruiyot,Benjamin maiyo,Ngatuny.The reason is because as in as much the are good runners they lack racing mentality and for all their talent having them in the national team will always bring dissappointment.By the way all these runners tend to be front runners and their opponents always know they cannot handle race tactic.

few caveats there for kenya's 5 & 10k in og :

5k

- keino got surprisingly beaten in mexico over it ( he had some gallbladder trouble in that meet )

- jipcho in '74 shape couda won in '76 if not for boycot ( 13'14 & 3'33 - quicker than quax/dixon who coudn't overhaul viren )

- rono in '80 if he had been in '78 shape may have ground down yifter

- '92 : kenyans didn't pick kiptanui who ran a disastrously paced 13'01 ( wr 12'58 ) soon after - he couda won that gold in a solo-run like kirui in '93 ( but better than kirui )

- '96 : kenyans didn't pick komen who probably couda run a solo 12'45 at the time ( he ran his 7'20 that year - gotta be able to go solo 12'45 off that )

- '00 : lagat couda doubled that year - it was a slow race - i'm sure he couda outkicked that thopy

certainly kenyan couda been worth a coupla golds better

10k :

- keino outkicked in mexico ( someone provide details ) ?!

- rono in '80 ( same argument as above )

- ondieki in his '93 shape in '92 couda ground down skah ( coud he have gone at least <27'10 in '92 ? )

Why was his selection questionable? He finished second in the Trials. There was nothing underhanded about it. Also, when did he become unpatriotic? Can you name a 10k runner that has chosen to represent Kenya in major championships MORE times than Korir?

not quite... wrote:

37 Kenyans have run sub 2.10 in the marathon this year...

Kenya has had more people run under 2:07 in the marathon than the rest of the world combined.

kenya has the depth, ethiopia the top stars. kenya has 4 marathoner under 206 this year, ethioia has 1, ethiopia has 6 marathoners under 207 in history, kenya has 6 under 207 so far this year

Well said bro,

I didn't even include Gideon Ngatuny. Korir wouldn't even feature in the top ten 10,000m Kenyans today.

He's done well to representour country but he just doesn't deliver.

nativeson, duncan et al,

No one can deny that there are some incredible Kenyan runners. What is unknown still is the real depth of the Ethiopians. Due to visa restrictions etc, only a few of them are racing abroad, on the roads and tracks.

Take the average road races in the US or Europe. How many Kenyans and how many Ethiopians are competing? Whats the ratio? Similarly for track. Far more Kenyans than Ethiopians are running in each event. Yet the winners are usually top Ethiopians.

I personally feel that given the very few Ethiopians that are currently competing and defeating the top Kenyans, one can infer that as more and more Ethiopians are allowed to compete their true depths will be uncovered.

In conclusion, in a field with equal numbers of both nations runners, I believe more Ethiopians will place on top.

So do you think AK should just be allowed to select people that didn't even run in the Trials? There is enough corruption in AK already without giving them that kind of discretion. It is always puzzling why Korir can't run as well internationally as he does in Kenya, but if he qualifies... then he qualifies. I think it could be something to do with the fact that he runs better at altitude than most.

interesting comments on the kenyan what ifs. but of course the medal account is a selective view. the depth charts are a better assessment of kenyan distance running as a whole.

I counted 7 additional medals for kenya at men's 1500m, none for ethiopia.

Tomi2nuts

Do you really think there is about 500k ethipian world class runners? you are joking;tens of thousands maybe.But there is hundreds of thousands of kenyans.It has nothing to do with VISA's coz afterall in both countries getting a visa to go anywhere is almost impossible, just go to the US embassy in nairobi and see it for yourself.I beleive the presence of many running camps in Kenya is most responsible for the greater number of kenyan world class runners.Ethiopians do it differently,they do not have the running camps instead their training is more centarlised especially at addis ababa.If you really beleieve ethipians have the depth ,how comes they did not have winners in 800m,1500,steeplecehs when the african championships wre held in addis ababa coz surely the best of their athletes would have been able to travel to addis and partcipate.

As someone said Ethipia has some outstanding stars namely Defar,dibaba,bekele and Haile but kenya has the depth.

well said

& in addition to visa nonsense, kenyans win far more road-races than those 'thopys, not vice-versa

Don't you think that if the Ethiopians cared about running the steeple well, they could smoke the kenyans in that also? I think so.

If an Ethiopian won the Olympic steeplechase Kenya would be very, very upset.

And Ventolin, why in the world do you insist on calling the Ethiopians "Thopys"?

I think the Ethipians would love to smoke kenyans in the steepleches and in 800 and 1500 and the marathon but if you are keen enough you would have noticed that the running style of ethipians does not suit those four events.they run aggressively and so lack the smothness and efficiency that is essential in these events.That said the ethipians tend to have better enduarance than the kenyans thus are better in 10000M and to some extend 5000M.

I think some people are quite tired of the kenyans dominace to an extend that they are trying to convince the world that the kenyans are finished when that isn't the case.Ask ethipians themselves and they will tell you that kenya is still dorminant in athletics and it will be so for many years to come.

i don't buy that cadence argument

if you look at vids of all the 1'43 & also others who've gone 3'30, there are some with rough & ready styles

an ugly style doesn't prevent you from running fast

as for thopy's having better endurance, that perhaps only really applies to geb/kennster & probably only over 5k ( at 10k, i'm convinced tergat was actually capable of breaking the 10k wr with <26'20 in sydney shape, but race was too slow overall & geb just edged him on last lap & wanjiru is probably capable of 26'20 if he concentrated on it & of course he & lel coud break the M record )

one reason kenyans are quicker over 800 & 1500 are because they probably have greater depth of quicker 400 guys which allied to endurance when moving up gives them edge over thopys over these distances

here is thopy record list :

http://www.athleticsethiopia.com/Statistics/StatisticsManager.php?statistics

their 400 record is 45.42 from '68 !!!

there must be close to a dozen kenyans who've run quicker - their national record set in '92 og is 44.18 - quicker than the euro record !!!

i don't think thopys will get regularly into 1'43 or 3'30 until we see some greater depth in their 400 lists - which unfortunately for them, looks like never

Im just sayin.....

Hengelo Meet:

5000m Men

1 Bekele , Kenenisa ETH 12:58.94

2 Soi , Edwin Cheruiyot KEN 13:13.88

3 Longosiwa , Thomas Pkemei KEN 13:14.36

4 Jeilan , Ibrahim ETH 13:15.12

10,000 Metres - Men

1 Sihine , Sileshi ETH 26:50.53

2 Gebrselassie , Haile ETH 26:51.20

3 Kipchoge , Eliud KEN 26:54.32

5000 Metres - Women

1 Burka , Gelete ETH 14:45.84

2 Melkamu , Meselech ETH 14:46.25

3 Fikadu , Belaynesh ETH 14:46.84

4 Masai , Linet Chepkwemoi KEN 14:47.14

WHEN THE F*** HAS A KENYAN EVER SAID "THEY ARE FROM ANOTHER PLANET"

WE ARE ALL FROM THE SAME PLANET, DUMBASS