KENYAN RUNNERS; WHAT IS THEIR SECRET??

NativeSon · 2003-11-14T16:08:29-05:00

nyan Runners - What's Their Secret? By STEVE SAILER In Sydney Australia, Kenyans won their seventh straight Olympic gold medal in the 3,000-meter steeplechase, that odd track event that combines distance running, hurdling, and splashing through water. Excluding the two Olympics they boycotted, the Kenyans haven't lost this event since 1964. Why do Kenyans perform so extraordinarily well in the steeplechase and other endurance races? Is their secret that they all ran to school as children? Is it growing up at high altitude? Is it something they eat? What about their training and coaching regime? Or, disturbing as this may sound to many in this racially sensitive era, do Kenyans also tend to enjoy some kind of physiological advantage over the other peoples of the world? Whatever the cause of Kenyan superiority, no one can deny it. Although two swift Moroccans have emerged to offer the first serious challenge to Kenyan domination of the steeplechase in years, runners from this East African nation still account for 91 of the 100 best times ever. Kenyans appear to be at their best at the 3,000-meter length, but they also excel at other distances. They've won a few Olympic medals in the 400 meter sprint, but they don't hit their stride until 800 meters. Kenyan-born journalist John H. Manners, who has trained in the Great Rift Valley with many of top Kenyans, is writing a book called "The Running Tribe." He calculates that from 800 through 10,000 meters, this country of only 30 million (0.5 percent of the Earth's population) wins about half of all the Olympic and World Championship medals for men's distance running. In Sydney, Kenyan veteran Paul Tergat finished a close second to the great Ethiopian Haile Gebrselassie in the 10,000 meters. World record holder Wilson Kipketer, a Kenyan running for Denmark, earned a disappointing silver medal in the 800 meter race. The Kenyan record in the marathon is more mixed. They have yet to win Olympic gold. Still, having captured ten straight Boston Marathons, they certainly have the talent. Even more remarkably, men from a single tribe earn three-fourths of Kenya's medals. The three million Kalenjin make up only one tenth of Kenya's population, and just .0005 percent of the world's. Yet these highlanders from the Great Rift Valley win about three-eighths of international men's distance running prizes. Within this region, the half million people of the Nandi district win one fifth of the globe's medals! In 1990 physiologist Bengt Saltin, currently director of the Copenhagen Muscle Research Center, took part of the Swedish national track team to St. Patrick's Academy in Iten, Kenya to race the world's greatest high school track team. The local kids repeatedly trounced the champions of track-mad Sweden. Dr. Saltin estimates there are at least 500 schoolboys in the region who could beat Sweden's best man at 2,000 meters. Based on the results achieved by the finest Kalenjin runners, Berkeley anthropologist Vincent Sarich, the co-founder of the field of genetic anthropology, statistically estimates that the average Kalenjin could outrun 90 percent of the rest of the human race. The Kalenjin are only the most spectacular example of the trend toward "athletic hotspots," a term coined by author Jon Entine in his recent book, "Taboo: Why Black Athletes Dominate Sports and Why We Are Afraid to Talk about It." In the 5,000 meters, for example, the globe's two hotspots are the highlands of East Africa and the Atlas Mountains region of Northwest Africa. Kenyan runners hold 48 of the 100 best times ever, nearby Ethiopia holds 18, and Morocco 23. Of the ten times credited to wealthy "first world" nations, six actually belong to African immigrants. In contrast, the hotspots for sprinting are almost anywhere people of West African descent live. In Sydney, for the fifth consecutive Olympics, the eight men who reached the finals of the Olympic 100 meter dash -- the race that determines the World's Fastest Man -- were all of predominantly West African origin. Going back to 1984, the last 40 finalists have all been blacks from West Africa or its Diaspora. Arguably, greater equality of opportunity should have brought greater equality of results. That's indeed the way it worked in the first half of the 20th Century. When the modern Olympics began, whites monopolized all the races. But by 1932, growing equality of opportunity had nicely integrated the six finalists in the men's 100 meter dash: three whites, two African-Americans, and a Japanese. Yet by 1984, the 100-meter finals had become a reverse of the all white races of the old "Chariots of Fire" days. Similarly, whites won all the steeplechase medals until 1968, when an untrained Kenyan named Amos Biwott, using a comically rustic hurdling style, stunned the track world. Observers expected that Biwott's win would herald a new era in which a wider variety of peoples would take their turn on the steeplechase medals' podium. Instead, it opened the Kenyan Age. Frank Shorter, America's marathon gold medallist in 1972, sums up: "The record-holders used to be athletes from industrialized nations who had access to technology and financial incentives. The Africans finally got a level playing field. Then, the game was over." Further, training high probably isn't the perfect regimen. The latest thinking among sports scientists is that endurance athletes should sleep at high altitudes but train at low altitudes. Thus, European cross-country skiers have taken to sleeping in special motor homes that are depressurized to the oxygen level found at 11,000 feet. Nonetheless, the land of the Kalenjin is a wonderful place to run. Manners says: "When you combine 2,000 meter elevations with equatorial latitudes, you get an ideal climate for sustained outdoor activity- - comfortably warm days, cool nights, low humidity. It is a land of beautiful green hills." In fact, the countryside rather resembles summertime in rural England, where lads running cross country from one village's church steeple to another invented the steeplechase. "Compared with other African countries," Manners says, "Kenya is fairly well supplied with basic necessities. Malnutrition is rare, infant mortality is among the lowest in Africa, life expectancy and literacy among the highest." Nonetheless, Kenyans can't afford depressurized Winnebagos or the hundreds of other expensive tricks sports scientists have concocted for athletes from wealthy lands. Not all white runners agree. Pointing to his 1992 gold medal in the African-dominated 5,000 meters, Dieter Baumann of Germany argues, "We Europeans are just as good as them and no less suited for distance running." Unfortunately, Baumann's case for white biological equality in distance running lost some credibility recently when he tested positive for steroids (He insists that some scoundrel spiked his toothpaste with nandrolone.). Why do Kenyans run so fast? One charming and popular suggestion is that Kenyan talent stems from their all having had to run to school. There are a few problems with this idea, however. Joe Sang, a Kenyan researcher, asked 20 international runners if they ran to school as kids and 14 said no. Recent TV shows have attributed Kalenjin endurance to their eating a lot of the "complex carbohydrates" favored by sports scientists. Manners replies, "There is no question that the Kalenjin do live on a starchy diet. But then, so do most Third World peoples. Starch, after all, is what subsistence farmers produce." Living at high altitude definitely helps. Kalenjin country averages 6,000 to 7,000 feet (2,000 meters) above sea level. Many world class runners in the Western world move to high altitude locations to train. They find themselves stronger when they return to the abundant oxygen of sea level to compete. Still, this factor can be overblown. Worldwide, there are scores of millions of people living at similar or higher altitudes in the American West, Mexico, the Andes, and Central Asia. Yet, combined, they win fewer distance medals than the half million residents of the Nandi district. Mormons, for example, tend to live at high elevations in America's Great Basin, but Mormonism is not known as the "running religion." Many argue that the Kalenjin secret is in their training regimen, which violates most tenets of sophisticated Western thinking. As Christopher McDougall writes in Outside Magazine, the Kenyan style "mandates a combination of huge mileage, relentless race-caliber intensity, and an every-man-for-himself attitude," combined with "a ruthless process of elimination that leaves many promising runners injured or demoralized." He goes on, "But it seems the more the Americans study the Kenyans, the slower they go: American marathoners are running worse than they did 25 years ago." So perhaps Kenyans don't run faster because they train harder so much as they train harder hard because they can run faster. The most famous Kalenjin runner of them all would agree. Kip Keino introduced the world to Kenyan runners during the 1968 Olympics when he buried the legendary American miler Jim Ryun in the 1,500 meters. Keino argues, "We are natural athletes. Most of our runners are naturally born athletes. We have only to work on improvement, the technical part of it. We feel that running is our blood." Manners theorizes that running got into their blood through a Darwinian process. Although most Kalenjin are farmers now, their traditional livelihood had been herding. As "horseless cowboys," they had to run down stray cattle on foot. The faster the runner, the bigger his herd, the more wives he could afford to buy, and therefore the more descendents that carried on his genes. For fun and profit, the Kalenjin enjoyed nothing more than long-distance cattle-rustling. A group of youths would raid a distant tribe and try to hustle their steers home. The fastest runners brought home the livestock, earning the affection of the local maidens. The slowest runners ended up with spears in their backs and no descendents. We know that herding can cause rapid human evolution, since adults tend to be lactose tolerant mostly in ethnic groups that have a tradition of tending dairy cows, such as the Kalenjin or the Scandinavians. So, Manners' theory is not scientifically implausible. Still, Bowdoin College anthropologist Scott MacEachern, who has worked in the Great Rift Valley, is unimpressed. "Why do some neighboring populations, especially those in similar environments and practicing even more specialized cattle herding, not produce Olympic champions? Why do other, totally unrelated, farming populations like the Kikuyu and Kamba produce so many fine runners?" Further, no one has ever found any genes that make Kalenjin faster runners. Despite all the hype about the completion of the Human Genome Project, we still have no idea what the vast majority of genes do. In the meantime, Manners' offers what he admits is purely anecdotal data supporting his thesis about the genetic aptitude of the Kalenjin. He has collected a dozen examples of ``Kalenjin men in their 20s who had never thought of themselves as runners at all until they wound up in circumstances that more or less obliged them to take up the sport." Typically, they had fooled American college track coaches, who assume all Kalenjin are great runners, into giving them scholarships. Once they arrived at their American schools, however, these nonrunners had to make the track team or be sent packing. Manners contends, "In each case, what happened when they started training is quite remarkable." One young Kalenjin student named Paul Rotich, however, had never even intended to masquerade as a runner. His father was too prosperous for him to bother. And at 5'-8" and 190 pounds, the 22 year old was too heavy to pretend. Unfortunately, in his first year at a Texas junior college, Rotich blew the money his father had given him to see him through two years. To avoid returning in disgrace, he decided to get a track scholarship. Manners recounts, "He began training -- running at night because he was embarrassed to be seen lumbering around the track." Somehow, he made the cross-country team that fall. He improved so fast that he won a scholarship to a four year college. There, Manners concludes, "He earned All-American honors ten times in cross-country and various track events. When he went back to Kenya and told his cousin what he had done, the cousin replied, 'So, it is true. If you can run, any Kalenjin can run.' "

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22 years ago 11/15/2003 8:57pm EST

re: Real History

How are those nations suppost to have any quality leadership when their pre-existing infrastructures were destroyed by imperialists?

European powers maintained the local elite at their right hand and when they left, those corrupt individuals were left to rule the country. What do you expect?

Slavery pre-existed imperialism, however slavery by race was invented to justify the use of African slaves and the superiority/right to do so by European states.

States at the top cycle. 700 years ago Mali and Mansa Musa was the richest country in the world. 500 years ago the Ottoman Empire was richest, and 300 years ago China was on top. And in some time, the USA will lose it's spot as top dog.

European states recieved their initial edge in wealth during the 16th sentury when they began to plunder silver (and gold) from the New World. This drastically raised the financial situation of European countries, while it conversely deflated the wealth of the Ottoman Empire.

Europeans were able to overpower the Native Americans, in part from more advanced technology, but largely because Old World diseases (small pox) just happened to be more deadly than New World diseases (syphillis). Then the use of slave labor (at first native american, but given their poor health, turned to Africans, already immune to New World diseases) helped to bring out cash crops at low overhead costs.

And look at other places in Africa. 1830 - Algeria. France owes Algeria $$$ for grain bought on credit during all the hoopla of revolutions and wars, so instead of paying this debt, France decides to invade Algeria (originally to replace the current rulers with ones more favorable to France) but then decide to stay and colonize and make Algeria the first of the "new colonies."

22 years ago 11/16/2003 5:37am EST

re: NativeSon

native son needs to get off the kenyan dick and get on the HAL G RIDE, cause he's been punishing that country for 30 years, booyah!!

22 years ago 11/16/2003 5:39am EST

re: Mustafa Al Hemo Crit del el

May be you son, what's up with that punk !!

22 years ago 11/16/2003 6:07am EST

re: Jimmy Igohe

Why is it no one says African-Americans are "genetically programmed" to be great basketball players because the NBA is mostly black?

The point I'm trying to make is that while lifestyle probably plays its part, the thousands of Kenyans youths trying to be great runners (like urban kids trying to make the NBA) are probably doing so to improve their economic lot in life. They don't care about gold medals. They see the Paul Tergats, Kip Keinos, Daniel Komens owning property and businesses and want the same. In a country with natural abundance but few jobs, running is a way to make it. In running, no field is required, no ball, no special equipment. A tattered pair of sneakers and some cutoffs is all you need.

And, just like basketball in this country where no one talks about the thousands who don't make the NBA, no one even mentions the thousands of Kenyan kids who never get close to being Tergats, Boits, Komens. Remember that uplifting documentary "Hoop Dreams" about two inner city black kids trying to make the NBA? Neither of them made it.

If Kenya's economy improves to the point of being comparable to a western European country, much less this country, I'll bet you'll see a big drop off in running performances.

22 years ago 11/16/2003 8:56am EST

re: Les

now that the soft white boys have given up they try blame everything on drugs to compensate their inadequacies.

These boards are often an example of these type of persons, who just cant make it because they just havent got what it takes.

22 years ago 11/16/2003 9:12am EST

re: MOHAMMED EL. MUSTAFA

now with drug tests in effect, kenyans will have to be content with mere 2:10 marathons...see nyc marathon this year....[/quote]

Who's to say the white guys won't break 2:15 with drug tests? If the kenyans are all on drugs and that's why they're good (which I think is a copout); how come some smart agent hasn't figured out that if he can put a bunch of the best white guys on drugs to win races he can make a whole hell of a lot more money that way.

Also stop looking to Jim Ryun, I'm sure there would be a whole lot of Jim Ryun's out there if running was the only sport (or occupation for that matter) in America.

22 years ago 11/16/2003 10:52am EST

re: Les

If you have you ever followed youth basketball you would know that people say just that. Not in just those words, but with pretty much that idea. Compared to the European Americans, the more of the young African Americans exhibit greater quickness, greater agility, and greater dynamic movement.

If you can't see that, you're either wearing blinders or not looking.

22 years ago 11/16/2003 11:00am EST

re: Les

Les wrote:
If Kenya's economy improves to the point of being comparable to a western European country, much less this country, I'll bet you'll see a big drop off in running performances.

the greatest athletes in the world come from wealthy america...tiger wooods, lance armstrong, alex rodriguez, joe montanna, wayne gretzky (canada) pete sampras, mark spitz are all examples of some of our greatest which kenya could never in a million yrs compete with...kenyans are fine, gifted

runners but without drugs they're no better than frank shorter, alberto salazar, steve scott etc..kenyan must now live with a terrible drug reputation which they deserve.

22 years ago 11/16/2003 12:44pm EST

re: perspective

perspective wrote:
If you have you ever followed youth basketball you would know that people say just that. Not in just those words, but with pretty much that idea. Compared to the European Americans, the more of the young African Americans exhibit greater quickness, greater agility, and greater dynamic movement.
If you can't see that, you're either wearing blinders or not looking.

If, in this post, you are saying that African-Americans are genetically superior athletes, then where are the great West African basketball players and sprinters? American blacks are all descended from West Africans. If they are genetically predisposed to being great athletes, then wouldn't their ancestors have the same qualities?

I'm not saying there aren't genetic factors, my point was that economically disadvantaged people are much more motivated to use athletics as a way of advancing themselves, whether it be in Kenya or anywhere.

22 years ago 11/16/2003 5:16pm EST

re: Les

its the food. Mugali or however you spell it

22 years ago 11/16/2003 9:58pm EST

re: Les

Les wrote:
I'm not saying there aren't genetic factors, my point was that economically disadvantaged people are much more motivated to use athletics as a way of advancing themselves, whether it be in Kenya or anywhere.

finally a bit of truth. The western world has little of the same motivation to perform.

22 years ago 11/17/2003 4:53pm EST

re: Mustafa Al Hemo Crit del el

We have so many whiners in this forum like Clubber Lang, mohammad Musfata et al.

Jameni (folks), say all you can but your envious jealous evil hearts will pain forever. We are the best and we don't take drugs. Period!

Growl all you can but by the end of the day, you will have to contend with reading our "rear tags" and inhale our pespiration as you trail us in virtually every race.

Just as a reminder, the truth is the truth whether one chooses to believe it or not. We are the finest! Can you read me?

22 years ago 11/17/2003 5:07pm EST

re: NativeSon

NativeSon wrote:
We have so many whiners in this forum like Clubber Lang, mohammad Musfata et al.
Jameni (folks), say all you can but your envious jealous evil hearts will pain forever. We are the best and we don't take drugs. Period!
Growl all you can but by the end of the day, you will have to contend with reading our "rear tags" and inhale our pespiration as you trail us in virtually every race.
Just as a reminder, the truth is the truth whether one chooses to believe it or not. We are the finest! Can you read me?

Well, deep down we know you're not a Kenyan, just a guy posting to irritate. A troll. Also, deep down, we know the Kenyans are juiced. For now, they can use location and the race card against any testing, etc. Look at the IAAF etc. deciding to let Lagat off with a 'false positive'. Hilarious.

The truth eventually comes out in everything. It's an interesting story to follow. Kenyans and Ethipians who were equal to the world's best, suddenly shoot far beyond. AFTER the arrival of unscupulous characters like Hermens, Elstre, Kestre, Templeton, MacDonald, etc. Sure, it's all a coincidence. It is a hoot.

22 years ago 11/17/2003 5:22pm EST

re: NativeSon

iDetective,

There is no way you can deny me my heritage. I am a Native Son of the great Rift Valley-Nyahururu.

This is where the legendary Moses Kiptanui, the greatest steeplechaser of all time has set up his training centre.

If this doesn't allay your doubts, then, I wonder what will.

22 years ago 11/17/2003 5:24pm EST

re: NativeSon

NativeSon wrote:
iDetective,
There is no way you can deny me my heritage. I am a Native Son of the great Rift Valley-Nyahururu.
This is where the legendary Moses Kiptanui, the greatest steeplechaser of all time has set up his training centre.
If this doesn't allay your doubts, then, I wonder what will.

Yeah, that's telling him.

How dumb are you?

22 years ago 11/17/2003 5:43pm EST

re: NativeSon

NativeSon, what heritage are you talking about? The only heritage I have seen from you is your never ending case of verbal diarrhea thats polluted this site. If anyone wanted shit from you they would squeeze your head. Go jerk off somewhere else.

22 years ago 11/17/2003 7:33pm EST

re: Clubber Lang

NativeSon is just some never been laid curly haired big nosed thick glasses wearing HS senior or college freshman out for some fun is all. He might spend some of his time stroking his meat with a tweezers while he looks at pictures of Kenyans, but it's for sure he isn't from the Rift Valley.

Oh yeah, the Kenyans and Ethiopians at the top are loaded with drugs. Only an idiot would think otherwise.

22 years ago 11/18/2003 3:38am EST

re: gimme!

gimme! wrote:
their secret, they run alot, race fast, check please.

Yep

22 years ago 11/18/2003 3:58am EST

re: NativeSon

Call me naive but in all the time i've spent living and training in Kenya i've not seen any evidence of drug abuse. Hell the fridge in the training camp has no electic half the time. The only performance enhancement programme is a lot of very intense training and the magic of ugali. For every runner who makes it their are a lot of guys who get injured and dont make it. I doubt the US would tolerate this failure rate.

Lets get this 'Kalenjin' thing cleared up too. There is no such tribe. Kalenjin is phrase used by the brits to cover all of the Nandi speaking peoples of the western rift i.e. the Marakwet, Keiyo, Tugen, Nandi, Kipsigis, Sabaot and Pokot. It was an attempt to create a counter balance to the two biggest tribes, the Kikuyu and Luo, and restore some political balance. It certainly worked as Moi (a Tugen) embedded his 'Kalenjin' brothers into key state positions and misruled Kenya for years.

22 years ago 11/18/2003 7:18am EST

re: NativeSon

Spider Rico,

I am not in high school. I am way way too old to be in high school.

Clubber Lang,

I do not intend to engage with you in verbal diatribe. I certainly know better. By exchanging unpleasantries with you, I'd be stooping to your level. I have no intention and I have no time for that. Calling you names is certainly beneath me. Using all those undesirable words towards each other lowers each one of us. Just to remind you, as someone said, "When you argue with a fool, two fools are arguing!"

I rest my case. Please yourself, good sir. Mungu akubariki.

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