sub 2:10 marathoners in 2011: Kenya+Ethiopia 99, USA+JPN 3. "We are catching up" ???

Another thing to think of regarding the East African explosion in the marathon is that the marathon is primarily where the money is.

A Kenyan guy running, say, 27:30 on the track at sea level, is not going to make his national team, probably. He's not going to get in many European track races. While 27:30 is a great time, for the Kenyan in that situation, it's also a waste of time of fitness.

On the other hand, if that same Kenyan runs the marathon in 2:08-09, he can make very good money and send it home to his family in Kenya, buy himself a farm, etc. Three years of reasonably good marathoning can probably set that Kenyan up pretty comfortably.

There's a huge financial incentive for East Africans to run the marathon. In America, on the other hand, if you're running, say, 27:40, it wouldn't be insane to think you could make a national team on the track. I'm not saying a guy at that level could automatically expect to make it (especially if a healthy Ritz, Rupp, and Solinsky all declared their intentions) but he wouldn't necessarily need a miracle, either.

In a similar vein, an American running 13:20/27:40 probably has a small contract, and while he's not getting rich by any means, between the contract, performance incentives, appearance fees/prize money at the odd road race, etc, he seems to do "ok." If he so chooses, he can focus on the track, making national teams, improving his PRs, etc, and move up to the marathon when he pleases. A Kenyan or Ethiopian at a similar level does not have that luxury, and so he turns to the marathon and makes some money that way.

I think in the next five years, we could see a second US distance surge, this time over the marathon, as more very good but not quite good enough track runners move up. I don't mean that as insult to those runners in any way, either, I just mean that if your competition to make the world 10k team is Ritz, Solinsky, Rupp- well, maybe you take the marathon a little more seriously. As the depth in American 15/3k/5k/10k performances improves, (and check the lists on that, because the depth is ridiculous) it will be harder and harder for guys to get contracts. Hopefully, those guys will stick to the sport and earn their way through the marathon.

As I was writing this, something just occurred to me. In the 60s and early 70s, America had this awesome surge in track performances. Several years after that, there was a huge surge in marathon performances. Obviously, part of that is the boom, marathoning becoming more popular as a result of Shorter's Olympic win, etc. However, I think you could make an argument for the idea that marathon improvements could come on the backs of surges in track performance.

I won't comment one way or the other if the trend is positive or negative, in the past decades. In any case, there is still a big gap. The "white" army of Kenyan-killers is sparse.

I took a chance to review the Lore of Running. Noakes was simply the messenger of some of the few studies that exists, looking at African dominance.

I was right with the factor of 80, but when you correct it for population size, Kenyans outperform the rest of the world by a factor of about 1700. This was the conclusion of some statistical analysis of the 1997 World Cross-Country championship in Turin, made by a New Zealand biologist working at UC Berkeley. The 10 Kenyan entrants finished 1, 2, 3, 6, 7, 17, 19, 24, 28, and 47.

The cattle rustling theory was explored in 1996 by Bale and Sang. The "sport" of the Nandis was cattle raiding, and they suggested that this favors fast runners with unusual endurance, who would then have the privilege of marrying and having children. The British introduced the Nandi to running as a distraction, but by 1937, the Rift Valley athletic teams were dominated by the Nandi.

A 1993 study (Coetzer et al.) observed that a key difference between Africans was their superior muscle fiber fatigue resistance.

A 1999 study by Weston et. al, found that African athletes had more Type II muscle fibers than non-African distance runners. Their composition was more like European middle distance runners. Yet they have some characteristics of Type I fibers, e.g. high capillary density and high mitochondrial enzyme content, and are extremely fatigue resistance.

What I also read somewhere (maybe here), is that Africans have way more genetic diversity than Europeans and their descendants. This was explained since mans origins are in Africa, we could expect the most gene variety where man has existed the longest. In contrast, small groups who left to become Europeans only possessed a tiny subset of the diversity. You could also speculate that the group was forced to migrate, because they were weaker in some respect.

That East Africans dominate distances between 800m and the marathon gets a lot of coverage. But it seems to me that West Africans, and their descendants, are also highly dominant in sprints. Maybe not by a factor of 1700, but didn't "white fans" recently celebrate the first white man under 10 seconds for the 100m? That's old stuff for Africans. This seems to confirm that Africans are generally superior, due to a broader selection of available genes, and a longer time to specialize.

I also notice that African dominance doesn't extend to ultra-marathons. I wonder if that's simply because they haven't really tried yet, or there specific advantages diminish beyond the marathon.

So runners on both sides of the Atlantic stopped rustling cattle in 1985 and their genes quickly detoriorated?

Lack of serious competition+EPO=a factor of about 1700.

Black South Africans are of different origin, it is a mixture between Bantu and Khoisan tribes. They are not as economical as Kenyan Nilotes and furthermore, they suffer from a pretty low VO2 max. values. This is why they don't perform particularly well in long distances on track.

But they do so, because the rest of the world doesn't care about running anymore. During 1986-1995, when Africans started to "dominate", times in middle distances declined and stagnated for the whole decade. The "superior Africans" were simply left on track alone, but they were unable to make any progress - most probably because the swift performance improvement before 1985 got ahead their physical potential. Until 1995, when EPO came on the scene, no Kenyan broke 3:32 in the 1500 m and 1:43 in the 800 m (only Koskei did it in a race with Cruz in 1984).

Again, this is exaggerated. People forget one important thing: Despite their favourable physiological predispositions for the 100 m, West Africans are mostly too small. And the current ethnic composition in the 400 m is an utter joke.

Another important note: The longer the race, the higher are demands on energy storage. After ca. 90 minutes of continuos running, glycogen reserves are completely depleted and a runner must rely on the production of energy from fat, which needs roughly 7% more oxygen. As a result, speed of running must slow down proportionately, too. Extremely skinny runners are thus disadvantaged in the marathon, simply because they must slow down too early. The somatotype of a marathon runner is virtually identical to that of a miler. The only difference lies in height that is about 10 cm smaller. And height is also the only crucial limit for Europeans in the marathon race. We simply grew too tall during the last century.

Still, don't take the flood of Africans in international marathons too seriously. I listed the statistical data that clearly show the rapid decline of performances in Americans and Brits since mid-80's, similarly like in all other running disciplines. You can accuse Play station or whatever, but don't blame only genetics.

Sir Lance-alot wrote:

http://www.iaaf.org/statistics/toplists/inout=o/age=n/season=2010/sex=M/all=n/legal=A/disc=MAR/detail.html

Question: Why is Boston singled out at the bottom of the list for having a downhill drop?

questionerologist wrote:

Sir Lance-alot wrote:http://www.iaaf.org/statistics/toplists/inout=o/age=n/season=2010/sex=M/all=n/legal=A/disc=MAR/detail.html

Question: Why is Boston singled out at the bottom of the list for having a downhill drop?

*Why is Boston *NOT* singled out.....

Are you normal?

I'm not aware of any serious analysis which suggests only Kenyans take EPO. It doesn't seem credible that "only" Kenyans could benefit, on such a wide scale, from EPO -- undetected, for so long. Do Kenyans even have sufficient electricity and refrigerators to store so much EPO? And if elites from all nations take EPO, then EPO must be a very small part of the dominance factor of 1700.

The study I referenced only talked about "cattle raiding" and the unique situation for the Nandis. It doesn't address why everyone else, on either side of the Atlantic, before or after 1985, lacks depth of talent.

Maybe to equalize this, what the "west" needs is to set up a selective breeding program, like horse racing, maybe at high altitude. And then maybe in as little as 3 to 5 generations, we will start to see evidence of superior "fatigue resistant" athletes.

I'm not sure what you claim is exaggerated about Africans in the sprint. There can be no doubt that, starting with Jesse Owens, black athletes of West African origin began dominating the sprints. East African dominance is not unique, and African dominance in running is not new.

I didn't blame "only" genetics. In fact, I said above "one or more of genetics, altitude, culture, training, work ethic, opportunity, motivation, and/or drugs."

Nevertheless, it's clear that West Africans have disproportionately superior strength and speed, while East Africans have disproportionately superior endurance. And it seems credible to me that this could be due, at least in part, to the greater genetic diversity, and the time for specific conditions to selectively produce superior athletes.

Sir Lance-alot wrote:

The DEPTH Gap is not getting smaller, but is instead getting much, much wider.

Japs bomb Pearl Harbor!

malmo wrote:

Sir Lance-alot wrote:

The DEPTH Gap is not getting smaller, but is instead getting much, much wider.

Japs bomb Pearl Harbor!

OK sure, but

a) the depth gap REALLY blew up this year

b) and this was just as many on here were beginning to state the last few years that with the likes of Solinsky, webb, Ritz, Hall, and youngsters like Fernandez, etc, that maybe we were turning the corner and closing the gap on the east africans in many ways.

anyway, what did you think of the Ethiopian #'s ? Still the think the phenomenon of african distance runner domination (which is only growing) is still a phenomenon that involves mainly 1 tribe from Kenya? Or do you think calling it an "East African" or Kenyan-Ethiopian phenomenon is not so far off base?

Sir Lance-alot wrote:

anyway, what did you think of the Ethiopian #'s ? Still the think the phenomenon of african distance runner domination (which is only growing) is still a phenomenon that involves mainly 1 tribe from Kenya? Or do you think calling it an "East African" or Kenyan-Ethiopian phenomenon is not so far off base?

You do realize while the most of Kenya traces their ancestry to East Africa through the Bantu expansions, the Kalenjins came from what now is Ethiopia?

Again, Japs bomb Pearl Harbor.

Napoleon defeated at Waterloo.

rekrunner wrote:

But Noakes described a "cattle rustling" theory about East Africans. Those who had cows were considered rich, and got married and had kids. Presumably they had to run after the cows to steal them, effectively selectively breeding many generations of cattle rustlers. But once white farmers started owning cows, they managed to "redirect" the cattle rustlers by building a track and forming running clubs.

Noakes is full of shit.

Don't be afraid to come right out and say what you think.That may be true, but it seems I gave Noakes too much credit. Later I clarified that the "cattle rustling theory" was suggested in a 1996 study by Bale and Sang.Noakes was just the messenger.

malmo wrote:

Noakes is full of shit.

malmo wrote:

You do realize while the most of Kenya traces their ancestry to East Africa through the Bantu expansions, the Kalenjins came from what now is Ethiopia?

Again, Japs bomb Pearl Harbor.

Napoleon defeated at Waterloo.

So now you are saying the Ethiopian great runners and the Kenyan great runners are all (virtually) from the same tribe? (if they are basically "brothers', then why do Ethiopians have substantially lighter skin than the Kenyans?? They look extremely dissimilar in many ways )

If you are simply saying that many great Kenyan and Ethiopian runners have similar genetics that predispose them to being great runners, and also similar environments that they grow up in, sure, isn't that the whole point of talking about dominant EAST AFRICANS (with focus on Kenya AND Ethiopia) rather than acting like the East African great runners only come from a single Kenyan Rift Valley tribe?

What the hell was your point?

(and add one more to your "old news" list of Japs bomb Pearl Harbor and Napoleon defeated at Waterloo. It is: Malmo is 100% sure he is/was right about something he wrote, and won't for a second consider that he was wrong. Yup, old news indeed. Broken record for sure. Boring to say the least )

Sir Lance-alot wrote:

So now you are saying the Ethiopian great runners and the Kenyan great runners are all (virtually) from the same tribe? (if they are basically "brothers', then why do Ethiopians have substantially lighter skin than the Kenyans?? They look extremely dissimilar in many ways )

If you are simply saying that many great Kenyan and Ethiopian runners have similar genetics that predispose them to being great runners, and also similar environments that they grow up in, sure, isn't that the whole point of talking about dominant EAST AFRICANS (with focus on Kenya AND Ethiopia) rather than acting like the East African great runners only come from a single Kenyan Rift Valley tribe?

They look dissimilar in many ways? Really? You mean a country as big as Ethiopia, crossroads of historical migrations wouldn't have a diversity of skin color? There are no dark-skinned Ethiopians, a country that borders on Sudan, Kenya, and Somolia?

The Kalenjins, a small minority in Kenya, come from what is now Southwest Ethiopia and Southern Sudan. They do not have a history of intermarriage, which explains why they "all look the same" to good ol Southern boys like yourself.

“John Manners, an author on books on Kenyan runners, also favors a genetic explanation for the prowess of the Kalenjin athletes whose record, he asserts, “marks the greatest geographical concentration of achievement in the annuals of sport.” The Kalenjin, martial Nilotic pastoralists from Ethiopia, have lived for centuries at altitudes of 2000 meters or more and marry mostly among themselves. “ -- Before the Dawn: recovering the lost history of our ancestors.