The other thing about Ngeny's Olympic gold is that people saw it more as El G being cursed than being beaten. This goes along with Ngeny being in El G's shadow. Had El G won in 1996 and then been beaten in his prime in the Olympics in 2000, I think that Ngeny would have been praised more. As it is, I think people didn't see it as the great performance that it was because it was esaier to explain El G's failure to win as some sort of jinx or mental block or self-defeat.