TrackCoach wrote:
I am tired of these race/genetics discussions were the same points are made over-and-over again. I wish there was something I could say that would capture this debate and end it, but unfortunately it has too many escape routes that people love to take.
There was a quote Alberto (AlSal) made many years ago, were he basically said, if I could take 500 American kids and have them grow up at altitude in an area where their backyard is the size of a national park, raise them on a low sugar/low fat diet, take away their indoor entertainment and have all of their play activities take place outdoors, have them compete in running events all the way up to the 10K, but were they don't know the distance or the time. And, at age 16, have them train with world class athletes and put in front of them the opportunity of a life of wealth versus poverty that will be determined by how hard they train and compete. If you do that, you will have taken the most logical route to competing with the Africans. This is certainly not the most practical route, but it is the straight line approach to explaining away the race/genetics excuses. There is no doubt that most of the top Africans come from good running stock, but who cares, nothing is ever completely equal in life and what you start out with is never the full story. Perhaps America should produce the best distance runners since we have the best training, organization, equipment and facilities infrastructure…perhaps the Africans should be pointing out all of our advantages.
Athletes of European decent were running 1:42 (800m), 3:30 (1500m) 13:00 (5000m) 27:00 (10000m) decades ago. Over the last 25 years, athletes of European decent did something that would be considered an anomaly is every sports; over time athletes, get bigger, stronger, quicker and better, but in distance running, the performance of athletes of European descent actually declined. Using simple math, how would athletes of European decent compare to athletes of African descent if they had improved by a modest 10%?
Let’s suppose Africa has about 100 elite distance training groups and the rest of the world has about 10 elite training groups; who is going to be better? That’s not hypothetical, Africa does have about 100 elite distance training groups and the rest of the world has about 10, with 5-6 of those based in the U.S. If you want easy explanations like race/genetics, they are easy to come by, but the hard truth is for the last couple of decades Africans have been getting better as they logically should and the rest of the world went backwards, which is illogical. Albeit, the rest of the world is starting to move forward again, but they are playing catch up and the Africans are a moving target.
Track actually started to have a huge drop off in Europe in terms of participation in the mid to late 80's, despite the success of runners like Coe, Ovett, Cova, etc. Soccer, video games, you name it. Not like the US, but enough to affect things in a huge way. I remember reading an article about one the big XC meets run in GB for school age youngsters. For decades the total number of competitors would be over 3000. By the early 90's it had dropped to less than 500. Same thing in other parts of Europe. If any country fields a decent size number of runners to challenge the Africans it will be the US, courtesy of Salazar and crew.
It should be pointed out that just because Mo was born and raised at sea level, it doesn't mean he doesn't possess certain natural traits his people developed over centuries at altitude. However, in the end, you still have to do the work. Mo has talent and he has done the work. I keep in mind that a 'big buff' Solinsky has ducked under 27:00. No doubt other "Euro" types more suited to the 10K (meaning lighter) have the ability, they need to do the work and have faith in themselves.