Those are still sports that rely on physical and athletic ability. The reason that Western countries may not be doing as well, relatively speaking, in sports like distance running is that those sports don't have the prestige and financial rewards comparable to other pro sports and so don't attract the best Western athletic talent. Put it another way - if Africans have superior "genetic" talent why are they unrepresented in sports that attract the biggest rewards?
Whatever dude.
In a country of over a half a billion we haven't produced a single runner that registers on the top 100 marathon times since the 70's. (BTW, running is very popular in the US where T&F and XC is the most popular sport in HS nationwide. Hobby joggers and serious runners compete in the only sport easily available to most post HS or college. ....Kenya doesn't have a marathon like Boston or NY w 40,000 racers competing!)
...But we do have African Americans of W African descent that are among the greatest sprinter, jumpers, running backs, wide receivers, baseball players, basketball players in the world.
Genetics matter.
Nepalese are the best Sherpas
And East Africans are the best distance runners
We used to hear that about E Germans in the 70's and 80's. And then the Chinese in the 90's, who were faster than any Kenyans. The amount of doping busts that have come out of Kenya suggest they aren't that different. Or superior.
With your post there are 60 in the thread (one was deleted). Out of those 60, 10 are yours saying exactly the same thing. Can you just stop? Thanks.
Doping aside, as it definitely explains some success but not all, I think opinions are polarized and vary between "it's genetics" and "it's not genetics".
In my opinion both are right.
The genetics are there, just like there are genetics for fast running in Norway, in Australia or in Colombia. It's the sheer numbers, the training group culture, environment (altitude, dirt roads, climate), and necessity that make East African talent/genetics so prevalent.
You saw that in Europe in the 1970s and 1980s, when people lived in much worse conditions than today. Spain, the UK, Portugal, Italy, Finland, all had incredible runners and what was their background? Was any of them from a rich family? No.
Running was the sport for the poor before football/soccer started paying real money.
In any of these countries you would find big groups training together in the early hours and in the evenings. This was the birthplace for many greats in Europe. The group training, the healthy competition within and between training groups, the motivation to win a few extra bucks on the weekend.
Of course that when you have such groups and competition the best genetics will stand out. That happens in Kenya and Ethiopia today.
So you do concede - in the most limited way - that doping is part of the picture. That's big of you - when at least one of their athletes is busted each week. It makes the arguments about "genetics" somewhat irrelevant.
You have mentioned doping, I have mentioned doping, others have mentioned doping as being part of the picture.
There are other factors that other people want to talk about. Just because you don't, it doesn't mean you get to just ruin thread after thread interrupting perfectly legitimate discussions where other people address different parts of the picture.
Genetics are irrelevant to you because you focus on doping. Could you have run 1:44 like Snell? No. Why? Genetics. Could Bolt run a 2:10 marathon? Could Snell run 10.2 for the 100m? No. Why? Genetics.
It would be big of you to grow up and stop insulting people who disagree with you.
In a country of over a half a billion we haven't produced a single runner that registers on the top 100 marathon times since the 70's. (BTW, running is very popular in the US where T&F and XC is the most popular sport in HS nationwide. Hobby joggers and serious runners compete in the only sport easily available to most post HS or college. ....Kenya doesn't have a marathon like Boston or NY w 40,000 racers competing!)
...But we do have African Americans of W African descent that are among the greatest sprinter, jumpers, running backs, wide receivers, baseball players, basketball players in the world.
Genetics matter.
Nepalese are the best Sherpas
And East Africans are the best distance runners
We used to hear that about E Germans in the 70's and 80's. And then the Chinese in the 90's, who were faster than any Kenyans. The amount of doping busts that have come out of Kenya suggest they aren't that different. Or superior.
So according to you genetics play no part in sports performance? Where are all the 7 ft tall Peruvians? Where are the lean Samoans? Where are the muscular San people?
Try to dope Femke Bol with everything available and see if she ever runs a 2:20 marathon or throws the hammer over 80 metres.
Because they eat predominantly a vegan diet. Cardiovascular health is superior when you don't have dead animals flowing through your veins and heart at every single meal. They eat lower down on the food chain, closer to the original source of nutrients (the original source ain't animals).
Compare the average Africans physique with the average Chinese physique...Who looks to be more suited for running...lol...Why do people deny the obvious?
African physiques are incredibly diverse. And so are Chinese physiques. They span all ends of the spectrum.
Some Africans and Chinese are really muscular and stocky and look like they'd be better fit for powerlifting.
You also see really tall lanky Chinese who look more like East African runners than West African bodybuilders. I've seen plenty of East Asian and East African (Somali, Ethiopian, Eritrean) kids battling it out side by side at high school and community college XC races in California.
In a country of over a half a billion we haven't produced a single runner that registers on the top 100 marathon times since the 70's. (BTW, running is very popular in the US where T&F and XC is the most popular sport in HS nationwide. Hobby joggers and serious runners compete in the only sport easily available to most post HS or college. ....Kenya doesn't have a marathon like Boston or NY w 40,000 racers competing!)
...But we do have African Americans of W African descent that are among the greatest sprinter, jumpers, running backs, wide receivers, baseball players, basketball players in the world.
Genetics matter.
Nepalese are the best Sherpas
And East Africans are the best distance runners
We used to hear that about E Germans in the 70's and 80's. And then the Chinese in the 90's, who were faster than any Kenyans. The amount of doping busts that have come out of Kenya suggest they aren't that different. Or superior.
How do you explain abebe bikila beating all the top runners barefoot in the marathon in the 60s before epo ?
It's absolutely nothing to do with genetics. Scientists have gone looking for an "East African gene" that might explain their success in distance running. They've found literally nothing. There's quite a few papers on this so the evidence is not in dispute. Genetics may matter individually, but it's not exclusive to East Africans (e.g. Paula Radcliffe is a genetic freak, so is Grant Fisher). So, we can rule out genetics straight away.
The more likely explanations come down to three factors:
1. Living and training at altitude - yes, western runners will do altitude camps, but this can't compare with living at altitude permanently and doing all your workouts there. So many western runners go to altitude for two months but then drive to sea level to do "key workouts". African runners aren't doing this
2. Financial incentives - prize money matters to African runners. Almost none get decent sponsorship deals so they depend on prize money to survive and thrive. That's also why they prioritise road racing where there is consistently decent prize money e.g. random 10k races in the US have prize money of $8-10k, how many track races have that sort of prize money? Pretty much only DLs.
3. Culture - quite simply, when East Africans look around to see what sporting success looks like for people in their countries, they see distance runners. This happens all over the world. New Zealanders aren't genetically predisposed to be great rugby league players. Canadians aren't genetically predisposed to be great hockey players. Americans aren't genetically predisposed to be great basketball or baseball players. But those sports are culturally important in those countries. Why is Japan such a good marathon running nation but terrible at mid-d compared to somewhere like the UK? Marathon running is culturally important in Japan but in the UK, track success is most often associated with mid-d events. In most of the rest of the world it's football that dominates, and that siphons off most of the great athletic talent in those countries.
Just please stop with the genetics. If your country is not succeeding at a sport, it isn't because you lost the genetic lottery.
Compare the average Africans physique with the average Chinese physique...Who looks to be more suited for running...lol...Why do people deny the obvious?
So why can't Siffan Hassan get within 10 seconds of the Chinese national record set 30 years ago?
Put it another way - if Africans have superior "genetic" talent why are they unrepresented in sports that attract the biggest rewards?
because they don't have superior genetics for those sports? Just for running
What kind of argument is this?
Just looks at their body and way of running. Long skinny legs, they run, slim bones and bodys. They run straight and relaxed at 22km/h like it's no effort. The genetics/morphology/biomecanics is way better than europeans/americans/asians etc. It's so f***** obvious.
Then secondary factors like diet, financial incentives, culture of running etc
And in addition, a lot of them are doping yes, but they would still dominate if nobody could use peds. That just makes that they are a lot of them that come from nowhere in a very short amount of time thanks to peds but it's not what makes them dominate, since as you say all the best are doping in every country.
You get all that stuff mentioned in the OP and then stuff it into a body that weighs 10kgs less than your average Western distance runner, and you get far better running economy, especially at distances from 10k and up.
As an aside, and not necessarily having anything to do with smaller bodies, but I was surprised when I found out that Abebe Bikila (Ethiopian) was 5'10".
Granted, he's from the "ancient days," but still.
Mo Farah (Somaliland) is 5'9", but of course he's only so-so at the marathon. And I'm not sure if his height has anything to do with that, no, more so his running form.
It looks cool as hell on the track, but as I read in a New York Times article after he pulled out of London this year:
A trade-off is inevitable between the enormous anaerobic capacity needed to surge over the final laps of a track race, which Farah had in sprinting to Olympic gold medals, and the aerobic endurance required to maintain a steady, blistering pace over a marathon, said Andrew Jones, an exercise physiologist at the University of Exeter in England who has studied the performances of Farah and Kipchoge.
Simply put, said Alex Hutchinson, a columnist for Outside Magazine and the author of “Endure: Mind, Body and the Curiously Elastic Limits of Human Performance,” Farah’s problem “isn’t that he’s not good at longer distances; it’s that he’s too good at shorter distances.”
Compared with Farah, Kipchoge has superior “critical speed,” or the maximum aerobic speed that can be sustained, Jones said, which would be a significant advantage over 26.2 miles. Kipchoge might also have more sustainable running economy, the amount of oxygen required to run at a given speed, Jones said, which would lessen his fatigue later in a marathon.
Farah’s bounding, loping gait contrasts with the flowing, metronomic style of classic marathon running and is “probably a little more energy expending,” said Amby Burfoot, the winner of the 1968 Boston Marathon and a longtime editor at Runner’s World magazine.
I guess I agree with that.
He looks cool, but over 26 miles it may take a bit of a toll on him to look that cool.
Kipchoge looks cool too, but Farah just edges him out to me in the coolness factor.
Kipchoge wins though, and of course that's all that matters.
As to the thread topic: it has been established that the majority of these Kenyans who are excelling are coming from one ethic group (or tribe) of Kenya, the Kalenjins, from the Kenyan Rift Valley.
So it's not like it's everyone from the country, it's people from like 10% of the country from what I understand.
Last month, Eliud Kipchoge finished a marathon in 1 hour, 59 minutes and 40 seconds – an audacious feat that no one had ever accomplished before. Kipchoge is from the Kenyan Rift Valley region.
A day after he made history, Brigid Kosgei destroyed the women’s world record at the Chicago Marathon. She’s also from the Kenyan Rift Valley.
And in the New York Marathon on Sunday, a Kenyan rookie took down her country’s rock star in the women’s race. Joyciline Jepkosgei ruined countrywoman Mary Keitany’s chance at a fifth women’s title in the contest, but the latter came in second. And Kenyan Geoffrey Kamworor won the men’s race, his second NYC Marathon victory.
They’re all from the Rift Valley region. And people are taking note – marathoners from all over the world go there to train before major races.
Most Kenyan elite runners hail from the same ethnic groups known as the Kalenjins and the Nandis. The groups make up just 10% of the nation’s population of 50 million – but bring in a majority of the nation’s marathon medals.
“Internationally, Kalenjin runners have won close to 73% of all Kenyan gold medals and a similar percentage of silver medals at major international running competitions,” says Vincent O. Onywera, a professor of exercise and sports science at Kenyatta University in Nairobi.
They’ve passed on the passion for running across generations, turning the Rift Valley – especially the small town of Iten – into a mecca for the nation’s elite long distance runners. There, children start running at a young age.
A lot of the young people from these areas grow up surrounded by successful runners. Most of them look at running as a way to make money, says coach Bernard Ouma, who trains elite Kenyan runners.
“You see your neighbor run and win, it motivates you to run and win,” he says. As a result, their communities have a deep tradition of running excellence built over the years.
Back to body size (or rather height): Geoffrey Kamworor is 5'8", so that's a tad bit on the taller side, I guess.
Prediction: a 5'10" Kenyan will break 2 hours in Berlin one day.
You get all that stuff mentioned in the OP and then stuff it into a body that weighs 10kgs less than your average Western distance runner, and you get far better running economy, especially at distances from 10k and up.
It’s got to be more than just smaller bodies, like bodies smaller relative to their heart and lung size for example, and muscle/fat and muscle fiber type composition etc. Horses and ostriches are larger than and can outrun most humans over pretty much any distance. Very small bodies like cats and dogs as well as very large ones like elephants and rhinos tend to be both sub-optimal for distance running economy, so there seems to be a sweet spot at a broad range of in-between sizes.
Of course being a good distance runner requires more than a small body, but I'm saying that that is the major difference.
Western distance runners, for the most part, have all the other weapons in the arsenal, but when it comes to running economy, they are way outgunned, as they're usually lugging an extra 10kgs.
Also, comparing different species isn't relevant, as I'm comparing the same species (humans to other humans). All things being equal, East African runners and Western distance runners would have a comparable ratio of mass to heart and lung size. However, economy over distance doesn't work in a linear fashion - not once you start adding in fatigue, which the marathon produces in spades.
I'll use cycling as an example: Wout van Aert has possibly 50% more body mass than Nairo Quintana, and produces roughly 70% more power - however, when they go up a mountain, who gets to the top first? Spoiler, it's Quintana.
So you do concede - in the most limited way - that doping is part of the picture. That's big of you - when at least one of their athletes is busted each week. It makes the arguments about "genetics" somewhat irrelevant.
You have mentioned doping, I have mentioned doping, others have mentioned doping as being part of the picture.
There are other factors that other people want to talk about. Just because you don't, it doesn't mean you get to just ruin thread after thread interrupting perfectly legitimate discussions where other people address different parts of the picture.
Genetics are irrelevant to you because you focus on doping. Could you have run 1:44 like Snell? No. Why? Genetics. Could Bolt run a 2:10 marathon? Could Snell run 10.2 for the 100m? No. Why? Genetics.
It would be big of you to grow up and stop insulting people who disagree with you.
You miss the point. You can't form a reliable estimate of the effect that genetics will have in top level sport if doping is also a factor. Of course genetics are involved but the picture will be distorted by doping. Genetically, the Chinese athletes in the '90s who were setting world records would have been very superior. But without doping they would have been nowhere near as dominant. The same may apply to the E Africans.
We used to hear that about E Germans in the 70's and 80's. And then the Chinese in the 90's, who were faster than any Kenyans. The amount of doping busts that have come out of Kenya suggest they aren't that different. Or superior.
How do you explain abebe bikila beating all the top runners barefoot in the marathon in the 60s before epo ?
How do you explain today's top women runners running faster than he did?
How do you explain abebe bikila beating all the top runners barefoot in the marathon in the 60s before epo ?
How do you explain today's top women runners running faster than he did?
Probably because his never reached his potential in a training, got injured in a car crash. Also hydration, nutrition, fuelling, shoes, training methods ect also his pb is 2:12 so faster than womens world record. The only rebuttal you have is correcting my grammar because you can’t come up with a counter to all the facts I’ve presented to you.
Higher prevalence of ACTN 3 gene which allows for less injury and better utilisation of fast twitch muscles hence why most top Africans can close the last lap quick (90-80% prevalence)
if anything your only really seeing the African that are durable enough to survive the training not the most talented ones that probably succumb to injury and don’t have the infrastructure to continue e.g physio
people use the word “superior” when it should be more suited/adapted and this doesn’t mean that Caucasian can’t run it just means that less of them will have favourable phenotypes
you can also look at the African diaspora for example in 2016 who made up the 5km team for rio in USA ?
The ACTN 3 gene has more to do with power sports and west africans.
East africans have more slow twitch fibers than the general population
You don't need to be fast twitch to run a 52 400m, fast twitch muscles arent making any difference in any 100m over 12 seconds
We used to hear that about E Germans in the 70's and 80's. And then the Chinese in the 90's, who were faster than any Kenyans. The amount of doping busts that have come out of Kenya suggest they aren't that different. Or superior.
How do you explain abebe bikila beating all the top runners barefoot in the marathon in the 60s before epo ?
Bikkila was the personal bodyguard of the Emperor Haile Selassie. He was produced to create a symbolic revenge for Ethiopia against the country that had invaded and attempted to colonize them just 20 years previously. If you think there is no possibility he doped, you're astonisingly naieve. In any case, it could be that he was just the fluke that started the obsession with distance running in East Africa, the doping that has gone along with it, and the 'natural born runner' myth used to hide it.
Higher prevalence of ACTN 3 gene which allows for less injury and better utilisation of fast twitch muscles hence why most top Africans can close the last lap quick (90-80% prevalence)
if anything your only really seeing the African that are durable enough to survive the training not the most talented ones that probably succumb to injury and don’t have the infrastructure to continue e.g physio
people use the word “superior” when it should be more suited/adapted and this doesn’t mean that Caucasian can’t run it just means that less of them will have favourable phenotypes
you can also look at the African diaspora for example in 2016 who made up the 5km team for rio in USA ?
The ACTN 3 gene has more to do with power sports and west africans.
East africans have more slow twitch fibers than the general population
You don't need to be fast twitch to run a 52 400m, fast twitch muscles arent making any difference in any 100m over 12 seconds
Well it actually has great importance because once your slow twitch fibres fatigue you have to use your fast twitch fibres and how effectively you can use them will depend on actn 3 gene expression. Also it has a huge element in injury, Training response and post workout recovery
Over the last couple of decades, research has focused on attempting to understand the genetic influence on sports performance. This has led to the identification of a number of candidate genes which may help differentiate bet...
How do you explain abebe bikila beating all the top runners barefoot in the marathon in the 60s before epo ?
Bikkila was the personal bodyguard of the Emperor Haile Selassie. He was produced to create a symbolic revenge for Ethiopia against the country that had invaded and attempted to colonize them just 20 years previously. If you think there is no possibility he doped, you're astonisingly naieve. In any case, it could be that he was just the fluke that started the obsession with distance running in East Africa, the doping that has gone along with it, and the 'natural born runner' myth used to hide it.
And where was he getting these peds from int 60s in a dirt poor country bruhhh
Help us build the best running shoe review site for a chance to win a LetsRun t-shirt.Help us build the best running shoe review site for a chance to win one of 10 LetsRun t-shirts.
