Tergat on why non-Africans lose

u r talkin about ancient africans, we r past tht olden days of nt understanding physiology behind running, we know, am a runner from kenya , my brother is among the top ten marathoners in the world ,i will be among them in future, dont be sarcastic, be real. gallen rupp is nt african bt you can still see him coming , the only thing tht harms u is nt believing in yourself,,,,Rupp is very fast if u dont know bt watch him in 4-5 yrs he will be down if he dont be careful , on the other hand , watch samuel chelanga in the next 5-10 yrs, he will be among the top distance runners in the world, why nt Rupp who is untouchable, who just broke american indoor record in 5000m, he is the bekele of the future bt his attitude will nt let him be like bekele, if there is one person who can beat bekele if he is serious is RUPP ..if u hear kenyans sit down and talk about somebody, know tht he is a threat and RUPP is .my brother would faint practicing , imagine pulling a car tire for 10miles uphill, nonstop in nyahururu kenya, from 2;16 he jumped to 2;06;49 in his second marathon , almost to beat felix limo in 2004 berlin marathon,,,determination, good health, hardwork, believing on yourselfs , DONT FORGET discipline, americans and europeans can make it too!!!!!!!

Am I the only person who doesn't have a real big problem with the fact that Americans aren't the best at every single effing thing? And that there's this one thing that Ethiopians and Kenyans are better than everyone else at? I say, "Good for them!"

Why the East Africans win:

1. They are genetically gifted as distance runner. You don't have to be a statistician to know that there is an overabundance of winners and WR holders from this area of the world. ( Watch the last lap of the recent World XC in Amman and you will see it in black and white (no pun)).

2. Along with this they have clearly seen the financial incentives for this, and work hard on using their talent to their benefit. This financial benefit affects far more Africans that it does Americans where only the very top can survive on running. Even a small winning is big money in Kenya, so more will try out for running.

3. When you have this level of talent, training "hard" is very relative. A highly gifted athlete does not need to work anywhere near the level of a less gifted one to reach the same time goal.

4. African athletes are highly "trainable" and extremely confident in their abilities. They are dedicated to the hardships involved and willing to sacrifice much more, because again the financial benefits are far higher. They have seen their peers succeed and this means they can too.

5. Most Kenyans who come to the US as student athletes are here for an education, NOT because they want to turn pro. They will do what it takes to make the team, study hard and make a future for themselves.

6. Top caucasian distance runners are serious outliers, which is why there is never any real depth in the US and Europe. How many have broken 13min in a 5k?

7. And even for these outliers, they have to train extremely hard to get to the top of the world. Harder than the Africans probably.

8. This is really not rocket science. Which brings me to my final point. African runners are much more aware of their internal "feel". They know when to push it in training and when not too more naturally. Western runners are far too dependent on technology, coaches, splits, pace, HR etc etc.

9. So are they unbeatable? No, but only by those few hard working outliers.

Yank runners need to stop looking for handouts and just work hard. This is American - the land of opportunity. if they just work hard and are disciplined, they can be the best at whatever they put their minds to. Enough with the excuses already. Immigrants go to western countries and become the best runners through hard work in a short time, so why can\'t the westerners themselves do it. They need to just stop complaining and pull themselves up by their running shoeslaces.

But that's the point Francis. You guys have little or misguided discipline, and yet you get away with it because of your enormous talent. I've seen Kenyan type training and some stuff is off the wall(chasing after a school bus for leg speed, weird calistenics, no warm up, etc). Also,that training camp before World Cross is the stupidest thing I ever heard about. If Athletics Kenya doesn't do something about it, Kenya will soon lose to Eritria and Uganda (let alone Ethiopia) who's just figuring it out. Mark my words!

Also, remember when FAM stated that he was "hoping" he would get a "Bronze" Medal, 3rd Place! He stated that he was running for Bronze.

What is that? Steve Scott, BK, Pre, Coe, Ovett, and Cram would have been going for the Win. They would have never thought or stated anything like that even if they were not 100%

Jim Ryun, Craig Virgin, Frank Shorter, Alberto Sal, Pat Porter, etc ALL HAD THAT "Killer Instinct"

This is all about "the Will", the "mind", "lifestyle" and "Heart"

Paula Rad. always goes for the win, so to our top Women distance runners now.

We need to stop being weak and making excuses. WE ARE NOT INFERIOR. TRAIN TO WIN (LEGALLY), PUT YOURSELF IN THE POSITION TO BE ABLE TO DO THAT, BELIEVE IN YOURSELF, BECOME MENTALLY STRONG, AND GIVE IT YOUR BEST! BELIEVE THAT YOU CAN BE JUST AS GOOD AS ANYONE ELSE!

I believe this is how Alan Webb, Galan Rupp, and German think? I would take an Alan Webb would gives it his all to WIN then someone who "Sits and kicks for 10th place", or is ALREADY DEFEATED EVEN BEFORE THE GUN GOES OFF!

In the 5k, 10k and marathons all these dudes you mentioned were runnign minutes slower that some no-name Kenayn or Ethiopian nowadays. Back then they were not around to break up the muzungu party, which I'm sure ensured the motivation and the drive to keep the sport going.

Now the party has slowed down with these guys. Uganda, Eritria, Rwanda, Tanzania is just beginning to bring in numbers. Before you learn a name, a new unpronouncable one replaces it and so on.

txRUNNERgirl wrote:

I bet Paula Radcliffe didn't care about genetics when she broke Catherine Ndereba's record and ran a faster marathon than a lot of men can run.

Paula didn't care about genetics because she has them on her side. She was one of the freak whites that won the genetic lottery (as well as working her ass off). No one ever said it is impossible for a white person to win a distance race. What is being said is that, most of the time, East Africans will win distance races.

Additionally, East Africans aren't nearly as well represented on the womens side as they are the mens - most likely due to cultural factors.

Coach D wrote:

Then why does Webb have the fastest 1500 time in the world in the last 2 years and the 8th fastest time in the 800 in that period. Seb Coe in his prime would have likely won the 800/1500 double in Beijing. And Steve Scott would have been right there in the 1500.

Webb is like German, fast times when it doesn't matter, putters out when it does. Willis and the Africans aren't concerned with running great times (unless attempting WRs which bring $$$), they want to peak to win championships. Since they peak to medal, even in a slow race, many could have run a times far better than Webb's PRs at the Olympics/World Championships, if that was what they were aiming to do.

bitter post-collegiate wrote:

top africans say shit like this all the time. it's disrespectful ("they're just not trying hard enough," etc.), and it's getting old.

Just say they aren't trying hard enough to live with electricity, roads, and schools.

And with that I'm going to hell.

a miler wrote:

Paula didn't care about genetics because she has them on her side. She was one of the freak whites that won the genetic lottery (as well as working her ass off).

yes, that is correct.

and txrunnergirl--you get a life. what the hell is your deal anyway?

The best athletes in the U.S. don't become distance runners. They play basketball, football, and baseball. The leftovers like all of us run. Not that every NBA guy would be a great distance runner----it is all of the other guys who were great athletes in high school, who weren't large people, who never gave distance running a thought---these are the potential U.S. distance running studs.

I will use me and my 6th grade class as an example. In sixth grade I was 7th place in my school's one mile cross country run. In 7th grade, all six of the guys in front of me went out for football. I went out for cross country. I worked hard, they worked hard. Eventually, I was a state mile runner up (later an XC and track All-American). One of those six guys who finished in front of me in the 6th grade XC mile went on to be a very good college football player. The others faded into oblivion.

I am convinced that had all of the guys I referred to kept running, most of them would have been better than me. They were the real stud athletes in my school. Multiply this times every neighborhood school in the U.S. Think about how many undersized LeBron James wannabees are out there who, with years of endurance development, would kick the shit out of American distance running records.

In Kenya the stud athletes want to play soccer or run. They want to be Paul Tergat not Michael Jordan. In Ethiopia the studs want to be Haile G. not Tom Brady.

Let me refer back to my 6th grade class. When the group of us got to 9th grade, we had to run a timed mile in P.E. class. I actually didn't run because I had a track meet that day. One of the football players named Bryce (he played baseball in the spring) ran a 4:36 mile in P.E. I was in charge of holding a stopwatch---I know he actually did it. Later that day I ran 4:34 at my meet. The difference is that I had been training for three solid years---he had done no running except for conditioning workouts. Even as a senior in high school running 4:12, I knew full well that Bryce could have beaten me with a little training.

In short, Africans are faster because the better athletes choose to run. Americans (and Europeans for that matter) lose because they are the low end of the athletic talent pool.

By the way, Bryce could dunk in 9th grade too. I hated (envied) him.

If you put the mind, determination, and grit of the average person on this thread into the body of Haile he would struggle to break 15.

Dirtbagger wrote:

The best athletes in the U.S. don't become distance runners. They play basketball, football, and baseball.

name me 10 pro basketball, football, or baseball players that at any point in their lives had the potential to run a sub-2:07 marathon.

and then stop being a PC moron.

It's fun for me to think delusional about my running. I try to learn from these guys. Looking at the gentleman on the home page I see that he is relaxed and calm. But you say he is relaxed because he is African and better suited for ld running. But anybody can relax more yet americans just conti he to gas themselves up on drugs, and various stimulants. It's true that people from other countries are doped as well, the point is how can we bring more peace and love into this world and it's that simple. At this stage in the game everybody needs to focus on peace and love. It I'm just my opinion that god is a major factor in running but I see how that scares people but you should not let the religio-political bs turn you away from god. God Is positive, feel god when you run just try this maybe nothing will happen but that is only because your awareness is not refined. In closing I'd like to say step your game up, get off the Internet and do something with with your body. Stop debating things you will never be able to prove peace and love people k

One love blessings peace be with you and all that other good stuff

Anyone who thinks this question can be answered simply if sorely misguided. First of all, Tergat said non-africans, not just the US. Let's then compare Kenyans to the Japanese. No one ever accused them of under training, in fact many of the conditions many have used to condem the US to faliure are the opposite in Japan. Healthy diet, hard work, focus etc.etc. The results are plain to see, Japan has the 2nd best depth in the world behind Kenya in the 1/2 and full marathon.

Now here's the rub, notice how many Japanese runners ran 2:06 or better this past weekend? None, in fact they never have. Kenya had 4 (or 5, I can't remember the Japanese NR) this weekend alone that ran faster than any of them ever have run. This from a country 3 times the size of Kenya, does not suffer nearly the economic hardships, and that loves distance running. So much so that they have hardly any success in any other events. Japan does have a ton of people running 2:08 - 2:10, in fact nearly as many as Kenya but they don't have the true outliers.

The truth of the matter is that answering if its Kenyan runners self belief, hard work, and cultural desire to become world class runners or that they are statistically skewed towards proficiency in distance running from a genetic sense is a chiken or the egg question.

My humble guess is that it is a little of both. Beyond taking a couple hundred random white babies and shipping them over to Kenya to be raised and doing the opposite with the same number of Kenyan babies and seeing how each group performs in distance running, you will never get a good answer. (my guess is the white babies would be more likely to be distance runners than thier white baby counterparts in the US but not as likely as thier Kenyan baby peers and the Kenyan babies in the US would be more likely to be distance runners then other US babies but not more likely then a similar set of Kenyan babies raised back in Kenya.)

I will say this, as adults there is no question in my mind if you took a random Kenyan and a random American or European, and had them run a 10K, who Vegas would have favored in that race.

He's generalizing when he says we don't try a lot. Obviously he wouldn't be referring to guys like Hall, Webb etc, but more or less the guys behind them who settle for good in the U.S., Kenyans focus on being not just the best in Kenya but also in the world which kind of go hand in hand.

When you need philosophical guidance, go no further than Star Wars:

Luke Skywalker: I don't, I don't believe it.

Yoda: That is why you fail.

Forget Africans, are non-Africans competitive against previous generations from the former distance running hey-day?

Except for a few outliers, non-Africans can do better than they are today. I think attitude is one of many reasons (e.g. lack of talent, over-training, over-racing, poor infrastructure, modern lifestyle, genetics, lack of incentives, competition with more attractive sports, ...)

I'm convinced we can do better.

The top Kenyans run faster than me predominantly because of genetics. In fact 1000's of people run faster than me predominantly because of genetics. I'm not a talented runner. As a young guy I had a club mate who could thrash me even though I trained much more, much smarter than him at the time. He went on to run 27.37/10k and 60.02/21.1k. He was genetically gifted, I was not.I did some running in Berlin years ago with an Ethiopian, his best marathon was 2.32. He had some talent but was never going to run sub 2.20 let alone 2.06.

Haile G, Kenny B, Sammy W etc are freakishly gifted, more so than most of the top African runners. Do you think De Castella, Jones, Lopes, Clayton, Shorter, Viren, Treacy, Virgin, Salazar, Seko, Moorcroft, Barrios etc had bad attitudes?

Seriously it has nothing to do with attitude.

Kenya produces more world class distance runners than all other countries combined. Ethiopia hasn't the resources to produce the numbers but the quality of those they produce is staggering.

It's hardly surprising that these 2 countries produce the "Bradmanesque" outliers, the freakish talents.

"European" runners, without doping seem to have pretty much reached the limit of their ability.

The Kenyan and Ethiopian limit seems similar through to the 1500/mile but at 3k upwards appear to be much higher.

Prior to the 1990s Kenyans and Ethioians didn't seem able to run significantly faster than the Europeans, Aussies, Americans etc. Something changed during the 90s. The Kenyans, Ethiopians and to a lesser extent other Africans improved dramatically. The top non Africans generally didn't improve during this period, in fact there seemed to be a drop off. Perhaps the dominance of the Africans can account for this.

The last couple of years have seen a drop off in the top level of performance from the African runners at distances below the half. This could be because more top young runners are going to the roads. It certainly leaves the better non-African runners with an opportunity.