Why shouldn't a white American run as fast as the best Africans?

Do you think Jeremy Wariner and Andrew Rock should listen to you? Or are you on auto-pilot like most of the, eh, white public the last 40 years, taught to believe white = bad, and that whites can't do anything in sports?

There are white guys with the talent to be a good 100 meter man, but they are KO'd before they get the chance.

Turn it around. Do you think an East African can be a legit Theoretical Physicist?

"Skuj" and "talent is hard work" are you guys actually denying the existence of genes?

Because that's exactly what your arguments imply.

None of us are saying that non-africans CAN'T run as fast or faster than the best africans!

We are arguing that there are far fewer who actually have. There is NO conspiracy against white athletes. That's just one of many excuses used by under-performing athletes. Even if it were true, and the liberal media HAD brainwashed the entire caucasian race into thinking they are poor athletes, it STILL wouldn't account for how much the E. Africans have completely dominated athletes of every other racial background for the past couple decades. Genetic makeup, unfortunately for some, has a huge effect on performance.

kartelite wrote:

Skuj wrote:

I swear, I've seen a shift at letsrun. A year ago these discussions were dominated by the "They Are Naturally Better" crowd. Now there are more and more Believers, I think.

Skuj, do you think that Kenyans could be as dominant as West African descended sprinters if they put in the necessary work?

What about you, could you be a professional basketball player if you tried harder?

Could you be a theoretical physicist or a concert violinist if you wanted?

Yes.

Rattles Chains wrote:

Do you think Jeremy Wariner and Andrew Rock should listen to you? Or are you on auto-pilot like most of the, eh, white public the last 40 years, taught to believe white = bad, and that whites can't do anything in sports?

There are white guys with the talent to be a good 100 meter man, but they are KO'd before they get the chance.

Turn it around. Do you think an East African can be a legit Theoretical Physicist?

Wow you people are really dumb. No one is saying that whites can't compete with the best by virtue of being white. What I, FW, and Lance are saying is that different populations have different genetic makeups, and one manifestation of these differences is in physical abilities.

I don't have the genes to run 12:55. That's not because I'm white. Most Kenyans don't have those genes either. But some Kenyans do. Some white people do as well, just not as many.

It seems like most of you slept through 10th grade biology. I'm pretty sure Wariner and Rock can look around and see that 90+% of world class sprinters are black. That doesn't mean the white guys who are there are at a disadvantage!!! They have the same freaky genes as the black sprinters.

And of course an East African could be a theoretical physicist. How the hell are you "turning anything around"?

I numbered your points.

1. Prove the genetics difference. Link me a scientific article. (And not one of those psuedo science guesswork ones that Lancelot always uses.)

2. How do you really know that 12:55 was never available to you? How active was your first 15 years? What did you eat? How did you train? Did you ever Believe?

3. Freaky genes? I stopped reading after that.

4. See point 3.

kartelite wrote:

2. I don't have the genes to run 12:55. That's not because I'm white. Most Kenyans don't have those genes either. But some Kenyans do. Some white people do as well, just not as many.

How do you know "just not as many"? What do you base this on? (Current lists is not proof that whites cannot do it. They are only a reflection of many factors, primarily Belief, childhood activity level, food quality intake, determination, motivation, and Belief. Did I mention Belief?)

I think what he meant was the way you guys immediately take the white guy can't do it side more times than not. People are quick to say a white guy can’t do this or that in areas dominated by blacks, but in areas dominated by whites and Asians, if it’s said a black guy can’t do it… the howls of indignation can be heard from miles away.

The frequency of certain traits varies by population. To read Lance is to believe no white guy can ever compete at the very top, so busy is he licking the boots of his African masters.

Skuj wrote:

1. Prove the genetics difference.

HAHAHAHAHA WOW!!

How stupid can you get? About as stupid as Skuj! Just by looking at people, anyone can easily prove there is a gentic difference. Somebody get this guy a doctor. Have you been hiding under a rock for your entire life? I'll bet you still believe that the stork brought you to your parent's doorstep.

Whatever, Skuj. I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and believe you're just playing around here.

Steel Reserve wrote:

Skuj wrote:

1. Prove the genetics difference.

HAHAHAHAHA WOW!!

How stupid can you get? About as stupid as Skuj! Just by looking at people, anyone can easily prove there is a gentic difference. Somebody get this guy a doctor. Have you been hiding under a rock for your entire life? I'll bet you still believe that the stork brought you to your parent's doorstep.

So go ahead and get me the scientific article then. Should be easy....the one that shows our genetic differences.

And stop posting under multiple names. It's OK...I can handle letsrun taunts....its the new me.

In fact, I LOVE YOU.

Now....get the article linked here.

Skuj wrote:

1. Prove the genetics difference. Link me a scientific article. (And not one of those psuedo science guesswork ones that Lancelot always uses.)

2. How do you really know that 12:55 was never available to you? How active was your first 15 years? What did you eat? How did you train? Did you ever Believe?

3. Freaky genes? I stopped reading after that.

4. See point 3.

To address #2:

Anyone who knows me knows I am a cocky mofo who thinks he can do whatever he wants if he tries hard enough. I used to get flamed on here, RW, and some high school forums for my perceived arrogance about my own talent. So I would say in my case "Believing" is not a problem.

To address #3:

You are offended by my use of the word "freaky"? Freaky: Strange or unusual. All's I am saying is these guys have something most people don't, and it's in their genes. You do know what genes are, right? And you do know that not everyone has the same ones?

To address #1:

Bengt Saltin did a famous study. You can read about here in another piece:

This is not pseudo-science. Here is a brief CV of the man:

Here's an excerpt:

"The differences in physique and muscle makeup that underlie the dominance of Kenyan endurance runners and West African sprinters doubtless have a strong genetic component."

The reason more studies have not been done is that, frankly, it is pretty obvious there are genetic differences and most serious researchers aren't gonna waste their time trying to convince you of that. You would have to be an idiot to think otherwise.

Skuj, let me tell you a little something about... Any biological life form. Every one of them has different genes. If we didn't have different genes, everyone would be THE SAME PERSON, and look exactly alike. Your genes are passed down to you from your parents. When your parents have sex, your father's genes combine with your mother's and, depending upon chromosomes, you are either a boy or girl. Your genes are different from anyone else's. If both your parents have brown hair, you are more likely to have brown hair. If both your parents are world class runners, you are MORE LIKELY to be better at running. The same goes for every other trait possessed by your parents. You cannot decide which genes you will inherit. You wouldn't expect a polar bear couple to conceive of and give birth to a penguin would you? That would be silly!

If you want proof why some people have said that kenyans, ethiopians, and others possess dominant distance running traits, READ EVERYTHING IN THIS LINK FROM TOP TO BOTTOM:

www.kenyarunners.com

If you want even more insight, take a look at where it says "Background" on the bottom.

Hey Lan...er, I mean Steel Reserve.....here's a cut and paste from your suggested reading! :)

("Speculation" "ideas" "suggeststions" "notion" "flimsy support" "so far no scientific genetic theory exists"....etc etc etc....Thank you for wasting my time, Steel Reserve. You actually SUPPORTED the things I say. Congratulations.)

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

I contend that this record marks the greatest geographical concentration of achievement in the annals of sport, and if we had time I'd welcome arguments to the contrary, but for now, let's look at what makes these people so good. There's been a fair amount of published speculation on this subject. I'm going to look at a few of these ideas, and then I'm going to offer a couple of suggestions of my own.

Altitude is most people's first thought, and with reason. 2,000 meter elevations are common in Kalenjin country, and leading a vigorous outdoor life in the thin air at such altitudes has been shown to help create the high aerobic capacity that's vital to distance running success. Every athletics fan has heard stories of runners' childhoods in these highlands spent covering mile upon mile chasing cattle or -- to cite the contemporary chestnut -- jogging back and forth to school. The question is, why have these circumstances been so much more helpful to the Kalenjin than to other high-altitude dwellers? Where are the world-class athletes from Nepal, Peru and Lesotho? And what about elsewhere in Kenya? A dozen tribes around the country lead similar lives at comparable altitudes and have produced no notable runners.

How about diet? When I first wrote about Kalenjin runners 20 years ago, nutritional theories of the time ascribed benefits to the relatively high proportion of protein in their diet (from cows milk and blood) compared with the diets of other African peoples. Actually, by Western standards, Kalenjin protein intake was pretty low -- lower still among mess-fed soldiers and school boys, from whose ranks most of the athletes come. These days, however, conventional dietary wisdom touts complex carbohydrates, and Kenyans starchy fare has been cited as a possible source of runners' strength in several recent TV programs and articles in the consumer press. There's no question that the Kalenjin do live on a starchy diet. But then so do most Third World peoples. Starch, after all, is what subsistence farmers produce.

Material incentives are the time-honored explanation for ethnic disproportion in professional sports -- the classic examples in my country being the succession of Irish, Italian, Black and Latino boxers from the wrong side of the tracks. By this line of thinking, the downtrodden groups' inordinate success results from hordes of boys taking up boxing because they see it as an escape route from their desperate poverty. The same reasoning is often applied to running in Kenya today. The availability, first of U.S. college scholarships and now prize money and appearance fees has had a demonstrable effect in boosting interest and participation throughout the country. But the Kalenjin were turning out world-class runners long before such rewards became available, and they continue to turn out three times as many as the rest of Kenya's tribes combined, incentives or no incentives.

Clearly, none of these factors is a sufficient explanation for Kalenjin success, but neither can they be dismissed out of hand. Altitude by itself, for example, doesn't account for much. But when you combine 2,000 meter elevations with equatorial latitudes, you get an ideal climate for sustained outdoor activity -- comfortably warm days, cool nights, low humidity. That, together with altitude's aerobic benefits, begins to show why Kenya's highlands as a whole are an ideal home for distance running. And it's worth pointing out that while about a quarter of Kenya's population lives in comparatively sultry conditions at altitudes below 1200 meters, every one of the country's world class runners is a highlander.

Diet, too, has some significance, though I doubt if it has much to do with complex carbohydrates. Rather, it's that, like most Kenyans, and unlike many of the world's poor, the Kalenjin have enough to eat. The simple fact that Western Kenya has a lot of excellent farm land and a reliable food supply sets the country apart from many places that might otherwise be breeding grounds for runners.

That brings me back to poverty, which is also an important factor, but not quite in the cliched sense of an oppressively grim environment that drives young men to train maniacally as they dream of escape. Rural western Kenya, where almost all the runners come from, is a far cry from a teeming slum or a grimy coal field. It's a land of beautiful green hills, not unlike Somerset or Wiltshire. And compared with other African countries, Kenya is fairly well supplied with basic necessities. Malnutrition is rare, infant mortality is among the lowest in Africa, life expectancy and literacy among the highest. More than 85% of all children attend at least a few years of primary school. And the country has been able to support the institutions -- schools, uniformed services -- that provide a fairly solid athletic infrastructure. So Kenya is at least prosperous enough to provide athletic opportunities.

Yet the people are poor, and unemployment is high. Kenya's per capita Gross Domestic Product is about $1200 a year, less than 1/20th the figure of a prosperous Western country. This means that to the average Kenyan, even the meager winnings brought in by most professional or semi-professional runners look pretty lavish. The prospect of earning, say, $10,000 a year as a second- or third-rank road racer is a powerful incentive, and in view of the hundreds of Kenyans now making that kind of money, not an unrealistic ambition. Someone who thinks he has potential as a runner might quite reasonably devote a year or two to intensive training in the hope of attracting the attention of an agent and landing an invitation to a foreign road race or track meet.

Still, while there's something in each of these factors -- altitude, diet, poverty -- that helps explain the phenomenon of Kenyan running as a whole, none of them begins to account for the hugely disproportionate success of the Kalenjin. For that, we have to look more closely at circumstances unique to the tribe.

An obvious thought is that the Kalenjin might be endowed with some sort of collective genetic gift. This is touchy stuff, of course, and there's nothing like replicable scientific data to support the idea. But the prima facie case for a genetic explanation makes some sense: the Kalenjin marry mainly among themselves; they've lived for centuries at altitudes of 2,000 meters or more; and, at least by tradition, they spend their days chasing up and down hills after livestock. So it's not unreasonable to suggest that over time some sort of genetic adaptation has taken place that has turned out to be helpful in competitive distance running.

This notion gets some flimsy support from the fact that ethnographic and linguistic data link the Kalenjin to tribes elsewhere in East Africa that have turned out a majority of their country's world class runners: the Oromo in Ethiopia, the Iraqw and Barabaig in Tanzania and the Tutsi in Burundi. There's a temptation to imagine a race of lean, cattle-herding uebermenschen wandering up and down the Rift Valley.

What I find more intriguing, however, is the possibility that some of these peoples' customs might have functioned indirectly as genetic selection mechanisms favoring strong runners. I'm thinking specifically of the practice of cattle theft -- euphemistically known as cattle raiding. It was common to all these pastoral peoples, but in Kenya, at least, the Kalenjin were its foremost practitioners. Of course they didn't regard it as theft; they were merely repossessing cattle that were theirs by divine right and happened to have fallen into other hands. Never mind that those into whose hands the cattle had fallen often felt the same way. Anyway, Kalenjin raids often called for treks of more than 100 miles to capture livestock and drive them home before their former owners could catch up. The better a young man was at raiding -- in large part, a function of his speed and endurance -- the more cattle he accumulated. And since cattle were what a prospective husband needed to pay for a bride, the more a young man had, the more wives he could buy, and the more children he was likely to father. It's not hard to imagine that such a reproductive advantage might cause a significant shift in a group's genetic makeup over the course of a few centuries.

Much as I enjoy this sort of speculation, however, a different kind of data is needed to substantiate anything approaching a scientific genetic theory, and so far none exists. The most rigorous work to date has been done by the Swedish exercise physiologist Bengt Saltin, who took a team of researchers to western Kenya in 1990 and conducted elaborate treadmill tests and muscle biopsies on several dozen Kenyan men, all of whom happened to be Kalenjin. He discovered unusual features in his subjects' muscle tissue and response to physical exertion, but he concluded that these were probably the result of the Kenyans' lifetime of vigorous activity at altitude.

One of his findings does suggest the possibility that the Kalenjin evince uncommon "trainability" -- the capacity to increase aerobic efficiency with training -- and research by the Canadian geneticist Claude Bouchard has shown this trait to be largely hereditary. Before drawing any firm conclusions about Kalenjin gifts, however, further studies would have to determine that trainability -- or any other heritable trait -- was truly instrumental in distance running success and that ordinary Kalenjin exhibit the trait to an unusual degree.

Without such evidence, notions of Kalenjin genetic superiority rest on anecdotal data -- and as you might imagine, there's an abundance of that, some of it surprisingly persuasive. My favorite data of this sort are a dozen brief case studies I've collected of Kalenjin young men in their 20s who had never thought of themselves as runners at all until they wound up in circumstances that more or less obliged them to take up the sport. Most often this was because friends who were runners helped them to secure American track scholarships under false pretenses, and once on campus, the non-runners had to run in order to stay. In each case, what happened when they started training is quite remarkable. I'll give one example.

Paul Rotich is the son of a prosperous Kalenjin farmer. The father wanted his son to go to college in the U.S., and in 1988, when Paul was 22, he was packed off to South Plains Junior College in Texas, where there were several other Kalenjin already enrolled, all of them on track scholarships. Rotich, however, went with no scholarship but with $10,000 his father had managed to collect, a sum that should have been plenty to pay his tuition, room and board for two years. By the end of the first year, though, Paul found that he had spent $8,000, and he realized he had to do something to get himself through the next year. Under the circumstances, the first thing that came to mind was a track scholarship. Trouble was, he had never run a race in his life, and he was fat -- 85 kilos (13 and 1/2 stone) at a height of 1.73 meters (5 ft. 8 in.). He began training, running at night because he was embarrassed to be seen lumbering around the track. In the autumn he managed to make the cross-country team, and by the end of the season he finished in the top 50 in the national junior college championships. But that was just the beginning. He landed a track scholarship to nearby Lubbock Christian University and over the next two years he earned All-American honors 10 times in cross country and various track events. When he went back to Kenya and told his cousin what he had done, the cousin replied, "So, it is true. If you can run, any Kalenjin can run."

It may be true, and if it is, it may be because of some as yet unspecified genetic endowment. But even if the Kalenjin are blessed with an innate physical gift, that doesn't account for their astonishing record in major championships. To succeed in those circumstances, an athlete must not only be able to run fast, but to run fastest when it matters most. And in this, the ability to rise to the occasion, to perform under pressure, the Kalenjin are supreme. I've tried to quantify this ability by evaluating performances in the most pressure-laden of all athletic events, the Olympic Games, and to compare Kalenjin performances with those of their rivals in the distance events. The aim was to rate performances not just in terms of medals or finishing places but in comparison to each athlete's pre-Olympic personal best. The base line, 0, was what I judged to be a respectable but undistinguished Olympic performance: not getting a medal, not reaching the final, but coming close -- within half a percent -- of the pre-Olympic PB. In a 1500 meters, that means within about a second. I gave positive points for reaching the final, finishing in the top eight and for winning medals, and also for improving a personal best by various percentages. Negative points for failing to finish and for falling short of a personal best by various percentages. Here's a summary of the scoring system:

PERFORMANCE UNDER PRESSURE Point System

Base line: 0 = `` 0.5% slower than pre-Olympic PB, not finalist, not medalist

Positive points:

+1 for reaching final

+2 for reaching top eight

+3 for bronze

+4 for silver

+6 for gold

+1 for PB by ``1 %

+2 for PB by %%1 % but ``2%...etc.

+1 additional for PB in final

+1 additional for Olympic record (no world records in sample)

Negative points for times slower than pre-Olympic PB by %% 0.5% (e.g. -2 for time %%1% but <2% below PB)

I evaluated every performance of every Kenyan in men's track events from 800 m to 10,000 m, for every Olympics from 1964 to 1996, and I did the same for the two countries with the next best records in terms of medals, the U.S. and Britain. Here's a brief rundown of the aggregate scores:

PERFORMANCE UNDER PRESSURE

National Aggregate Scores

USA

-107 points by 82 men in 104 appearances in 7 OG; 9 PBs; 7 PBs in finals.

Avg. per man: -1.30

Avg. per appearance: -1.03

Great Britain

-95 points by 76 men in 92 appearances in 7 OG; 6 PBs; 5 PBs in finals.

Avg. per man: -1.25

Avg. per appearance: -1.03

Non-Kalenjin Kenya

+49 points by 18 men in 24 appearances in 7 OG; 9 PBs; 7 PBs in finals.

Avg. per man: +2.72

Avg. per appearance: +2.04

Kalenjin

+175 points by 41 men in 59 appearances in 7 OG; 25 PBs; 15 PBs in finals.

Avg. per man: +4.27

Avg. per appearance: +2.97

What accounts for this extraordinary difference? What is it that gives seemingly every Kalenjin runner the ability to summon a supreme effort when it matters most? We tend to think of such emotional strengths as acquired rather than inherited, though of course there's the possibility that cattle raiding or some other custom might have conferred a reproductive advantage upon, say, individuals who stood firm in crises, and that that faculty was somehow passed on. But I'm inclined to believe this ability is the result of conditioning -- that the tribe's austere warrior culture prepares young Kalenjin almost from birth not to quail under pressure.

The most obvious and probably the most significant set of customs in this regard is the series of escalating physical ordeals each child undergoes while growing up, culminating in circumcision, which marks initiation into adulthood. Circumcision is the central event in the life of every Kalenjin youth, anticipated for years with dread, and suffered with unblinking stoicism under the eyes of watchful elders, who are ready to brand a boy a coward for life if he so much as winces. It's not hard to see how this rite might help develop a capacity to put up with pain, which, of course, is vital in running long races.

But circumcision is far from unique to the Kalenjin. Dozens of societies in Kenya and hundreds elsewhere in Africa use more or less the same operation for more or less the same purpose; in many, the rite has much the same significance and is accompanied by comparable community-wide commotion. For this reason, I was at first inclined to look beyond circumcision for whatever it was in Kalenjin culture that gave the runners their special strength. I changed my mind after going to a couple of circumcision ceremonies. I don't have time now to give a detailed account of what I saw, but when I compared it to what I was able to glean about other initiation rites from standard ethnographies and cross-cultural studies, I found what I think are significant differences.

They're not in kind, but in degree. In general, the Kalenjin rite and the long recovery period that follows are invested with greater secrecy and solemnity, and with greater importance as a means of inculcating standards of behavior. The operation itself is more physically arduous and the sanctions for failure more severe (flinching in fear or pain can result in what amounts to a kind of permanent internal banishment). Perhaps most important is the pervasive sense among adults, children and initiates that the traits of character tested in the ritual -- courage, endurance, determination, restraint -- are the ones the tribe values above all, and that to pass the test is to affirm those values, to fail it is to betray them. Thus as the initiates approach the predawn ceremony, they're quite conscious of bearing the weight not only of their own fears and hopes and those of their family and friends, but also those of the whole community, the tribe and centuries of Kalenjin tradition. A boy who stands up under that kind of pressure at 14 or 15 is unlikely at 25 to be anything but invigorated by the comparatively benign tensions accompanying an Olympic final. And if he was able as a boy to muster the strength to endure the excruciating pain of circumcision, what must he be able to do as a man when faced with nothing more than the aches and fatigue of the closing laps of a tough race.

Now, as a final note, since this is a gathering of British sports historians, I'd like to bring up another possible reason for Kalenjin success that has to do with a British colonial law enforcement policy. I once had high hopes for this idea, but up to now I haven't had much luck finding evidence to support it. I've talked about cattle raiding. In the early part of the century, it was endemic in Western Kenya, and the colonial administration went to some lengths to stamp it out. Because the Kalenjin were the most frequent offenders, they got more than their share of attention from the British in this regard. Raiders who were caught were jailed, and prisoners were sent out as laborers on public works projects; among these were the leveling and marking out of running tracks. Thus rustling and running seemed to be connected in an odd kind of symbiosis. This connection was confirmed in a letter I have from a former colonial officer -- now dead -- who recalled a campaign he conducted in one part of Kalenjin territory in the 1930s, promoting athletics as a surrogate for cattle raiding with a slogan that translates roughly as, "Show your valor in sports and games, not in war."

So it seemed that the Kalenjin fondness for raiding earned them an extra push from the colonial administration to take up track instead. But try as I may, I haven't been able to find any evidence in colonial records that my correspondent's approach was ever applied throughout Kalenjin country. There are lots of references to Kalenjin cattle raiding, some with a detectable note of admiration, but none that mention the promotion of sport as a surrogate. I've looked through some of the literature on sport as a mechanism of social control, and there's certainly evidence that sport was used this way among another Kenyan tribe, the Kikuyu, after the Mau Mau rebellion in the '50s. But I've found nothing about the Kalenjin. I've even looked at the encouragement of cricket as a surrogate for ritual warfare among Trobriand Islanders to see if I could in some way argue that this sort of thing was a common policy throughout the Empire. But that argument seemed a little thin. And in any event, if athletics was encouraged disproportionately among the Kalenjin in the '30s, the effects of the policy were long delayed: Kalenjin names don't start turning up with any frequency on the rolls of national champions until after World War II, when the tribe began to join the mainstream of rapidly Westernizing Kenya. Still, I'm eager to pursue this idea further if anyone here can suggest sources that I may have overlooked on colonial law enforcement or the use of sport as a means of social control.

kartelite, please give me some time to dig through Saltin. Thank you for providing this link. Later.

The only reason why Americans can't run as fast as Kenyans is culture and motivation.

Let's suppose it's true that Kenyans DO have BIG genetic advantages over Americans. Because of that, the average kenyan (if trained to their full potential) is better than 90% of all Americans (if all of them trained to their full potential).

Well, guess what. America's population is 10 times larger than Kenya's. Suppose the average, moderately trained Kenyan runs a 5 minute mile, which is better than 90% of the Americans. Therefore, here are the amount of people who have enough talent to run a sub-5 mile off of moderate training:

KENYA - 15 million (half of the population)

AMERICA - 30 million (only 10% of the population)

For every talented Kenyan, there are two talented Americans. The only reason why it's so hard to beat those Kenyans is because there are VERY FEW Americans willing to commit much time to XC or track. Just look around at any high school and compare the number of football/basketball players with the number of track guys.

The Question:

Are there racial (i.e. significantly different distributions between groups compared to distributions within groups) genetic differences disposing one race toward running fast than another.

The Answer: We don't know!!!

Now, if something like performance was an unconfounded reflection of 'running genetics', we could confidently say 'Yes, East Africans have better genes for running.'

But the same test ~25 years ago would have 'proved' that whites had the superior genes!!!

Shows the danger of simply looking at recent performance patterns.

The truth is that there are so many confounding factors that we can't model 'performance' as a function of contributing factors with much confidence at all! Sure 'training' and 'age' will be in there, but our question concerns the differences beyond those factors.

So we cannot prove that there is no genetic difference. If you say there is, i cannot prove you wrong. But in the absence of proper evidence that there is a difference, holding the position that there is no difference is just as valid.

Alex S wrote:

The Question:

Are there racial (i.e. significantly different distributions between groups compared to distributions within groups) genetic differences disposing one race toward running fast than another.

It doesn't matter. Genetic differences or not, more Americans than Kenyans should be medaling in the Olympics, world champs, or other big international event. It's only in the culture and attitudes toward running; for more info, see my previous post.

Skuj, read this paragraph over again and tell me these people are not uncommonly talented:

This talk is about a tribe in Kenya that has a remarkable faculty for turning out world class distance runners. The people are called the Kalenjin. They occupy an area about the size of Wales and they number something under 3 million. That's about 10% of Kenya's population. But this group has earned about 75% of Kenya's distance running honors. That's impressive enough, in view of the degree to which Kenya now dominates the sport, but looked at another way, the figures are even more remarkable: Over the past 10 years, athletes from this small tribe have won close to 40% of all the biggest international honors available in men's distance running.

Alright Skuj...

3 million people of the same ethnic family have won 40% of the biggest international honors

To put that in perspective, 3 million is the population of Iowa.

USA Population: 300 Million

The Kalenjin population is 100 TIMES SMALLER than the USA, yet they have won more medals. You're retarded if you don't think they have some kind of talent. kartelite's link proves the genetic part of it anyway. Point is - you're done, skuj. Stop talking, your argument no longer works, and it never did.

But I have one last challenge, now that you have saltin's evidence: find me a link that will prove kenyans DON'T have a genetic superiority.