'Natural born runners' myth goes home devastated

You wear your insecurity well.

We are all natural born runners.

Africans are raised to be runners, running to school, running for groceries...

Sally from Portland will never run like Africans.

Natural born racist posts yet another bigoted posting on LR and will not be reprimanded for it.

If the myth is over how come Ethiopia is 2nd only to the US and they are one of the poorest countries on the planet?

Who has the quality of training, coaching, living facilities and money in Africa that US athletes have?

You're desperately searching for a glimmer of hope, and you will always turn to Africans and drugs.

Sad way to live your life.

Yep. The "East African genetic superiority" or "culture of running" myths are some of the most pathetic, laughable doping dodges I have ever seen. Not a shred of evidence for them, and there is an overwhelmingly obvious alternative explanation that easily accounts for the disparity, EPO/PEDs. Coupled with official corruption and the absence of meaningful testing and it easily accounts for everything we see in the sport.

You just answered your own question. How come indeed?

always exhibiting your inferiority complex to African performances.

the other day myself I admitted that Kenyan and Sudanese had better body type build for distances like 800m

but in your case it's a mental disorder suffering

Jakob is an exceptional talent akin to Paula Radcliffe.

How many caucasian women have broken 2:20 in the marathon before super shoes?

Don't expect to see this trend continuing, it was a very poor showing from Kenya this year.

Thats false.

Poverty and corruption are just the ideal natural conditions in which you can use everything you want - without the risk of being caught. Some of us were too naive and we have learned it somewhat late.

You will be naïve if you think that corruption stops at the door of poor countries only.
Be great and start by criticizing yourself. You are not a model to follows.

As a youth/junior middle distance coach in Europe, I have a lot to thank Jakob for. He has shown the kids here that with enough hard work you can be competitive as a distance runner regardless of your skin colour, area of origin and altitude of your birthplace. I think this benefits everyone and the sport as whole. The kids I coach now genuinely believe their future is in their hands. He has also done it for relatively normal weight/height people - and his example followed by Kerr, Wightman, etc.

This wasn't something I felt for many years when there was east african dominance and Craig Mottram was praised as being the "fastest white guy". This is nothing against the east Africans who were putting in the graft (and for a few perhaps the epo). Now when the east Africans win it will be because of talent and hard work, not some pre-conceived genetic edge.. good for everyone!

Sprinting is a different story!

How much Ghana or Nigeria middle and long distance runners?
Find me a single name in the past?

This is not genetic but natural body morphology that help. It's a statistic affair "of how much you find" of eligible prototype.

As Coevett proves over and over again, running is the one sport Westerners feel at a disadvantage to Africans and always approach with an inferiority complex because it's a level playing field and you don't need money to access. Everybody in the world runs. And Africans, particularly Kenyans and Ethiopians, are empirically better than the rest of the world put together.

All the world's best runners learn from them, have to copy their training methods and replicate their conditions to compete. Next year, I can guarantee you an unknown name from either Kenya or Ethiopia will emerge and cause waves in the sport. I can't speak with the same certainty about the UK, US or Norway.

They have a "better body type"? And how have you come to this conclusion? Because they compete so frequently and successfully in these distances, they must have a better body type? Aren't you making these explanations retrospectively, without the real knowledge of physical and physiological requirements in these events?

The last time I checked the height and BMI of African middle distance runners, their mean height (178 cm) was 6 cm above the Kalenjin mean, and 7 cm above the current Kenyan and Ethiopian mean. European runners in the 800 m were 183 cm tall, and in the 1500 m 181 cm tall. Africans don't need to be so tall because they have relatively longer legs, but given that the current average height of European men is about 178 cm, I would say that Europeans are closer to their race-specific requirements in these distances, what do you think?

The above-average height in these distances has its justification because you still need a significant amount of anaerobic capacity. Anaerobic capacity increases with body size. And there are marked differences WITHIN 800/1500 m runners as well: The shorter ones are usually leaner and rely more on their aerobic abilities, whereas taller runners are heavier and more muscular, with greater anaerobic capacity. And here is a problem that almost nobody is aware of: Although East Africans are generally leaner than Europeans and their BMI at 172 cm (ca. 20 kg/m2) fits very well the usual BMI values in the 800/1500 m (20-21 kg/m2), their height/BMI relationship is completely opposite to that we observe in the 800/1500 m: The taller they are, the skinnier they are. The tallest ones then look like extra-terrestials.

Open image

This is a natural evolutionary adaptation that increases body surface/body mass ratio in a hot environment. As a result, a Nilotic male who is 178 cm tall has a BMI value of around 18.5 kg/m2, which is not particularly close to the average BMI in the 1500 m (20 kg/m2) and certainly not to that in the 800 m (21 kg/m2). In other words, the Nilotic male will have little muscle to move his legs quickly forward, and he will also be too heavy to utilize his aerobic abilities. Not a very happy combination.

However, in the 3000 m, these height/BMI relationships disappear, and in distances longer than the 3000 m, the association between height and BMI completely reverses: Taller runners are leaner, whereas shorter runners are heavier. This is determined by the importance of running economy that is worse in taller runners.

And these physical differences are not everything - they are further complicated by the marked differences in participation rates. But that's a topic for another discussion.

You can use the corruption perception index

en.wikipedia.org

Corruption Perceptions Index

The Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) is an index which ranks countries "by their perceived levels of public sector corruption, as determined by expert assessments and opinion surveys." The CPI generally defines corruption a...

Open link

and compare it with the statistics of athletes being caught. I would not be surprised if you found a significant correlation, at least in some world regions such as Europe, because in the most corrupt nations, athletes simply are not being caught because of the widespread corruption.

Sounds like white people great.

Oh the “degraded” performances of East Africa who have more sub-13s than ever? How about this: Jakob is special and believes he can be the best. He also trains harder, longer and more effectively than his predecessors.

Its quite unfair to compare Kenya with Norway as with their 55 million inhabitants and incredible running culture has more sub 2.08 runners than Norway had inhabitants (jk). So ofcourse you cant say that with the same same certainty. Kenyas C tier athletes would be a top 5 Norwegian even if we count the Ingebrigtsens. However you, as a Kenyan, shouldn't feel to inferior that you need to take digs on a winter nation with 5 mill inhabitants. Its quite unseemingly and weird.