Regarding Thierry Ndikumwenayo - as has been noted, he has an interesting IAAF profile given his previous years’ progression, or honestly lack thereof. But imagine some of his performances in the context of his being an American:
17 years old - 8:06 3k
18 years old - 13:27 5k
19 years old - 28:18 road 10k
21 years old - 7:41 3k
22 years old - 9th at World XC (9th doesn’t exactly excite, but keep in mind it was a very competitive year where Barega
was 5th, Rhonex Kipruto was 6th, and the top American was Shadrack Kipchirchir in 34th).
If this were an American, he would obviously had garnered some discussion as an 18-22 year old, and the question in the last 2-3 years would have been why he wasn’t running much faster given his early promise.
Sure, anyone running a 7:25.93 3k might be doping, but it’s also possible that some of those popular doping rationalizations (he started running much more, never did speed work before, radically improved his nutrition, finally got a healthy stretch of training, etc.) are truthfully big factors here.
I have a soft spot for Burundians, since my high school XC team had a whole host of Burundian contributors whose families had immigrated due to civil war. The year we placed 4th in state, 4 of our scorers were Burundian. Aside from that, this isn’t the first time a runner from Burundi has
been a top-5 3k runner in
the world (see Venuste Niyongabo).