Zane Robertson retires - was it worth it?

I find it strange that your story is repeated by many others about US training in the 90s, supposedly based on the 'Peter and Seb Coe' model of training.

Because here in the UK we didn't have elite athletes and coaches telling us that less is more or that quality beats quantity.

If I may be critical of American thinking, it seems to be very fad orientated. And the latest fad is 'double threshold' days, (because Jakob Ingebrigtsen does it) as if that is supposed to be some kind of panacea that will elevate one's fitness to new levels.

I think both Robertsons would tell you the move was worth it. They went to Kenya with the goal of becoming two of the best in the world, and nobody can really say they weren't. They never flamed out young and disappeared and they never went back to New Zealand. They lived and died by the sword in a way that few of their peers were willing to. They lived their dreams and that's all you can ask for.

If you wanted to compare them to their American peers, going roughly by age we'd have to go with that group of Chris Derrick, Puskedra, and Fernandez. I think they did just fine.

I can't really answer whether it was worth it or not. At the end of the day they probably can't either because who knows how life would have turned out if they made a different choice.

I do know the choice to train in Africa head to have been a wonderful life experience and probably makes them more interesting than the vast majority of their peers. Maybe they'll even write a book.

Only young once

Some Kenyans train in Japan

They weren’t 2 of the best in the world. Ever!

The super shoes have given people about 10 seconds in the 10,000m races.

Err yeah if they did it as alone as a teenager and didn't move back, like I put in my post.

The Robertson brothers started well in their early years in Kenya, then lost their way along the way.At first they went to Kenya with humility willing and ready to learn.After a few years they became arrogant, big headed know-it-all westerners who looked down upon the local athletes and stakeholders. With time the important stakeholders started avoiding them and they became isolated and the whole experiment basically fell apart.It is said when you go to Rome behave like Romans do.The lads failed there and the rest is history no one is surprised it has come to this.

If you look closely, you can see the exact moment the twins started to turn to the dark side of the sport for results. It really was "all or nothing" for them, so don't really blame them. Like how I don't really blame any African runner for making that choice.

They have (had) the most brash and unpleasant personalities which must've stuck out like sore thumbs among extremely polite and soft-spoken rural Kenyans. Don't forget their angry period in 2016, when they started publicly beefing with everyone Kenyan and briefly self-exiled to Ethiopia. Zane (I think) implied via tweet that Kipchoge was an age cheat who was actually 44 years old (would be 51 now) according to his "sources" and everyone (including Nick Willis) eagerly believed them because, hey, they're white, and can't possibly lie. Eliud's camp was just an hour's drive away in Kaptagat. All he had to do was go over and ask instead of trying to smear the man online.

Needless to say, they lasted all of a few weeks in Ethiopia and quietly returned after the Olympics but some people had seen enough and started avoiding them. I would imagine they had to start from scratch rebuilding broken trust and relationships. Which is why I find it interesting that even upon retirement, they're choosing to stay on and build their lives in the same country they were trashing just seven years ago, rather than going home.

Brother, the joke is on you if you think Kipchoge was 19 when he won the World Championship in the 5000m in 2003. I'll give him props for running well as an even older- than-listed athlete now, but he isn't 38.

I spent a lot of time in Kenya and it's common knowledge that the majority of male athletes competing internationally as "juniors" are older. They see it as business and a way to make it in the sport.

Was it worth it?
I think if you look at the counterfactuals, Kenya was probably a wise choice:
1 - Stay in NZ. Occasionally get selected internationally, but wouldn't progress beyond 13:30, right? Would have ended up with FT jobs by their mid-20s and quit running.
2 - Go to college in the US. Can you imagine these guys excelling in a college environment? I think they're too independently-minded.
3 - Move to Europe and try to progress on the track circuit. They'd have been injured and completely broke before they hit 19.

They've never raced as much as I would have liked - as a fan of the sport I would have loved to see them more often - but the times results are undeniable. It's a shame groups like NN weren't so open to recruiting non-African athletes ten years ago, but even if they were, I can't see the Robertson's excelling in that kind of controlled environment.

All things considered, they seem to have done well for themselves and it sounds like they'll have a way to make a living after running, whatever. Can't knock that.

I would argue the joke is more on the guy who thinks a 50-year-old ran 2:01:09 last September.

They see every aspect of cheating in the sport as "business". As the saying goes, only dopey dopers get caught, and there are a F load of them being caught. Tip of the iceberg of what is going on there.

Eddy? That you? You still on the "dark side"?

So, Kipchoge is 47 and everyone dopes? And dope gives ya more energy? And the moon landings were faked?

No, 51. In 2016 he said Kipchoge was 44. I bet the tweet is still up.