Why are Egyptians so terrible at running?

Don't know, but Katir was 1/2 Egyptian.

Poor environment for running.

No altitude training available.

Physique wise, Egyptians aren't built for distance running, thick bodies on men and women.

Norway and Finland - freezingass cold and pretty much sea level.

Bring back Pyramid building. It's their only hope of a medal.

Have you seen Egyptians try to walk?! How do you expect them to run?

Morocco is similar in climate. Both have high altitude regions.

Really, it's because the African countries that do well have copious doping access, connections and knowledge, while countries like Egypt do not. There's dozens of other African countries that also haven't won anything in running. If somebody was willing to start trafficking EPO and steroids into Egypt for runners, they would start winning just the same.

desert environments are usually bad for distance training. Egypt is nothing but desert and its cities are congested and polluted to boot.

Sounds exactly like Salt Lake City.

No altitude training? What about on top of the pyramids?

As one of the most ancient civilizations, the Egyptian gene pool has been sitting on its collective butts for 5000 years. Those pyramids some of you are on about, that was peak Egyptian physical effort. They have been relaxing since then.

People from barbarian lands, like Kenya or Norway, still live a hardscrabble existence, dodging death with each day's hard toil, and they have the gene pool to match.

Did you guys see that dog up on top of that pyramid? How the heck did he get up there?

It's hard to run with that one arm pointing forward and one arm pointing back running form.

Open image

There's nowhere to run in Egypt where you won't get chased by packs of homeless dogs. Maybe on a track. That's my impression from a short trip I took there once.

They build the pyramids with their bare hands. They are still tired from that.

They're running clean

Probably related to all the inbreeding from the pharaohs.

exactly. has the OP been to egypt? unless you're by the coast, where are you running? it's people on top of people, cars on top of cars in cairo, and then when cairo stops, it's desert. there is so little room or parks for anything, people picnic and play on medians.

kenya has different geography, hills, mountains, vegetation, some open space, some room for running courses and tracks.

some of the other med countries better at running, more people live closer to the coast, and usually not as densely. algeria, morocco.