Ramaala says American runners are innately equal to the African: I say that\'s B.S.!

expectations = exceptions?

but seriously, I agree with you.

And I say he doesn't know what he's talking about.

East Africans don't seem to share the same genetic pool with the rest of the world and if they do, I'm sure as hell it's not the shallow end of it they swim in.

It's not just Kenya and Ethiopia! And if it seems that way, it's so because the other have not gotten their S*&t together. Heck, many people in those other countries still don't even know competitive running even exists!Eritria,Tanzania,Burundi,Somalia,Zimbawe,Djibouti,Mozambique and even war-torn Rwanda have world beaters,trust me! Some of the people in these countries are from the same tribes as the Kenyans and Ethiopians.

Let me go down the list:

Djibouti had two 2.08 Marathon runners (Salah and Robleh) back in the late 80s.Philimon Hannek from Zimbabwe was a super stud in the early 90s whileliving in the US? Uganda has their own Kalenjin tribes and Kiprop comes from there.Tanzania has showed greatness with Juma Ikanga, Samson Ramadhani and more recently with John Yuda. Burundi had Venuste Niongabo win the 5000m at the Atlanta Olympics, Eritrea has Zerzenay Tadesse leading the charge and even Botswana had a guy finish one place behind Mottram a few years back at World Cross.Somalia and Mozambique had people like Maria Mutola and Abdi Bile proved that there is super talent in those countries as well. Even war-torn Rwanda put together a team that ran good enough to beat Italy, France, United States, Japan, Australia and Great Britain a few years back at World Cross. They have this guy by the name of Disi Dieudonne with personal bests of 27.30 and 13.14. About half of these countries mentioned above have national records in distance events faster than our national records. Others would perhaps, as well if basic human necessities would be available in their countries. Never mind running shoes! But then again, our own 10k record is also held by a man who is from there from the genetic point of view.Another man from there is only 1 second behind our 5k record.

At the 92 Olympics there was a Kenyan by the name Paul Bitok. He eventually got the silver medal in the 5000m, but as he stayed in contention throughout the race the announcer kept saying that he had only ran several races before that and no one knew what exactly this guy was capable of. Well,he was only capable of second place, beaten only by a guy on drugs. Don't hold your breath to see a guy from Ireland or Poland do that any soon!

i was reading about this years dubai marathon winner who ran 20953, they asked him how he got into running, he said he was a farmer and someone told him there was a 30k race so he said he trained for a month and his place was good enough to get a trip to a marathon in europe in 3 months so he said he ran 30-60 minutes 4-5 days a week, he ran the marathon in 214, so he got an invitation to run in dubai, a coach in kenya said he would train him so a few months later he ran a 20953 in only his 3rd race ever and less than a year training, the runners name is william rotich date of birth listed as 1980, he was asked if he ran on his own before that, he said when he had to round up the cows, he was asked if he ran back and forth to school he said he would run to school only if he was going to be late. and he always walked home. why dont we have stories like that in the usa.

wolverine4life wrote:

In a new audio interview (linked below) Hendrick Ramaala says American runners are innately equal to their African counterparts. Although nice of Ramaala to say - and helpful to motivate me and give me a few second feeling of invincibility on my training run today - I say that is 100% BS.

Don't get me wrong Ramaala is a gentleman, but I think the facts point elsewhere.

He talks about how American runners are just as determined and train just as hard and are born with as much talent. I would say that the record books, medal counts, etc demonstrate that even with all of the additional money at their disposal, Americans will never be on the same level as African runners on average. Of course their are expectations, but they are just that .. EXCEPTIONS

Hello Sir Lancelot.

I would wager that if 100,000 people packed stadiums all over the country to watch distance runners every weekend in the fall, the U.S. would dominate the distance rankings.

The sad fact is that most Americans would rather chase balls around than run--it's a cultural, rather than a genetic difference.

You don't hear many people talk about the Fins obvious genetic distance running superiority anymore.

Ramaala's the most gracious guy in the sport. He was being nice.

I completely agree with Ramaala. The occasional freak that comes from western nations shows that the talent IS there, except lets face it, there are so many other sports that running is never going to be the number 2 sport if the US/UK or anyother western nation like it is in africa. The facts are they have hordes of guy who are DESPERATE to make a living through running. This breeds amazing depth. In western countries there are easier ways to make money, and those who run don't neccesarily do it as a career as such (not sayig that all africans do it only for $$, but for many it must be a very attractive idea).

Discusser Of Things wrote:

wolverine4life wrote:

In a new audio interview (linked below) Hendrick Ramaala says American runners are innately equal to their African counterparts. Although nice of Ramaala to say - and helpful to motivate me and give me a few second feeling of invincibility on my training run today - I say that is 100% BS.

Don't get me wrong Ramaala is a gentleman, but I think the facts point elsewhere.

He talks about how American runners are just as determined and train just as hard and are born with as much talent. I would say that the record books, medal counts, etc demonstrate that even with all of the additional money at their disposal, Americans will never be on the same level as African runners on average. Of course their are expectations, but they are just that .. EXCEPTIONS

Hello Sir Lancelot.

Because only one person who has ever posted here believes phenotypes are transmitted genetically...

Did u run to school? Yeah, didn't think so, u probably got a bus, if u were poor. These guys r bustin their ass the day they get out of the womb. U were pullin the silver spoon out of ur mouth.

The answer is in the OP. "...even with all the additional money..." We look to Capitalistic kinds of things, while these people busts their butts from Day 1, because they have to. By the time they are 16 and ready to start SERIOS training, they are light years ahead of us due to lifestyle. When are we ever going to get that, Sir Lancelot?

i guess we may have had close to the same talent from birth but the time in between infantry and teen years is where africans progress more than americans. its part of east african culture to be running and traveling by foot from the very beginning. americans, at all stages in life, travel significantly less than the africans by foot and running is not so much a part of our lifestyle. it can even be seen among american kids who play soccer(competitively) and american kids who play other sports that require much less running like baseball and basketball. the soccer players are almost always the better runners because they have developed more endurance, stamina, lung capacity, etc. the africans have an even larger advantage than the americans who played soccer because running has been a much larger part of their lives from the beginning which basically gives them a much larger advantage considering americans are really exposed to the sport around the age of 14. these early years of running africans have can be looked at as a kind of base that americans will never be able to have as long as american culture remains the way it is.

Fins wrote:

I would wager that if 100,000 people packed stadiums all over the country to watch distance runners every weekend in the fall, the U.S. would dominate the distance rankings.

The sad fact is that most Americans would rather chase balls around than run--it's a cultural, rather than a genetic difference.

You don't hear many people talk about the Fins obvious genetic distance running superiority anymore.

The finns where a bunch of doping cheats. That is well known to us in Scandinavia. Plus they didn´t run 12,37/26,17

give it a rest. why would you argue against the facts that the north and east africans have superior genes for distance/middle distance running? by the same token, why would you not say the same thing regarding west africans and sprinting- i.e. majority of us sprinters descended from biggest and baddest slaves brought to the US. what the f*** is wrong with this board? no one wants to say how it really is. why does everyone want to hold hands and come up with jargonistic bullshit?! i'm tired of all this politically correct crap. give me a break!!!!

Ramaala probably was being nice, no doubt, because he is well known as a nice guy.

But all those regions and tribal links that6 "defection" lists are a couple of thousand miles away from South Africa, where Ramaala & 96 OG mthn champ Thugwane are from....birthplace of multi-ethnic World Champ Plaatjes...and of course of Olympian Colleen De Reuck...do all those African-born runners have the same "genetic advantages" as East Africans from at/near the Rift Valley?

Track doesn't pack up stadiums like footbal or baseball, but it still has a lot of exposure; a lot more than many countries in this world. Our 3 divisions of NCAA plus the NAIA, JUCO and the thousands of High Schools around the nation that have track programs should expose some talent, don't you think? And they do actually. If you check the year lists, we do have about 70 to 80 people under 14 min for 5k and 3.45 for 1500m every year.That's better that many other countries around the world!

And if East Africans had our system (not our lifestyle!)they would be running 11 minutes for 5k.

When people say "they ran to school and that's why they are good!" is partially true. Evolution was at work there for thousands of years.The climate,their lifwstyles, the simple foods they eat yielded a light, compact and resilient body that could live under those conditions. It's called "survival of the fittest"

You take a caucasian baby who has the genetics of being big-boned person and try to raise him in Kenya. Make him run to school when he's 7 or whatever. He's going to be late for school every day, if he even makes it!

There are other people in the world who live like the East Africans but their distance running "prowess" is actually worse than ours.

Something unique is happening in that part of the world which is East Africa.

Something unique also exists in West Africa as well.For some reason, evolution over there created people with huge glutes and quads - bodies that are made for sprinting.

That is why the US has world class sprinting, and most rivals are also comming or have ties to that part of the world (Nigeria, Ghana, Jamaica etc)

If slave ships went to East Africa instead, the US would have distance runners today, especially with the system that we do have in place.

And Cragg was born there as well.

But Kenya and Ethiopia have hundreds of Craggs and you don't even know their names, because in order to make their national teams and get exposure, they have to beat people like Bekele.

But oops, Cragg did "beat" Bekele. You get back credit for this one. My bad!

Its a percentages game:

Statistically you are far more likely to find top distance athletes in a country with a genetic disposition towards distance running but that does not exclude the possibility of finding one somewhere else.

The caucasian athletes that have performed at the elite level are no doubt there, just not in the same numbers as the Africans.

400m Wariner

800m Coe / Elliot / Cram / Boroskovy etc etc

1500m / Mile - Coe / Cram / North Africans??

3k/5k Mottram / Moorcraft / Cragg / Bauman??

10k Here we seem to really struggle

Half - Ryan Hall

Marathon - Plenty of guys

Ultra - We actually dominate this arena

I'm not going to deny that they may have a slight genetic advantage - only slight... i think our outliers might still be able to compete with their outliers

I wasn't much one for motivation factor until I moved to europe...

In many european countries (UK and Germany EXcluded), I find you do not see near the innovation and education levels as you do in the US... because they aren't rewarded for it. Take switzerland - very rich country but stuff doesn't develop nearly as quickly as in the states, and their education levels (post grad degrees) have been falling behind. why is this? are americans smarter? mor innovative? hell no - in switzerland and other countries - if you are a maintenance man or a doctor your standard of living isn't much different, cabbies drive around in brand new bmw's for chrissakes (and I'm not talking the cheap ones) - in the US, income inequality is huge and if you can come up with new stuff or get a good education you are rewarded

now with running the opposite, unless you are the best or second best your salary is basically crap... for the africans they win one or two races they are set in kenya and ethiopia... nearly everyone in the country sees it as a way "out"

the difference in motivation is huge - and they will continue to dominate as long as that holds true

our athletes will continue to go where the money is --- football, basketball, even soccer