Ok guys, give it your best shot! What will it take to see American distance runners consistently among the world leaders? Is it genetics, training, sport popularity, motivation, all of the above?
Ok guys, give it your best shot! What will it take to see American distance runners consistently among the world leaders? Is it genetics, training, sport popularity, motivation, all of the above?
Everything other than genetics.
Build more McDs. BKs and KFCs. Build a few more roads in Kenya. Give them some cars. and playstations and computers etc -that'll soon slow the buggers down.
You need to institute a less effective doping program, or better yet---test, but fake the results.
when I try to catch up with someone, I run faster
Eat lots of ugali. That's what my Kenyan teammates eat three times a day sometimes.
Ok, I got it, nobody has a clue.
Sport popularity is by far the most important factor, other than genes, in our current position below the Africans. Our country is so big, though, that if the sport were more popular, we could compete with our giant talent pool.
It's not ever going to happen, ever.
Tanzanians used to be as good as the Kenyans. Something happened ... maybe some institutional nonsupport, I have no idea ... and Tanzania pretty much vanished from "elite" distance running (it has a few good people still, but it's no presence at the Olympics or even World Cross Country). So find out what happened to Tanzania and make it happen to Kenya, too. That's the only way we'll ever catch up with the Kenyans, by bringing them down several levels.
Have them try some mustard. After tasting that nasty stuff they'll be happy to catch-up with you.
Make the club system better.
odds that a man of European/Caucasian descent will be a world class runner (3000 8:07 or faster) 1:80,000,000
Odds that a Kalenjin will be a world class runner 1:1,700
a population of 2-3mm wins +30% of all distance medals.
Easy - start recruiting a lot more Kalenjin into NCAA system.