Do the Africans really train harder?

That is exactly the case. Not genetics.

Jim Peters who broke five marathon world records in the 1950's had a best mile of only 4:17, and yet he ran his miles much faster than 3:55 miler Fernandez does today. This is why the fastest American ends up at 11th place on the course, while Africans who are slower at the mile run away from him. And Fernandez is very good at cross for being a non African trained runner.

In the United States are approximately 300,000 Kenyan-Americans, or Americans of Kenyan ancestry. About half of them live in the Washington DC area. This is roughly 1 percent of the entire population of Kenya.

We certainly DO have Mexican-Americans with significant talent for distance running, of which German and Leo are simply the latest. But Americans of African descent that have represented the US internationally (Meb, Abdi, and Lagat) were not born here--and Meb and Abdi grew up at altitude, but did not participate in organized running until they got to this America as I understand it.

If genetics is the major thing, where are the Kenyan-American distance runners?

My impression is that the critical commodity here is not genetics but environment, which is something we as coaches at least can more easily duplicate. Take Ryan Hall and Deena Kastor, stick them at 7000 feet for a few years (like the Kalenjin), train in a program that is group- and scientific-based courtesy of Dr. Vigil and....

I CAN!

Where are the Kenyan-American distance runners? I classrooms trying to get ahead. YOu still don't understand their motivation for success.

Malmo did the Kalenjin come from West Africa or Sudan? Two different areas.

Sanya Richards, who is of Jamaican ancestry, was a national merit scholar, 4.0 through high school, and started at the University of Texas as an engineering major.

If raw talent is the primary thing, it will show it self. There are any number of Africans who grow up in the environment in Africa and come to the US to go to school, don't start athletics until they get to the US, and do well to extremely well. In addition to Meb and Abdi, Eric Kamau, and possibly Lagat were examples of this. But we don't seem to have ANY Americans of African descent who were born here and do the same thing.

Have more white kids go to high school in Big Bear at 7000 feet.

Right and how fast was Jim Peters? Do you really think Fernandez and those Kenyans wouldn't have beaten him over literally any distance?

You know if it was just one or two east africans running fast and people were saying it's genetics then, yeah you could say they'r reaching. But C'mon people look at the record books! Look at the year end year out performances, the top 100 times in the world in virtually every distance race is dominated by east africans.

People are so worried about being PC that they can not even let themselves consider that there ARE differnces in races.

Exquisite Corpse wrote:

Malcolm Gladwell has a pretty interesting idea of why the chinese are better than americans at math in his book Outliers. It is pretty convincing and culturally based.

I've read Outliers and it's one of the dumbest books I've ever read. Gladwell tells people what they want to hear.

The above link is to an article titled " So black runners are naturally faster? Wrong" by Matthew Syed

comicbookguy wrote:

You know if it was just one or two east africans running fast and people were saying it's genetics then, yeah you could say they'r reaching. But C'mon people look at the record books! Look at the year end year out performances, the top 100 times in the world in virtually every distance race is dominated by east africans.

People are so worried about being PC that they can not even let themselves consider that there ARE differnces in races.

Exactly. As others have pointed out, it it not all Kenyans that are fast, just the Kalenjin and a few other select tribes. This group of people have been living and running around the Rift Valley for aeons. Add that to the fact that their existence over time has been pure natural selection at it's finest.

As another poster pointed out, think of the World's Strongest Man competition; almost the antithesis, in terms of needed physical attributes, of competitive distance runners. Why are the most successful strong men from northern European decent?

Using the logic applied by many on this thread, one could assert that a Kalenjin man has a good a shot as any to win the World's Strongest Man competition. And using the same logic to provide the answer: well of course they won't win, it is not in their culture to achieve success at such competitions.

Mere common sense tells us that this answer is garbage. No matter how hard a Kalenjin man tried, he will NEVER be a finalist in this type of competition.

The Kalenjin man could certainly improve his muscular strength relative to where he started, but never have the strength to complete one measely event at the preliminaries. This is similar to say Magnus Von Magnusson quitting power lifting and focusing on distance running training. After spending 5 years of doing nothing but intense distance training he most certainly would improve his performance, but would never even be close to finishing near a semi-elite woman.

These examples provide an illustration of the two extreme bookends of this type of continuum of body types. On one end you have the Kalenjin distance runner; extremely skinny, small frame, short torso, long skinny legs relative to overall heigth, and an excellent cardio vascular system. On the other end you have the World's Strongest Man finalist; tall, thick all over, massive, explosive, with forearms larger than a Kalenjin runner's thigh, etc., etc.

There are definitely outliers in every region. There are certainly people from most every country that fit the description of a Kalenjin distance runner, at least in terms of body type. Same can be said for the other end of the spectrum.

The main point is, that on average, a few tribes in the Rift Valley produce MOST of the world's distance talent.

precisely wrote:

The main point is, that on average, a few tribes in the Rift Valley produce MOST of the world's distance talent.

yeah, that's because that's where most of the world's hardest workers are. those people are freakin awesome at everything.

this 21 year old kenyan just ran a 2:05 simply because he works hard and has running heros.

did you guys know that?

he has put in more work than any of our 25+ year olds in just 21 years! It's a miracle!

yep

I took over a coaching job at a HS 9 years ago. I was told there was a Kenyan in 9th grade. I talked to him about joining the team. He laughed at me. I watched him in gym class- he couldn't run- couldn't run- couldn't run. Was thin, looked like a runner, couldn't run. Oh, and 0, no, zilch, nada work ethic.

100% from Kenya with two Kenyan parents Kenyan. His sister was worse.

Oh and he lived within 1 mile of the school and was always late because his ride was late picking him up.

LooneyBin wrote:

yep

Someone is clearly bored.

He was probably laughing at you because he realized you probably thought he would be a good runner just because he was Kenyan. He was probably wondering when you were going to ask him to turn around and show you his tail.