Answer the question.
Answer the question.
Ethiopia and Kenya have more genetically gifted runners that are more driven to succeed by their economic circumstance than American runners.
So Ethiopian and Kenyan runners likely have a genetic gift.
Then, could the United States compete if there were as much depth in distance running among non East-African Americans as there is in sports like basketball, baseball, and football?
Scoops wrote:
So Ethiopian and Kenyan runners likely have a genetic gift.
Then, could the United States compete if there were as much depth in distance running among non East-African Americans as there is in sports like basketball, baseball, and football?
No.
Scoops wrote:
So Ethiopian and Kenyan runners likely have a genetic gift.
Then, could the United States compete if there were as much depth in distance running among non East-African Americans as there is in sports like basketball, baseball, and football?
yes, this has been proven by Cubans playing baseball. blacks all over the world have more talent than caucasians.
1) To begin, 2/3 of America is overweigt or obese
adjusting for % of population with body mass index < 20, Kenya and Ethiopia have a larger population of prospects.
2) <50 400m runners still racing distances 1500m or less.
US coaches (though somewhat improved overall) still tending to underestimate the importance of basic speed.
3) neglecting the important role of quality training.
A smart 50-80 miles/week can beat a dumb 100-160. miles/week
Still a fixation on volume as a panacea. The megamileage insanity, the Tea Party of training philosophy, has done us a massive disservice.
Hall was almost finished off with excessive volume.
Webb, Ritz, Fernandez, McDougall all overvolumed into injury, sickness or burnout. Big volume training groups perpetuating this myth for the sub-elite, crushing chances for meaningful breakthroughs by aspiring post-collegiates.
4) NCAA system
Our best HS athletes begin professional running in college, generally overtraining and overracing for most of four years. Excessive competition encourages the exploitation of athletes. Tendency of a coaches and athletic directors to equate the demands of distance running with those of playing point guard or shortstop. Sadly some of the athletes buy into the race til you drop mentality.
5) Media Hype
The great white hope thing is overblown. Corporate interests buy the best athletes then amp up the pressure, much of this is marketing driven, such that overreaching in training is almost mandatory. Anything short of a medal is deemed failure.
A talented runner like Manzano, ridiculed as inconsistent when in fact he is very well coached and actually peaks properly. And then we have Goucher etc, pushed into the marathon when her aptitude is for shorter distances only but also pressured to show up too soon after giving birth -- now of course she is injured also.
Let's consider some recent examples:
Goucher = Hype the gestation/ hype the comeback.
Solinsky = he's indestructable!
Ritz = Finally got him a good coach.
Salazar = creative genius/ tweak until injured.
All of this marketing BS works against us.
The bottom line is that even when our system succeeds in progressing big talent, we wreck much of what we got prior to important international competition.
I've said before that the talent in Kenya and Ethiopia would eventually cap their successes, through overtraining, team camps and exploitive agents/coaches.
All of that is happening, but we still have to get our own kids to the line.
6) USATF run for by intellectually inbred few. Term limits would be a healthy start, for board members and for corporate sponsorship deals.
7) Television coverage. When the kids at Flotrack do a 1000x better job than NBC, something is wrong.
A few others but that's a start.
Same reason the Netherlands, England, Germany, Spain, etc are more competitive at soccer - it's more popular. Same reason Cuba is better than Brazil at baseball.
It's popular because they're good, and it's good because they're popular, so how did they get good in the first place?
Well, it's quite common for kids to run 8-16 miles a day just going to school in some villages (yes, I've heard some claim 16 miles a day as schoolkids, don't know if that's true). So you have a large population of people with a good running base. So it's easy to spot your talented athletes, who already have a head start on everyone else.
Thus begins the cycle of being popular because they're good and good because they're popular. Notice that they aren't "better" by having more depth - they're fastest guys may be slightly faster than ours, but they have 10 times as many guys within x seconds of them.
Americans are domesticated.
dsrunner has the day off wrote:
1) To begin, 2/3 of America is overweight or obese
adjusting for % of population with body mass index < 20, Kenya and Ethiopia have a larger population of prospects.
More or less agree with all your other points, but wanted to say something about this one.
Kenya and Ethiopia may have a larger pool of prospects than the US (not going to check your math, due to laziness), but it's not like they are only out-performing the US. Kenya and Ethiopia produce more high end runners than the rest of the word combined. They certainly don't have a larger talent pool than in that case.
Note that China, a country with over a billion people, a relatively low obesity rate, and a pretty serious commitment to kicking ass in international athletic competition, produces basically ZERO world class distance athletes (aside from the rash of mind-boggling and highly suspicious women's distance performances in the 90's).
Basically . . . you'd have to be deluding yourself to say that there is not a genetic component to success in the highly specialized discipline of covering large amounts of ground very fast on foot.
when you are built like this,
its easier to run a 3:50 mile.
when you are built like this,
its kind of easy to run a 6:50 mile.
http://www.icacsports.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/soccerscholarships.jpg
(notice the huge quads and calves)
genetic predisoposition wins.
At last, a new, uncontroversial subject for an LR thread.
I don't spend that much time on here. Sarcasm?
Ciley Myrus wrote:
Americans are domesticated.
Like cats?
In that Kenyans and Ethiopians tend to be shorter, and shorter runners tend to have more efficient strides, I guess you could say they are at an advantage... but that's really the only genetic advantage I think they actually have.
Most of their advantage is due to the geography (altitude) and culture (less cars, more running, etc.) than it does "being born East African".
There are more high school-aged kids FULLY devoted to cross country and track in the United states than the rest of the world combined. There are more all-weather tracks in the United states than the rest of the world combined. There are more organized track and cross country meets in the United States than the rest of the world combined.
Most of Kenya's elite come from the Kalinjin, whose population is about 1 million.
National Geographic did a story on a young Kenyan who finished 30th in the Junior champs. He had received zero compensation for his running career up to that point, and had to work at a gas station full time, on his feet the entire time. Compare that to the 30th best junior in America, who is probably on one of the top 5 Div I programs in the country, has his education payed for and has to worry about nothing but running 80 miles a week and attending his History of Rock class.
Clubber Lange wrote:
Ethiopia and Kenya have more genetically gifted runners that are more driven to succeed by their economic circumstance than American runners.
This thread was over before it started.
If popularity of the sport, in relation to the overall population, was important, then Kenya would be much much better in football (or soccer, as you may know it). It's far more popular in Kenya than running in the general population.
But they suck at it, and absolutely dominate the world in distance running.
Genetics is a HUGE component. Not the only component, for sure, but probably the most important one if you look at it objectively.
Same reason they are not as competitive as Finland and Norway in cross country skiing.
odball wrote:
If popularity of the sport, in relation to the overall population, was important, then Kenya would be much much better in football (or soccer, as you may know it). It's far more popular in Kenya than running in the general population.
But they suck at it, and absolutely dominate the world in distance running.
Genetics is a HUGE component. Not the only component, for sure, but probably the most important one if you look at it objectively.
So what is this genetic advantage, and why/how has it developed in Kenya and Ethiopia?
Why isn't the rest of the world, outside of East Africa, as competitive as the US in distance events?
