Lots has been discussed on this topic. You are maybe the most knowledgeable coach in the world - and have interracted with MANY top athletes.
Could you speak to whether it is possible for a white athlete to compete in win at the highest levels? I mean physically, ignoring any mental or societal influences. From a purely genetic talent standpoint - can they compete?
800?
1500?
5000/10000?
Marathon?
If you think yes - could you tell us why? If you think no - could you tell us why not?
Thanks!
This ought to be interesting.
The greatest 1500 meter runner ever was white.
1/10
Seriously, why is this a question? A white man has run 3:26 in the 1500 and 3:43 for the mile. He also ran 12:50 for 5000 and was the double 1500/5000 gold medalist in Athens. Of course whites can compete.
/thread
searching for questions wrote:
800?
1500?
5000/10000?
Marathon?
If you think yes - could you tell us why? If you think no - could you tell us why not?
Thanks!
Ever heard of El G ?
El G is not white...he's more black than white.
El G has the same skin color that Jesus had. ;)
Hes definitely not caucasian
justthefacts wrote:
El G is not white...he's more black than white.
The U.S Census defines white as those "having origins in any of the original peoples of Europe, the Middle East, or North Africa." El G is white.
Not White wrote:
Hes definitely not caucasian
Why not?
Caucasian means originating from the Caucasus region (i.e., parts of Russia, Chechnya, Iran, Turkey, Georgia, Armenia, etc..
More generally it includes people from Europe, North Africa, East Africa, Middle East, Central Asia.
This picture shows the regions Caucasians arise from.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/72/Meyers_1890_ethnographic_detail.jpg
You can see that Meb and Bekele are Caucasian
I can't believe RC hasn't weighed in yet.
Here is a bigger version.
Most of the best runners in the world are Caucasian
Its not complicated wrote:
Caucasian means originating from the Caucasus region (i.e., parts of Russia, Chechnya, Iran, Turkey, Georgia, Armenia, etc..
More generally it includes people from Europe, North Africa, East Africa, Middle East, Central Asia.
No it doesn't.
Caucasian race
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
For the peoples of the Caucasus Mountains, see Peoples of the Caucasus. For other uses of the term "Caucasian", see Caucasian (disambiguation).
Meyers Blitz-Lexikon (Leipzig, 1932) divides “Europäid” types into: Nordic race, Dinaric race, Mediterranean race, Alpine race, East Baltic race, Turks (Turanid race), Bedouins (Arabid race), and Afghans (Iranid race).
The term Caucasian race (also Caucasoid, Europid, or Europoid[1]) has been used to denote the general physical type of some or all of the populations of Europe, North Africa, the Horn of Africa, Western Asia (the Middle East), Central Asia and South Asia.[2] Historically, the term has been used to describe the entire population of these regions, without regard necessarily to skin tone.
Its not complicated wrote:
Caucasian means originating from the Caucasus region (i.e., parts of Russia, Chechnya, Iran, Turkey, Georgia, Armenia, etc..
More generally it includes people from Europe, North Africa, East Africa, Middle East, Central Asia.
El G is from Morocco... in NORTHERN AFRICA
Its not complicated wrote:
This picture shows the regions Caucasians arise from.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/72/Meyers_1890_ethnographic_detail.jpgYou can see that Meb and Bekele are Caucasian
Are you blind? That pic had a good 98% of Ethiopia covered in the color that means black. I hope you're a troll.
Northern Africa and Eastern Africa near the horn of Africa are considered Caucasian. As I said it includes:Europe, Northern Africa, Eastern Africa, Middle East, Central Asia.
Fluffy wrote:
Its not complicated wrote:Caucasian means originating from the Caucasus region (i.e., parts of Russia, Chechnya, Iran, Turkey, Georgia, Armenia, etc..
More generally it includes people from Europe, North Africa, East Africa, Middle East, Central Asia.
El G is from Morocco... in NORTHERN AFRICA
I don't want to divide people in Caucasian and rest of the World. Simply, we can speak about African of the highlands (Kenyans, Ethiopian, Eritreans, Ugandans, Tanzanians) and other athletes in the World.
So, I can see African of COMESA (Central and East Africa) and other runners.
At first, you can see, looking at the all-time lists, how many Central African there are, compared with other runners (Maroccan and Algerian at first : I consider them as white), for events :
800m
Top 10 : 6 (African) - 4 (white)
Top 20 : 16 - 4
Top 30 : 22 - 8
1500m
10 : 5 - 5
20 : 10 - 10
30 : 17 - 13
5000m
10 : 8 - 2
20 : 14 - 6
30 : 23 - 7
10000m
10 : 9 - 1
20 : 18 - 2
30 : 27 - 3
Steeple :
10 : 9 - 1
20 : 15 - 5
30 : 25 - 5
Marathon
10 : 10 - 0
20 : 19 - 1
30 : 26 - 4
How it's possible to see, longer is the race, greater is the dominance of Central / Eastern Africans.
This can teach us two things :
1) In the long distances the Aerobic Level is fundamental, and it's not possible to replace it with any other type of training (exercises, fast intervals, etc..). Since the first effect of training in altitude is to increase the Aerobic Power, athletes living in altitude have clear advantages compared with athletes living at sea level.
2) In short distances, the effect of altitude is not very important, and in any case we can have some advantage during the fundamental period only, not during the specific period. The top runners of 1500/Mile, for example, used very fast tests with very short recovery, in order to stress their lactic system (English type of training used by Coe, Ovett, Cram, Peter Elliot), and this is a type of training normally dangerous in altitude, for the lack of oxygen that can't allow athletes to recover quickly lactic tests very fast. Also the athletes of Maghreb (Aouita, Morceli, El Guerrouj, Ramzi) used the same type of training, different from what Kenyans use to do.
3) Using a high speed, athletes need to have more muscular consistancy, in order to develop speed. European, American, North African athletes have a structure more powerful (under muscular side) than the average of Central and Eastern Africans. Of course, there are ecceptions, like Masai (Rudisha, Billy and Patrick Konchellah, Gregory Konchellah alias Yusuf Kamel), but percentually white runners are more talented for high speed than Kenyans.
4) Therefore, there are no indications that in 800/1500m white runners can't be as competitive as Central African runners. We can have Olympic Champions as Borzakovskiy (Russia) or Rodhal (Norway) or Schumann (Germany) and World Champions like Bucher (Switzerland), and in 1500m athletes like El Guerrouj, Morceli, Cram, Coe, Ovett and a lot of other athletes from Spain (Cacho, Diaz, Abascal, Gonzalez, Eastevez), Portugal (Rui Silva), France (Baala), Germany (Wessinghage, Hudak), Italy (Di Napoli), Switzerland (Deleze) and others.
5) Instead, it's really difficult to think that white runners can be totally competitive in long distances.
However, the current Galen Rupp, or Portugueses of the past (Mamede, Lopes) or the top Italians (Antibo, Cova, Mei, Panetta) or Baumann (Germany) could be competitive for a medal still today. The problem is another : while in 800m white runners are able to continue to run fast like in the past, in 1500m not so much but in any case near the past, in long distances we are very far from the performances of the past. So, the fact is we are no more able to produce top runners because we are no more able to recruit the most talented runners. So, it's useless to speak about "theory" when the real problem is the social difference between Western Countries and that part of Africa still interested in running.
The dominance of African is due to their talent, but also to the fact white athletes disappeared. And the solution is not to look at Africa too much, but to look at our young generation, creating again interest in running and organising a different type of life.
Terrific response Mr. Canova, thanks much.
