adam&eve wrote:
I think it very likely that Dubai is short. Apart from Haile, all of the amazing times that have been set there have not been reproduced by the runners in any other subsequent race. This year an 18 year old ran 2.04.32 on his debut. Not really credible in my opinion.
I posted this after people were talking about this very thing after the Dubai marathon this year:
"Average GDP/capita in Ethiopia = 470.22 USD (from google, which is an amalgamation of sources)
Average GDP/capita in USA = 49,965.27 USD (google)
200k to your average Ethiopian (and I think most of these runners are way below the average, since they are typically rural farmers and the cities have the money) goes as far as
$21,251,869.34 in the USA9 [200,000 * 49,965.27 / 470.22]
That's not even the whole story; the opportunity cost for a rural Ethiopian farmer to train his balls off all day every day is negligible because he is making so little money otherwise. Take away any opportunity cost from the average American and the financial incentive goes even higher.
The financial incentive for winning Dubai to an Ethiopian is roughly equivalent to the being one of the 10 best players in America's best-paid sport (obviously discounting endorsements outside of the player's team-paid salary).
Source:
http://espn.go.com/nba/salaries"
Combined with the consensus being that all East African's stated ages aren't accurate, maybe this will make the results of Dubai seem a bit more credible.