Clean as a whistle wrote:
Heard it from a friend wrote:Well why would you dominate cycling when you can dominate running instead?
Because there is a lot more money in cycling.
Chris Froome earns £3 million a year with Team Sky. The winner of the Tour de France gets half a million. I'd wager that Chris Froome is the richest Kenyan born athlete ever.
http://www.spearswms.com/chris-froome-net-worth/
If everything was always won by east africans do you still think there would be?
Heard it from a friend wrote:
Clean as a whistle wrote:Because there is a lot more money in cycling.
Chris Froome earns £3 million a year with Team Sky. The winner of the Tour de France gets half a million. I'd wager that Chris Froome is the richest Kenyan born athlete ever.
http://www.spearswms.com/chris-froome-net-worth/If everything was always won by east africans do you still think there would be?
No, but that's a chicken and an egg situation. If promoters in the late 80's had put disincentives for young Africans to compete on the European circuit it might have been harder for African talent to break through and athletics might still be the second most popular sport behind football in Europe, with the top guys all earning millions. But they couldn't because leaving aside obvious accusations of racism, if one promoter excluded African talent, another wouldn't and his meeting would be better. Similarly if there was African cycling talent out there a top team would sign him to get an edge. Other teams would also have to sign Africans to get compete and so on.
Btw, Football is increasingly dominated by Africans, yet Premiership gets ever more popular.
well,, wrote:
The Africans genetic superiority is all about running economy, since they have perfect running bodies. They don´t have higher Vo2max or power than the rest of the world.
We often read on LR that if the Kenyans took up XC skiing they would dominate that, too. Well, I think you can travel for months in Rift Valley and still not find one single Kenyan who look like this:
http://www.adressa.no/incoming/article1346225.ece5/ALTERNATES/w980-default/Marit%20Bjørgen%20-2
Might this be something like confirmation bias? You conclude Kenyans have perfect running bodies because they win, and then when they continue to win you think it is because of their bodies? And can't peds create perfect running bodies?
I must admit, sometimes watching Kenyans like Kiprop running his 3:26, they do look like perfect lean running specimens. But then how come Kriprop is running no faster than Coe, Cram, and Ovett could probably run today on better tracks, diet, training? Watching Cram run his Mile world record at the time and you might have concluded he had the perfect running body, and it's quite different to how most Kenyans look.
Kiprops manager is under investigation for suppying athletes with peds, and Kiorop himself was ecposed as having a suspicious bio passport in the recent hack.
Interesting stat produced by Rojo himself :
"Unbelievable side note: in 1990, there wasn’t a single Kenyan woman in the top 200 marathon times of the year, and only one Kenyan man in the top 100 according to the Association of Road Race Statisticians. Last year, Kenyan women had 29 of the top 100, while Kenyan men had 76 of the top 100 times. Only two of the top 100 men’s times were from a non-African runner according to All-Athletics.com."
Clean as a whistle wrote:
It's often assumed by the general public, and even some black power racist activists here, that East and North African athletes have dominated middle and long distance running over the last 25 years because they are genetically superior.
If so, and given the total dominance they have indeed enjoyed over the last 25 years, you'd think you would at least get a few world class African cyclists appearing now and then. Instead, to my knowledge, there has been none.
So the standard answer will be that there are not many teens cycling in Kenya etc. Bullshit. I'll grant that Jamaicans, for example, are clearly genetically gifted to sprinting as compared to Europeans (that's not to say they don't cheat, in order to beat similarly gifted black American sprinters). Simply because of their superiority in speed, the Jamaican Bobsleigh team famously competed at the Winter Olympics. Individual black athletes have been an essential part of the UK and other country's Bobsleigh teams.
If Africans had such a massive genetic superiority which accounts for their domination of distance running, then you could be sure that the likes of Team Sky would be bribing gifted Kenyan teen distance runners to switch to cycling and train full time at one of their camps.
Moroccans and Algerians make up a sizeable percentage of the population of France and Belgium. From the early 90s, they suddenly started dominating distance running in those countries, just as Africa itself started dominating globally. Do no French north Africans never ride bikes?
The financial rewards for cycling is probably far superior to athletics too, even for road running.
Isn't the obvious answer that the reason why Africans can't even compete in cycling, a similar sport to distance running, let alone dominate, is because white cyclists dope near universally, and white distance runners don't dope - or only in rare cases?
Africans have an advantage over European/North American/Australian runners because they have a doping culture, whereas white runners do not. Whites dominate cycling, like they always have, because white cyclists dope.
Are we supposed to believe its simply a coincidence that Africans started dominating distance running just when EPO and other PEDs were becoming available?
this is why the entire world hates americans
My w8isf9 wrote:
Clean as a whistle wrote:It's often assumed by the general public, and even some black power racist activists here, that East and North African athletes have dominated middle and long distance running over the last 25 years because they are genetically superior.
If so, and given the total dominance they have indeed enjoyed over the last 25 years, you'd think you would at least get a few world class African cyclists appearing now and then. Instead, to my knowledge, there has been none.
So the standard answer will be that there are not many teens cycling in Kenya etc. Bullshit. I'll grant that Jamaicans, for example, are clearly genetically gifted to sprinting as compared to Europeans (that's not to say they don't cheat, in order to beat similarly gifted black American sprinters). Simply because of their superiority in speed, the Jamaican Bobsleigh team famously competed at the Winter Olympics. Individual black athletes have been an essential part of the UK and other country's Bobsleigh teams.
If Africans had such a massive genetic superiority which accounts for their domination of distance running, then you could be sure that the likes of Team Sky would be bribing gifted Kenyan teen distance runners to switch to cycling and train full time at one of their camps.
Moroccans and Algerians make up a sizeable percentage of the population of France and Belgium. From the early 90s, they suddenly started dominating distance running in those countries, just as Africa itself started dominating globally. Do no French north Africans never ride bikes?
The financial rewards for cycling is probably far superior to athletics too, even for road running.
Isn't the obvious answer that the reason why Africans can't even compete in cycling, a similar sport to distance running, let alone dominate, is because white cyclists dope near universally, and white distance runners don't dope - or only in rare cases?
Africans have an advantage over European/North American/Australian runners because they have a doping culture, whereas white runners do not. Whites dominate cycling, like they always have, because white cyclists dope.
Are we supposed to believe its simply a coincidence that Africans started dominating distance running just when EPO and other PEDs were becoming available?
Look at the build of distance cyclists. The average elite cyclist have much stronger legs than distance runners. Really to be world class you need much stronger legs and ectomorph type builds won't dominate cycling. By the way there is at one East African cyclist who is a world class climber because he is so much lighter than European cyclists his name is Daniel Teklehaimanot.
Have you seen the build of Froome?
Your tax dollars at werk wrote:
this is why the entire world hates americans
First of all, I'm not American. Secondly, why do you suppose it's stupid for me to argue that African dominance of distance running is likely due partly to greater ped abuse? So like El Kenio (if you are a different person) you think it's racist to accuse Africans of being more likely to take PEDs, but it's not racist to claim that Africans are genetically superior? And you have no argument, you just insinuate it as though it doesn't even need arguing?
And I'm stupid?
Funny choice of an example - Froome was born and raised in Kenya, albeit to British parents.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Froome
Seriously, though, there are probably more top-level African cyclists than you realize. I count 12 African-born riders on Dimension Data alone.
Bicycles are expensive and Africans can't afford them.
Simple answer is twofold, - kids in rural Kenya & Ethiopia run to get to where they need to go due to the lack of public transport infrastructure. Running is simple, costs nothing and is a pre requisite to get to school and back. Hence kids grow up as runners, to them running isn't a sport it's a required part of their daily routine to get where they need to be and back!
Secondly, imagine you are a kid in rural Kenya /Ethiopia and somehow you aspire to be a cyclist. Firstly you have to build a paved road, not too many of those abounding around Iten!
Africans don't have the ENDURANCE for it. Much like ULTRA MOUNTAIN black people are highly unlikely to ever dominate-And that's not a bad thing. Quite frankly I'd rather be fast over short distances but OBJECTIVELY one isn't better than the other.
WHITES=ENDURANCE (true long distance)
BLACKS=SPEED
That's just science people.
Sharon Leong Tim Chambers wrote:
Simple answer is twofold, - kids in rural Kenya & Ethiopia run to get to where they need to go due to the lack of public transport infrastructure. Running is simple, costs nothing and is a pre requisite to get to school and back. Hence kids grow up as runners, to them running isn't a sport it's a required part of their daily routine to get where they need to be and back!
Secondly, imagine you are a kid in rural Kenya /Ethiopia and somehow you aspire to be a cyclist. Firstly you have to build a paved road, not too many of those abounding around Iten!
Sounds like excuses.. I got my first BMX bike at age 9 which was a hand-me down, and then got another old BMX for free and rode that until I was 14. I still ride mountain bikes mostly as I feel the training is better and safer (too many stupid drivers on roads) on one.. Now at 31, I fly on the road bike when I get on it. Usually averaging 24 mph when riding centuries. I'm sure there's plenty of awesome hilly dirt roads in East Africa for mt biking. When one gets serious, then I'm sure a paved road can be provided. There are 8,600 miles of paved road in Kenya alone.
Running and cycling are not the same. Running is more aerobic while cycling is more power oriented. They have tired x-c sking with Africans and it failed miserably. East Africans are made to run. They just happen to get real lucky and have all the tools. Not unfair.
I isn't read this wrote:
I didn't read your entire post but I imagine there's no African cyclists because most can't afford to spend $8,000 for a good bike.
Except for the fact there are African teams and plenty of Africans in the international elite pool. Chris Froome ring a bell?
The UCI has to find a few despots and dictators willing to throw a few million out every year. They will. They always do.
Getting to an elite level in cycling requires having a decent bike (expensive) and roads in decent condition that are safe to ride on. I suspect it is the last point (road safety) that makes it hard to cycle in places like Kenya and Ethiopia. Too much danger of being killed by bad drivers.
None of the 'blacks are genetically gifted and would dominate cycling too if they weren't so poor' are convincing.
There are thousands of teenage Kenyans studying in the USA and the UK, most of them from the Kenyan middle and upper classes. Occasionally a few of these superhuman athletes would end up on a cycling team and their talent would be obvious.
Also, Chris Froome's family were not exactly wealthy.
He was introduced to cycling by a black in his village, but had to borrow a road bike from a teacher as his mother couldn't afford one :
"Some of the challenges faced by the Kinjah’s Safari Simbaz team, made up of teenage boys and young men from nearby villages, also frustrated young Froome when his single-parent mother introduced him to Kinjah.
Froome had to borrow a road bike from a sympathetic teacher as his mother, living in the servant quarters of a wealthy family in a Nairobi suburb, could not afford a new one."
So Froome didn't have any advantage over his local black Kenyan schoolmates when it came to getting started in cycling. If Africans have an innate advantage then surely it's massively unlikely that a white boy in an African country can become not only that country's only successful cyclist, but one of the greatest ever? It's like saying that white British have a massive genetic advantage to Somalis, and Mo Farah just got lucky.
And to the guy who said that the one successful African cyclist has advantages over the Europeans because he is so light, Chris Froome is the same height and just one pound heavier. Bradley Wiggins is two inches taller and one pound lighter.
Cycling both track and road is a similar sport to endurance running. It's about pumping the legs at a moderate pace over a sustained period of time with a short sprint at the end. These bikes are so ultra-light and efficient that the cyclists that the resistance their legs are meeting is scarcely more than that of a runners legs bouncing off of the track. Runners use their arms more but I doubt very much Kenyans have an advantage there. Yes, uphill requires more powerful legs, but then if Kenyans are at a disadvantage there they should also be at a disadvantage in cross country when in fact they dominate, if anything, even more than on the track. Also the cycling expert here said that the reason the one African succeeded in cycling because he was so good uphill because of his light frame.
Africans are not more inately gifted at distance running, or at least if they are its not much of a difference and can't explain their dominance since EPO and the next generation of peds came out in the late 80s/early 90s.
If the generation of Brits that came after Coe/Ovett/Cram, such as Matthew Yates, had been taking EPO/DHEA/HGH/steroids etc, and being able to do so by training at altitude in Africa for 9 months of the year with little or no testing, then they probably would have been running well under 3:30 and competing with Mocrelli and El G and the rest. Alan Webb would probably be the world record holder now - not because all the records before 2005 are being scrubbed, but because he probably would have ran 3:25.
It's a myth that the Brits suddenly 'disappeared' when our golden trio retired. Guys like Yates, Curtis Robb, and David Sharpe were very close to that level in the early 90s but largely gave up because they were competing against EPO fuelled cheats. Ironically, the myth that the Brits suddenly vanished from top level middle-distance is used to claim that Coe,Ovett,Cram must have been doping!
Do the black supremacists who claim that Kenyans are genetically superior also accept that North Africans are inately superior?
If so, it does seem a co-incidence as North Africans (Arabs) are completey genetically unrelated to sub-saharan blacks. I suppose you could blame the African sun, but the Arabs in Morocco and Algeria have only been there for a 1,000 years or so, which is nothing in evolutionary terms. You would also expect Saudi Arabia (the home of Arabs) to be the middle-distance powerhouse, especially given their wealth and infrastructure. Instead, they can only use that wealth to 'buy' Kenyan athletes to compete for them.
Maybe it's more likely that Africa has a doping problem.
Chris Froome is about as black as we can get, according to his upbringing.