Meet Switzerland's Julien Wanders - The 21-year-old who just ran a 60:09 half-marathon NR last weekend

he is certainly a doper ,

but the main question is he in kenya so that he can dope .

if he is backed by some elite swiss guy then does'nt matter as bought and paid for .

where the likes of him for past many years .

he is at very least doping like CALLUM HAWKINS

with the souped up nervous system from the speed peptide

and he didnt need to go anywhere major to do this .

as for doping aerobically easily be too as that is the area to do it

and if so could go alot faster than callum .

Skeptical chap wrote:

douglas burke wrote:

The previous best Half Marathon by a Swiss runner was 60:42 by Tadesse Abraham in 2015, The Swiss have had a few good Mid Distance runners like 142 for 800 runner Andre Bucher, 3:31 for 1500 Pierre Deleze and 13:07 for 5000 Markus Ryffel

Tadesse Abraham is not "Swiss" by any measure. He's Ethiopian. A passport doesn't make him really "Swiss" now does it?

Which proves my point. There's nothing in the air down there. It's pure genetic make up.

How come the white farmers in that part of the world- whose lineages have been there for centuries- have never become world beating athletes?

https://www.nation.co.ke/counties/uasin-gishu/Where-both-whites-and-blacks-farm-thousands-of-acres--/1183334-1140182-kr25of/index.html

Please don't bother me with facts. I've already made my mind up.

Skeptical Chap wrote:

Still doesn't explain why Kenyan-European people who have lived in the Highlands for atleast a century have never became world class athletes.

How many of them trained to become professional athletes?

You don't need to go to Iten.

Flagstaff in the summer.

In the winter months, get a place in the desert east of LA.

If you're really a bad*ss, ride your bike between the two places.

Come on. Just a few non-Africans have gone to train seriously in Kenya for a considerable amount of time and they constitute the vast majority of the top all-time non-African half marathoners already. If all the best Americans also trained in Kenya, I'll bet that they would be competitive with the top guys at the event, because don't tell me that a 26:44 or 26:59 10k runner could not run a lot faster than 60 even without going to train with the best in the world at altitude.

Our top guys simply do not train with the best in the world at the long distances.

UA Runner wrote:

Skeptical Chap wrote:

Still doesn't explain why Kenyan-European people who have lived in the Highlands for atleast a century have never became world class athletes.

How many of them trained to become professional athletes?

Exactly. There are like 30 of them, none of which care about athletics.

rojo wrote:

The 21-year old who has been "pulling a Robertson" and living in Iten for the last few years was 2nd over the weekend in Barcelona in 60:09 (race winner was 59:44).

https://vimeo.com/255808011

If you want to get up to date on Swiss track and field, their website is

www.athle.ch

.

Microaggression at 4:48?

Go ahead and try explaining the concept of microagression in Kenya

-Ritz got a bronze in the World Half Marathon Championships.

-Dos Santos won New York City Marathon twice.

-Hawkins got 4th at the World Championships marathon in 2017.

-Sondre Moen won Fukuoka, which is pretty darn competitive and also beat Bedon Karoki, who just ran the 4th fastest half marathon ever.

-Jake Robertson just beat the OIympic marathon silver medalist and the fastest marathon debutante of all time at the Houston half marathon.

Reasonable conclusion: you're an idiot.

American marathon runner just need to shack up in some dumpy mountain town somewhere in the Southwest or Mexico that has plenty of dirt roads, tolerable weather most of the year, and doesn't get a bunch of snow. They are too concerned about being in some hip, trendy town (Boulder, Flagstaff, Portland/Eugene, etc.) rather than living a simple life and focusing on the goal. Sure, you will to deal with the usual problems of small town America (opioids, meth, good ole boys, gossip), but just stay focused on the goal and out of trouble.

This guy and the Norwegian doper just goes to show that white runners can be as fast as Kenyans, given the same drugs and the same training environment.

Drugs questions aside, to me there’s a fundamental difference in mentality between aiming for the very top as he does and your average pro who’s just trying to qualify for a major championship. The dude truly believes he’s not limited, and that seems to work very well for him!

2. All those people you listed who trained in Kenya never became world beating athletes. Sure, they improved their timings here and there, but let's face it, that won't win them any Olympic / World Championship medals or the major marathons. It's a waste of time if indeed the objective is to become a professional runner.

-Ritz got a bronze in the World Half Marathon Championships.

-Dos Santos won New York City Marathon twice.

-Hawkins got 4th at the World Championships marathon in 2017.

-Sondre Moen won Fukuoka, which is pretty darn competitive and also beat Bedon Karoki, who just ran the 4th fastest half marathon ever.

-Jake Robertson just beat the OIympic marathon silver medalist and the fastest marathon debutante of all time at the Houston half marathon.

Reasonable conclusion: you're an idiot.[/quote]

Congratulations. They won some obscure races somewhere. Proves my earlier point you dolt, which is none of them are world beating athletes. Duh.

an honest assessment wrote:

UA Runner wrote:

How many of them trained to become professional athletes?

Exactly. There are like 30 of them, none of which care about athletics.

1. There are approximately 30,000 white Kenyans. While they may not care about athletics per se, they do care about money. As we all know , track & field is very lucrative. So why hasn't there been a SINGLE world beating white Kenyan athlete?

2. The altitude argument is equally stupid. The highest altitude areas in the world are not in Africa. It's places like Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, China (Tibet), etc. Never heard of any world beating athletes from there either.

Skeptical Chap wrote:

1. There are approximately 30,000 white Kenyans. While they may not care about athletics per se, they do care about money. As we all know , track & field is very lucrative.

Hahaha! Okay, your trolling just got a little too obvious. Congrats on a good run.

Skeptical Chap wrote:

2. All those people you listed who trained in Kenya never became world beating athletes. Sure, they improved their timings here and there, but let's face it, that won't win them any Olympic / World Championship medals or the major marathons. It's a waste of time if indeed the objective is to become a professional runner.

-Ritz got a bronze in the World Half Marathon Championships.

-Dos Santos won New York City Marathon twice.

-Hawkins got 4th at the World Championships marathon in 2017.

-Sondre Moen won Fukuoka, which is pretty darn competitive and also beat Bedon Karoki, who just ran the 4th fastest half marathon ever.

-Jake Robertson just beat the OIympic marathon silver medalist and the fastest marathon debutante of all time at the Houston half marathon.

Reasonable conclusion: you're an idiot.

Congratulations. They won some obscure races somewhere. Proves my earlier point you dolt, which is none of them are world beating athletes. Duh.[/quote]

When did Fukuoka and the World Half Champs become obscure? I'm out of the loop for sure.

UA Runner wrote:

Agreed. I train in Flagstaff quite a bit, but it's not like the environment in Iten. And it's hard to fully explain it to someone who hasn't been there.

I was hoping you'd try. Seriously. Since you've been to both. I've always thought of Flagstaff as the American equivalent of Iten and assumed there are similar meccas in places like Ethiopia where I'm sure as many aspiring foreign runners live and train but we don't get to hear about because this site, for some reason, largely fixates on Kenya. Also, people here already know that some of Kenya's best runners have nothing to do with Iten and train elsewhere, but those other Kenyan centres don't have the same reputation.

Just so you know, most white people in Kenya actually don't have Kenyan citizenship so the minuscule numbers given in that article are somewhat misleading. This is mainly because Kenya only started allowing for dual citizenship in 2013. Before that, people were forced to choose and, rightly or wrongly, most saw Kenya as potentially unstable and capable of spiralling into civil war like its neighbours at the drop of a hat. That hasn't happened though we came close in 2007.

Also, giving up a European passport means being forced to jump through all sorts of humiliating hoops when travelling. Visiting a western embassy in Kenya for a travel visa can be a nightmarish and humbling experience even though, for the most part, Kenyans aren't desperate to leave the country and emigrate like people from other parts of Africa. Outside of the US and UK (and maybe a bit of Canada and Australia), you'll be hard-pressed to find any significant community of Kenyans anywhere as most of those living in the countries I mentioned initially moved there for college.

Why are people offended by western runners training in kenya? Nobody said there was anything "magical" about it.

The fact is that if you want to train at a moderate altitude (6000 to 8000 ft) with ideal weather with a large group of elite level half marathon and marathon runners, no place better fits that criteria.

There are other places that could be great places to train, but dont have as huge of a group of elites training together.

Some marathon runners dont need a huge group to run with to reach their peak. Others feel it will help them. It does seem like with these specific reason examples, it is working for them. That isnt an attack against abybody who doesnt make that choice in their running...