Those Ethiopian and Kenyan runners live and train at high altitude, when they compete at lower elevations where there’s more oxygen, they have a dramatic edge over other runners.
I’d wager we would see the same effect if athletes from Bhutan, Nepal and/or Tibet decided to compete in long-distance running.
Not to say the biomechanics are equal, but Cheptegei the current 10K record holder is 5’6” / 1.67m. So it’s not like an Usain Bolt situation. And for the marathon, Mo Farah is 5’9”.
I remember hearing during the Olympics them actually talk about how much of a freak Bolt is to be so tall and so fast. Most runners are on the shorter side. For those that watch the NFL you’ll know that being tall and fast is what makes people DK Metcalf such a freak of nature when sprinters are actually usually smaller, like Tyreek Hill. It’s less about stride length and more about power put into the ground which is easier for shorter legs.
If you watch Bolt run you’ll notice he doesn’t actually hit his peak until way after the other runners during the 100m. He has said before iirc that he’s actually a more natural 200m runner rather than a 100m runner. On the 100 he barely gets to his top speed before the finish. That’s what makes his 100m records truly so phenomenal, he’s not really built for that race but was still so much faster than everyone else on the track.
It’s not out of the realm of possibility that a runner from Nepal being Asian and therefore statistically likely to be shorter than someone born in Africa, could be a record breaking runner. Of course this is all about sprinting but over longer distances the longer lankier bodies prevail, better momentum.
As OP and not the poster you are asking, I’ll answer this one:
Ethiopians and particularly Sudanese (then zooming in even more specifically - the Nuba tribe) are known for being among the tallest people in the continent today.
It was right around this area where the Kush people of the Nile Valley Civilization flourished in antiquity. The Kush are described by accounts of the era as being taller than any other Mediterranean groups.
Relative genetic isolation since then results in that they were tall then, and they are tall now. Some of this genetic heritage must have also spread down to Kenya in the interim.
Sorry to be the guy that brings controversial issues to this thread. But this kind of thing is exactly why the “trans women have a biological advantage in sports” argument holds no water. (Other than the fact its almost entirely untrue)
People from this region have a biological advantage in their sports, several orders of magnitude more of an advantage than trans women have. But no one is calling for these people to be banned from sports.
Sorry to be that guy, but this picture gives us no evidence that the advantage of these people is biological and not the result of other factors such as culture or environment.
This picture doesn’t, but if you look into it then you’ll see studies have shown the Kalenjin people have quite small ankles and calves which mean their legs weigh less and so make it easier for them to run long distances.
That isn’t to say genetics are the sole reason they are good. But it’s undeniable they have a genetic advantage.
Maybe a small advantage, but they also have a culture of training specifically for long distance running. That’s almost all of it. The size of your ankles doesn’t matter if you don’t practice.
There are better ultra marathon runners in Mexico who look nothing like these Kenyans. They barely warm up with a marathon, so they don’t place highly. They are good because their culture involves running ultra marathons. They will keep running for fun long after everyone else has died.
Training is what matters. If you went and joined a running club in Kenya, you would be able to beat any Kenyan who didn’t practice. It’s 99% practice.
I mean yeah no shit someone who trains to run marathons is going to be better at running marathons than someone who doesn’t.
The point is when you get to the highest level, where everyone is putting in the absolute max hard work and training, then their biology gives them an advantage.
My point is, you are putting too much emphasis on genetic gifts. Take a sport like basketball, where being tall is clearly an advantage. It’s a much bigger advantage than “small calves” are in running. You basically can’t play in the NBA at all unless you’re 6ft or taller.
Even among people 6ft 9 and up, you really have to practice with a good teacher. Someone who’s a foot shorter will easily beat you if they are good.
Running isn’t just “moving your legs”. There’s strategy that these guys learn from their running group at a young age. They practice running as a sport. That’s why they’re good.
It’s the same reason why people from the US, who are all genetically different, play basketball and baseball better than most other countries. They practice it competitively when they’re young.
Nobody is arguing that someone who doesn’t train is going to be magically better at a sport than someone who does train.
But like you yourself literally just said, there’s a reason everyone in the NBA is over 6 foot. Because when you compare a 6ft6 dude that trains to play basketball and a 5ft6 dude that trains to play basketball, then the tall guy is going to be better because of his biological advantage.
And that’s why these people make up the best long distance runners in the world, because COMpARED TO OTHER PEOPLE THAT TRAIN FOR LONG DISTSNCE RUNNING they have a biological advantage.
Because again, to make this really clear. No one is saying that biology makes it so these guys can magically be world class athletes without training. But when they do train, they do better even when compared to people that trai just as hard as they do, that learn the same strategy from the same young age they do and practice it as a sport like they do.
If you took an average white European baby and raised them in a Kalenjin village exactly like any other Kalenjin, and trained them to be a long distsnce runner from a young age just like a Kalenjin, they would never be able to be the best at it, because of their biology, just like the 5ft6 guy will never get into the NBA no matter how hard he practices. Because their will always be other people practicing just as hard as he is, but with a biological advantage.
Ultra marathons are an entirely different sport from the 10k, and even marathons. Obviously training matters, but we also don’t have to pretend all humans are identical and only training and grit separate them.
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Do you really think that cis women can’t have naturally high testosterone levels? And especially not higher than trans women, who literally have their testosterone levels controlled by medications?
several orders of magnitude more of an advantage than trans women have.
Have there even been studies which can back up this claim¿? Hell have there even been studies which even measure how much of an advantage having smaller calves and ankles gives¿?
the article you share concludes that trans women have no advantage which is greater than other biological advantages
Noit doesn’t. You are misrepresenting it, or misuing the word ‘concludes’. It never says anything like “we conclude’ that there is no advantage”. The actual conclusion is on p40-41 and can more honestly be phrased as “we cannot conclude that there’s a definite advantage. Strength is a possible exception, but how do we even know strength is relevant to sport?” (“Additional biomarkers (such as handgrip strength, hip angle, bone density) have been used uncritically in positivist biological studies to demonstrate cis men’s purported biological advantages over cis women, but there is not sufficient evidence these measures are salient to the question of trans women’s participation.”)
9 Conclusion There is no firm basis available in evidence to indicate that trans women have a consistent and measurable overall performance benefit after 12 months of testosterone suppression. While an advantage in terms of Lean Body Mass (LBM), Cross Section Area (CSA) and strength may persist statistically after 12 months, there is no evidence that this translates to any performance advantage as compared to elite cis-women athletes of similar size and height
They’re resorting to saying “trans women are stronger than their competitors, but how do we even know that being stronger is advantageous in sport???”
tl;dr The people of that area in East Africa naturally live close to sea level, however there are easily accessible elevations changes that distance runners have trained on for probably centuries. It turns out that training at high altitudes and recovering at low altitudes provides a tangible and demonstrable advantage compared to just single elevation training.
No idea about the other two, but India’s sports administration is corrupt to the core. Funds are stolen by those on top, and athletes who complain - even about obviously criminal things like sexual assault - are pushed out. Some sports bodies (chess, for example) are better, but the big ones (cricket, wrestling, football) are mostly bad.
India's Deccan Plateau is about as elevated as most of Kenya's highlands and takes up basically the entire land area of India that sticks out into the ocean
Yeah like the other commenter said this isn’t it, nobody is commuting up and down 10,000’ on a regular basis, especially in antiquity. Just because different elevations “look close” on a map means nothing.
Far more likely is this is a concentrated population of folks with highly desirable traits for distance running.
Crazy that most of them come from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recent_African_origin_of_modern_humans#/media/File:Migration_routes_of_modern_humans_(2023).png from 200.000 years ago. Must be a magical place.
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