Omanyala 9.87: East Africans can sprint too

You're largely correct, Ghost. But the tribes are Kalenjin (most Kenyan runners), Kisii and Gusii are the same tribe, "Kisii" is an anglicisation of the pronunciation (Hellen Obiri and Yobes Ondieki are from this tribe). Then there others like Kenya's largest tribe, the Kikuyu, not "Kikuyo" (Sammy Wanjiru, Catherine Ndereba, John Ngugi) and Maasai (David Rudisha, Elijah Manangoi). It is true Luhya, not "Lua" (Omanyala) and Luo (Barack Obama and actress Lupita Nyong'o)tend to be stockily built, fast-twitch muscle types who go into soccer, rugby, sprinting, basketball etc.

Interestingly, the new 800m sensation, Emmanuel Wanyonyi looks Kalenjin but has a Luhya surname, so he's likely of mixed heritage. So blending those two attributes together could be what's making him beast the 800m.

Fascinating stuff. Each ethnic group in Kenya has tales about the others. For example, the Kalenjins tell me "be careful of Kikuyu women - they only love money, and have the patience to wait many years to ensnare and ultimately destroy you"

Further - The Kalenjins tell me that the Kisii people are ok, but "be careful because they practice witchcraft."

Even further, the Kalenjins tell me that Luhyas and Luos are "extremely dangerous when angered."

On the reverse side, when I stayed with Gusiis in Keroka (Kisii), those people told me "be careful of Kalenjins, they are lazy, and don't walk around Eldoret at night as you will be attacked and robbed or worse."

The list goes on. Fascinating stuff and an eye opener to the diversity of Kenya.

On the other hand, no one has anything negative about the Masaii, and they are respected as hard working and honest. I see these Masaii trekking around for up to 20-30km per day, selling their goods. They walk around in thin leather sandals, and wear what resembles a Scottish kilt, revealing their lower legs.

Apparently, Kenyans are such offshoots of humanity, that even within their country their 'tribes' show marked genetic differences that dispose one group to dominate the marathon, and another to dominate the 100m. Mixing the two together apparently results in an 800m 'beast'.

I'm not an expert in genetics, and unlike most here, I'm not a racist who believes there are marked genetic differences between groups of people, but even if there was some truth in the idea that East Africans have some natural advantange for distance running, it seems to me absurd to believe that in one tiny patch of the Earth, there are two tribes living alongside each other, one with special genetic advantages for distance running, and the other for sprinting.

Wouldn't a simpler explanation be that Kenya is almost unique in having nearly all of its professional sports people in athletics, and that combined with a proven lack of testing and doping culture, that this allows them to throw up the occasional world beating sprinter, not to mention javelin thrower, to go along with all the distance running champions? What tribe does Julius Yego come from btw? I guess that tribe has been throwing javelins and spears at the Kalenji for the last 10,000 years giving them a natural adaptation for it, while the Kalenji ran away, giving them in turn a natural advantage in running?

Kenyans are not unique to this. If you take any country with a large geographic area and call them x nationality the genetics of the people will be completely different from one end of the country to the other.

Look at China, India, Russia for example.

This guy can pack on the pounds of muscle because he is a different tribe but that's not the only reason he is built like a block.

That's Kenya for you. All 45 tribes (including the recently recognised Asian tribe) have tales and stereotypes about each other. And unlike racism in the West, it's not hidden. It's not unusual to hear best friends from different tribes rib each other about these stereotypes. I literally once heard a well off Kalenjin man in bar tell his drinking buddies that he has to watch his back and make sure his affairs are in order "because my wife is a kiuk" (Kikuyu) 😂

The kids of mixed tribal unions in Kenya are automatically assigned the father's tribe. Even if he was absent and they were raised in their mother's culture. The best example of this is Barack Obama who's considered Luo by his tribesmen.

I'd forgotten to mention the Kamba/Akamba from Eastern Kenya in my other response. They tend to be slightly built and on the smaller side and have produced some great distance runners too (Cosmas Ndeti, Caleb Ndiku, Patrick Makau and Winfred Yavi are all Kamba). I'll let you ask your Kalenjin friends about their stereotypes 😊

Nice to see this stuff interests you. Most foreigners in Kenya can't see past the surface and so are given to generalisations about Kenya, good and bad. The article I'm linking has pie chart breaking down Kenya's largest ethnic communities.

edition.cnn.com

Kenya's 44th tribe: Why I'm finally a first-class citizen of my country | CNN

Zain Verjee

Just weeks before Kenyans were due to head to the polls, President Uhuru Kenyatta's government officially recognized members of the country's Asian community as Kenya's 44th tribe, finally embracing us as part of the country'...

Link:edition.cnn.com/2017/08/04/africa/keny...

Way to sully a perfectly innocuous discussion, Covett. I'll say this in American because I want the rest of the board to rightly vote you down: You suck!

Ghost. Here's an example of a Kenyan looking down their nose at fellow Kenyans. To this guy, tribal culture is "humiliating".

I can do this and I don’t think anyone has ever considered my legs “impressively lean.”

Still, it’s clear there are different relative strengths among different ethnic groups, but EVERY ethnic group will have much more variation among its population to run fast or lift weights or swim fast than the variation across the averages of different groups.

Let’s say the average Kalenjin male could be fully trained to run a 15:00 5k with a 40-second standard deviation (assume normal distribution) and for the Lua it’s 16:00 with the same SD. You would have about 7% of the Lua population that is able to run faster than the average Kalenjin, so among the whole population there would be many of these individuals despite the relatively low prevalence. Now, the number of Kalenjin with the ability to run 13 minutes or faster would be about 1300 out of 1 million, while the number of Lua would be about 3.4 out of 1 million. So yes it would be exceedingly more rare to see a Lua than a Kalenjin run such a time, but over population sizes of millions you would expect these types of outliers even from groups with lower expected performances.

Just saw El K’s post that it’s Luhya, not Lua (as I’d copied from the above poster), my apologies.

I’m not sure I interpret the Twitterer as looking down his nose, my impression was that he’s lamenting the fact that society now considers such attire to be humiliating (perhaps he could have used quotation marks to clarify if that was his intention).

We never see Kenyans play NCAA football, never see them running the 100/200 either. All we actually see are skinny distance runners. so to see a big muscular Kenyan is a unique sight.

A Kenyan running back would be something new.

He made the crowd so happy

Think of what that Kenyan 4x1 team would look like.

Worldwide, in any large population, it’s extremely common for one people to stereotype, both good and often bad, other peoples who are slightly different from them. Europeans generalize between themselves all the time: just hear an Italian and Spaniard bond by bitching about the French or German. Go to India and you’ll find everyone freely talks like “oh bengalis gang up with each other”, “punjabis are hard working”, “marwadis are too money minded” etc.

There is some truth to those stereotypes, but the point is nobody gets offended even if the stereotypes are negative. They also understand that the stereotypes don’t mean that they have to remain glass-ceiling’ed under them.

America is the only strangely sensitive place that insists that even positive stereotypes like “Asians are good at math” are bad.

1. Finally something useful from Ghost and Keniano. They are correct about the ethnicities and tribes.

2. I don’t think he FS’d in the 2nd go-around, I thought he nailed the gun and had an excellent 3 steps, which is what prodigious power:weight ratio gets you, if you execute the right form.

3. I STILL look sort of like these guys, and I’m closing in on 56 years old, and absolutely clean. It is possible for clean young athletes to look like them. Their looks are not significant evidence of use. Remember these are the best 100m athletes in the world. How would you expect them to look, after years of power and strength training?

4. I picked him to win, in 9.87. He is for real, kind of reminds me of Joel Fearon of a couple of years ago. He will be a factor going forward.

5. BTW Kenya could actually field a decent 4x1 team, if they practiced. I have no idea what their regimen is.

6. None of this is to suggest he’s clean. At this point, whatever. Enjoy his racing until he gets booted, or he goes wind-legal 9.80 or better—then it’s time to seriously question.

@El Keniano, are you Kenyan, American, both, or something else?

LMAO otoh look at his 2-year progression, from 10.47 to 9.77, both in Nairobi.

OK he is suspicious af. Have to look closer.

As we can see te guy does stand out here.

I was going to get cute and list an All Time Kenyan 100m which can be done but too much work trying to decide just who belongs other than that cat and Seraphino Antao the most accomplished Kenyan sprinter, ranked third in the world.

Kenya has a gang of 10.2ish types which was a bit surprising to me.

Sheesh!!!

Try this...