The good thing for Omanyala is that he got beaten by Bromell in a late-season barn-burner, also in Nairobi IIRC—so he knows where he needs to be, to be competitive at the very top.
He’s shorter, but solid af. I await the arrival of a really solid guy who goes 6-1 or 6-2, maybe even 6-3. If he arrives, in the current environment 9.58 would be toast.
These shorter guys are torching the 100m: Omanyala, Bromell, Su, Coleman, etc. Notice that Kerley is currently on top.
I'm working on the homepage tonight and there are a lot of articles coming from Kenya about how Samwel Imeta broke 10.00 for the 1st time last week.
He was recorded in 9.94 and Omanyala ran 9.81.
I get that the times in Kenya should be fast as it's at altitude but when I go to tilastapaja and world athletics, I don't see either time listed.
What's going on? Have they just not put them in the databases yet? Or was the timing off?
Imeta is 24 and had a 10.12 pb from the CGs so that would be a huge PB.
He does look fast, however.
Perhaps they are legit as Omanyala just beat Jacobs indoors and has run 6.54. In 2021, he ran 9.77 in Nairobi (in Sept) and last year he ran 9.85 in May.
The good thing for Omanyala is that he got beaten by Bromell in a late-season barn-burner, also in Nairobi IIRC—so he knows where he needs to be, to be competitive at the very top.
He’s shorter, but solid af. I await the arrival of a really solid guy who goes 6-1 or 6-2, maybe even 6-3. If he arrives, in the current environment 9.58 would be toast.
These shorter guys are torching the 100m: Omanyala, Bromell, Su, Coleman, etc. Notice that Kerley is currently on top.
Taller sprinters still have trouble getting good starts (see: Lyles, Noah; Kerley, Fred) to run those elite times. It's why Bolt was a freak and there has been nobody else like him. Kerley is the best example of the taller, solidly built sprinter, and he's 9.76 and I think that's about his ceiling.
Yes, the training partner of the new guy. And of course, Omanyala has served a ban too.
Still, doping or not, it will be fun to see the scientific racists explain how Kenyans can appear to have 'special adaptations' for both sprinting and distance running.
Kenyan distance runners are from Nilotic tribes (Kalenjin) coming from the North . Only 15% of the population are Kalenjin.
The majority of Kenyan tribes are of Bantu origin, including Omanyala. The Bantu expansions came from West Africa to most of Sub-Saharan Africa.
Not hard to figure out.
This post was edited 1 minute after it was posted.
I fail to see the issue. Kenya has more sub-47.50 400m per capita men than any nation in the world. Every year they have a new 800m or 1500m star with a 45.xx or 46.xx 400m p.b. Even if Kenyan 400m stars are skewed more towards 800m and longer events, it makes sense that some of Kenya's 400m stars will be 100m & 200m athletes.
Exactly.
Anyone who really follows the sport knows there are PLENTY of fast runners coming up through the school ages in Kenya, a country of over 50 million people.
It is quite possible to train talented runners to near their ceiling in Kenya. Various rift valley camps may be the best training environments possible for distance training, as the evidence shows. All you need is dirt road and a dirt track. (Most Kenyan distance runners RARELY touch a rubberized track.)
Meanwhile, how is that environment for sprint training? There are few proper tracks and few properly equipped gyms in Kenya. There is also a cycle in which, because of distance running success in Kenya, coaches naturally focus and study distance training (not sprints), interact with visiting coaches and distance runners (not sprint coaches and runners), etc. Kenyan sprinters simply don't have the same development opportunity as distance runners.
Hey Malmo I looked at a climagraph from Nairobi, seems like the average Feb temp is not much different from any other time of the year, and pretty much the same as during the competition months in Denver. Also, the average relative humidity is actually lower than all other months except October. IDK what the RH in Denver is during competition season, but it would have to be significantly higher than Nairobi's in Feb to create a significant difference between the two, in terms of air density.
Assuming the same elevations, of course.
Were you suggesting in the other thread that conditions in Nairobi in Feb are faster than the conditions in Denver in Jun/Jul?
Yes, the training partner of the new guy. And of course, Omanyala has served a ban too.
Still, doping or not, it will be fun to see the scientific racists explain how Kenyans can appear to have 'special adaptations' for both sprinting and distance running.
Kenyan distance runners are from Nilotic tribes (Kalenjin) coming from the North . Only 15% of the population are Kalenjin.
The majority of Kenyan tribes are of Bantu origin, including Omanyala. The Bantu expansions came from West Africa to most of Sub-Saharan Africa.
Not hard to figure out.
Ahhh, right, the Kalenjin are adapted for distance running and javelin throwing, and the Bantu for sprinting. That is, assuming this new Kenyan sprinter is Bantu as well, otherwise we might have to split the Kalenjin into further offshoots, I mean subgroups.
Yes, the training partner of the new guy. And of course, Omanyala has served a ban too.
Still, doping or not, it will be fun to see the scientific racists explain how Kenyans can appear to have 'special adaptations' for both sprinting and distance running.
Kenyan distance runners are from Nilotic tribes (Kalenjin) coming from the North . Only 15% of the population are Kalenjin.
The majority of Kenyan tribes are of Bantu origin, including Omanyala. The Bantu expansions came from West Africa to most of Sub-Saharan Africa.
Not hard to figure out.
It may be that there is some genetic advantage to being Kalenjin. But the fact that most of the great Kenya runners are from one of the Kalenjin tribes may have a cultural explanation as well, according to Benoit Gaudin of the Department of Sport Sciences at Addis Ababa University. One of his research projects involves interviewing elite non-Kalenjin runners and asking them how they gained their positions. They report that finding accommodation and joining a training camp are much more difficult if you are not Kalenjin. Those who succeed do so by basically becoming Kalenjin. “Either they learn the language or they marry a Kalenjin girl or they have high-profile support inside the running community, and someone is helping them. Otherwise it’s very difficult, because they have their own specific language even within the Kalenjin group. For example, you can train with them today but you don’t know where the next training is tomorrow, because when it comes time to give this key information, they switch languages. If they want to close the business, they can do it very easily. They are protecting their niche. And this is very interesting because it is ethnicity, but it has nothing to do with genetics.”
Hey Malmo I looked at a climagraph from Nairobi, seems like the average Feb temp is not much different from any other time of the year, and pretty much the same as during the competition months in Denver. Also, the average relative humidity is actually lower than all other months except October. IDK what the RH in Denver is during competition season, but it would have to be significantly higher than Nairobi's in Feb to create a significant difference between the two, in terms of air density.
Assuming the same elevations, of course.
Were you suggesting in the other thread that conditions in Nairobi in Feb are faster than the conditions in Denver in Jun/Jul?
Science isn't your thing sprintgeezer.
Conditions are better in Nairobi for distances any time of year,.
Here's a discussion we had over a decade ago when Jorge Torres noticed it was easier to run at 5000' in South America than in Boulder.
Mr. Torres let us know today on Chasingglory.com that a) 5,000ft above sea level in Boulder is much harder than 5,000ft above seal level at the equator and b) he's not a geologist and Mr. Carney agreed that he's not a geologi...
I won't give you my background. Suffice it to say that I understood you to have been referring to sprints.
Admittedly knowing really nothing about distance, why would good conditions in Nairobi in Feb be superior to good conditions in Boulder in June or July? They appear to be at essentially the same elevation, and to have essentially the same temperature. Is it the RH, and if so, how does it affect distance?
I am not at all knowledgeable, but obviously Kenya is not about high-altitude running only: Just look at javelin thrower Julius Yego. So Kenyan track and field seems to be a bit more diverse than Ethiopian track and field. We even have Kenyan-born alpine skier Sabrina Simader who came to Austria at age 3: far from world class but clearly at a professional level. So I am not surprised to see high-level Kenyan athletes in different sports.
Kenyan distance runners are from Nilotic tribes (Kalenjin) coming from the North . Only 15% of the population are Kalenjin.
The majority of Kenyan tribes are of Bantu origin, including Omanyala. The Bantu expansions came from West Africa to most of Sub-Saharan Africa.
Not hard to figure out.
Ahhh, right, the Kalenjin are adapted for distance running and javelin throwing, and the Bantu for sprinting. That is, assuming this new Kenyan sprinter is Bantu as well, otherwise we might have to split the Kalenjin into further offshoots, I mean subgroups.
What is so hard about this?
Tiny thin people, which are common among the Kalenjin, are more likely to be good distance runners.
Big built people, common among most other Kenyan ancestries, are more likely to be good sprinters.
By the way, sprinter Omanyala is Luhya, but javelin world-beater Yego is Kalenjin (specifically Nandi). Not everyone in a given "tribe" is built the same, obiously!
The Luhya (also known as Abaluyia or Luyia) comprise a number of Bantu ethnic groups native to western Kenya. They are divided into 20 (or 21, when the Suba are included) culturally and linguistically related tribes. Luhya re...
Kenyan distance runners are from Nilotic tribes (Kalenjin) coming from the North . Only 15% of the population are Kalenjin.
The majority of Kenyan tribes are of Bantu origin, including Omanyala. The Bantu expansions came from West Africa to most of Sub-Saharan Africa.
Not hard to figure out.
Ahhh, right, the Kalenjin are adapted for distance running and javelin throwing, and the Bantu for sprinting. That is, assuming this new Kenyan sprinter is Bantu as well, otherwise we might have to split the Kalenjin into further offshoots, I mean subgroups.
You talk of 'scientific racists' yet you are 'unscientific' as a racist, because what you are saying is stereotyping Kenyans as 'one'.
