To actually become competitive with eastern Africans, we need to change

Wow. Great story. Very compelling.

Does it really matter? We could probably also be the best at sumo wrestling if it was our nation’s highest priority. We cannot be best at everything and it doesn’t matter. It is not important.

U.S. men are competitive versus Kenyan men but not in the event(s) you are thinking. If U.S. brought their best four 600m men to a track and Kenya brought their best four 600m men to a track, it would be hard to guess the order of finish.

I claim you need to change your system and training philosophy to stop ruining talented kids. I base this on first-hand stories of Norwegian runners going overseas to US to college scholarships and meeting training regimes that made them worse, injured, burnt out, short term focused and so on. You need a healthy long-term training regime to succeed.

mofarah494 wrote:

Is there any real answer?

Yes.

Mix more with runners of similar ability. This increases competitiveness, a sense of purpose and in most cases, a feeling of belonging.

The extreme focus of the NCAA is both good and bad for the best runners.

Send the best kids in the US to either:

1, Summer altitude camps where the heat and humidity is so much less that even the relative lack of oxygen feels like a relief.

2, Training and racing in Northern Europe where the heat is much less. European kids would then have more American rivals to train and race with.

Avoid extreme weather which sets development back by months each year.

👆 Those are all tried and tested methods which have always worked.

I have measured hundreds of African and European running techniques, on average they have a greater knee angle at max load and a greater inclination of the torso which causes the center of mass to fall on the metatarsal of the foot at the moment of the push-rebound. all this is due to the fact that they learn as children, but also because they run with a backpack and therefore with a sort of weighted vest that amplifies both the forward movement of the center of mass and the elastic-reflex actions of the propulsion limb .

Seriously?

This - Between 2004 and August 2018, 138 Kenyan athletes tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs, according to a World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) report published in September 2018. The report concluded that anabolic steroid nandrolone, corticosteroids and EPO were the substances most used by Kenyan athletes.

Ah, instead do the Europeans go at bread and water?

Throwing it in "caciara" is useless

In italian caciara = chaos.

MoFarah494, I encourage you to read about the childhood of Mo Farah.

If there was the same amount of money in pro running as there is in football, basketball, golf, etc., the US would crush the E. Africans. But it is a low priority sport in the US and the massive emphasis on baseball, football and basketball tends to discourage kids who would be good distance runners. Kids who have a light frame and are built for distance tend to get shut out of participation in sports when they are young because they do not have the upper body strength to play team sports. They are either a bench warmer or do not even bother playing because they just can't throw, hit, kick, etc. as well as the other kids because they are too skinny. If these kids finally make it on to a XC team, they are generally out of shape and all but starting from scratch. The result is that in the US the talent pool in HS is very limited compared to other sports. Then, in the collegiate system, there are good opportunities to find talent. But moving into the professional world, we basically just take a tiny handful of top runners each year and everyone else goes and gets a desk job.

By contract, outside of cricket and soccer, distance running is a major sport in Ethiopia and Kenya. Kids who aren't playing soccer are running everywhere. Training groups pull in dozens of top runners instead of just trying to find the top 4-5 runners in the country.

mofarah494 wrote:

Is there any real answer?

Yes. Have even more East Africans acquire U.S. passports.

So what went wrong? It wasn't always this way. In the US and the UK the general standards were much higher in the 70s and 80s. We have had recent threads discussing this disparity.

A decent theory, but your theory lacks evidence. I will allow for your theory to be partially correct, U.S. men 800m. There are so many college Am. football players, 21.xx 200m speed or 21.xx 200m potential who would be good 800m men if there were money or more money in 800m. 21.xx 200m speed seems to be ideal for male 800m athletes.

Ethiopians, Kenyans and Ugandans from higher elevations have benefited from gene mutations, allowing them to be resistant to both acute and chronic altitude sickness. There must be a correlation to running success. Other factors for Ethiopians, Kenyans and Ugandans also.

mofarah494 wrote:

Everyone knows the stories of various successful Kenyans running to and from school, not eating processed foods, not playing video games all day.

Paul Tergat lived less than half a mile from his school, and he walked to this school every day. Wilson Kipketer lived right next to his school. How did they manage to overcome such disadvantage?

Just Another Hobby Jogger wrote:

mofarah494 wrote:

Everyone knows the stories of various successful Kenyans running to and from school, not eating processed foods, not playing video games all day.

Paul Tergat lived less than half a mile from his school, and he walked to this school every day. Wilson Kipketer lived right next to his school. How did they manage to overcome such disadvantage?

Yes it’s a bit of a myth that all Kenyans run to school because that is far from the case. There are kids who run to school but most of them walk to school and most of them have schools which are not far from their homes.

When I went to Ethiopia, I did not see any kids running to school and more importantly I did not see any young kids participating in distance running. Football/ soccer was generally much more popular with young kids.

In Assella, the birthplace of Haile Gebresellasie, I did not see any kids running, I only saw teenagers and adults running. This was back in 2009 and I doubt that things have changed much since then.

I think this myth is greatly exaggerated and far from the truth. I think most Kenyan and Ethiopian elites only started running in their late teens, and some of them in their early 20s. It is absolutely not necessary to start running at a young age before the age of 15 or 16 and it would probably be counterproductive. It does help however, to lead a healthy and active lifestyle in general with a good diet and most of these elite Kenyans and Ethiopians have that going for them.

Jon Arne Glomsrud wrote:

I claim you need to change your system and training philosophy to stop ruining talented kids. I base this on first-hand stories of Norwegian runners going overseas to US to college scholarships and meeting training regimes that made them worse, injured, burnt out, short term focused and so on. You need a healthy long-term training regime to succeed.

Let's hear them.