Marathon winners - Why most of them are from Africa?
Marathon races are very interesting and exciting competitions held all over the world every year. There are five major events on the world marathon calendar; the Boston Marathon, the New York Marathon, the Chicago Marathon, the London Marathon and the Berlin Marathon. As these events are open to the general public as well as the professional runners, they are a very exciting event for amateurs as well. Many thousands of people take part in the different marathons every year and it doesn’t matter whom you are, from what part of the world, running in a marathon is something to be enjoyed by all ages and races.
One interesting aspect of all marathons that have taken place in recent history is that most of the winners of the professional race have been runners from African countries. It seems like an odd fact that an international event that is open to runners from all over the world would be so dominated by people from one continent. What could be the reasons and why any other country hasn’t or continent produced as many superb runners as Africa.
Some recent winners of various marathons are listed here. The New York Marathon is slightly different from other marathons because last year an American won it, but some notable African winners have been Rodgers Rop, Martin Lel and Paul Tergat who all hail from Kenya who won the race in 2002, 2003 and 2005 respectively. The winner of the women’s race last year was Derartu Tulu from Ethiopia, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_winners_of_the_New_York_City _Marathon).
The story is the same if we look at the London Marathon; which did Tsegaye Kebede from Ethiopia in 2010 and Martin Lel from Kenya win in 2005, 2007 and 2008. Taken from; (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_winners_of_the_London_Marathon). Haile Gebrselassie from Ethiopia won the 2009 Berlin Marathon for the last 4 years running, if you will excuse the pun. The last time a non-African won the Berlin event was in 1998 when a Brazilian won it, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin_Marathon).
What is it about Africa that produces so many winners of marathons and so many high quality runners? It could be that Africa is just a place that is able to breed very high quality athletes in running events. One reason could be government support; maybe the governments of different African countries like Kenya or Ethiopia provide funding for the training of runners and have set up facilities to train them. It could be very similar to the fact that in other countries government grants and funding and support go towards whatever sport the country plays at an international level and since African runners do so d**n well at running events at an international level and also at the Olympic Games, then the governments are going to support those brilliant athletes who bring so much pride to their home countries.
The next reason could have something to do with body fat. According to one website elite runners have a tiny proportion of fat on their bodies. “A very lean male 60kg runner with 5% body fat will have 3kg of fat; a typical elite 55kg female runner with 15% body fat will have more than 8kg of body fat. Non-elite runners will commonly have at least twice this amount, and many runners further down the field will be carrying 20kg or more of fat,” (http://www.pponline.co.uk/encyc/body-fat-and-running-performance).
Could it be that African runners are trained to have lower levels of body fat on them and if so then because lower levels of body fat allow the runner to run faster; could this be why African runners are so good at winning marathons. I have seen friends who have trained for marathons and they have had to drop their fat levels and lose serious amounts of weight if they want to finish in any sort of decent time.
Whatever the reasons for their phenomenal performances at marathons, let’s hope Africa continues to produce the world’s best runners and these runners continue to win races and beat and set new world records in the field of running for many years to come. Soon tough other countries might start to copy African training routines and start to produce runners who are just as good; then we will really have a race on our hands.
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