Saturday, March 08, 2014
African Distance Runners
"Running is in my blood," the essay in The Atlantic opens. I guess Tolo Debele would subscribe strongly to genetic theories for running excellence, then. Little Town of Champions. Though the East African distance runners do not all come from one country, they do come from the East African Rift
The map shows how an occasional Eritrean or Sudanese gets in there with the Ethiopian and Kenyan runners.
Does anybody have the title of one of the first books on the subjects of genetics and athletics? One of his findings was that 399 of the fastest 400 meter times were of West Africans. The author was the producer on a network news show where a Dodger management person was asked why there were no black managers. His reply? 'They don't have the necessaries.' This caused a flurry of programming interruption but the guy didn't think to take it back and was out of the Dodger organization the next day.
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