this post was submitted on 25 Mar 2024
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Damn, that's interesting!

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Birthplaces of the 100 fastest 10km runners of all time (sh.itjust.works)
submitted 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) by sjmarf@sh.itjust.works to c/damnthatsinteresting@lemmy.ml
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[–] PowerCrazy@lemmy.ml 83 points 7 months ago (4 children)

The topography explains it all. https://geology.com/articles/east-africa-rift.shtml

tl;dr The people of that area in East Africa naturally live close to sea level, however there are easily accessible elevations changes that distance runners have trained on for probably centuries. It turns out that training at high altitudes and recovering at low altitudes provides a tangible and demonstrable advantage compared to just single elevation training.

[–] Skua@kbin.social 47 points 7 months ago (2 children)

This can't be the whole story, otherwise we'd see places like Chile, Peru, and India competing too

[–] pop@lemmy.ml 11 points 7 months ago (2 children)

India? the sea and the himalayas are too far apart to compare.

[–] Skua@kbin.social 8 points 7 months ago

India's Deccan Plateau is about as elevated as most of Kenya's highlands and takes up basically the entire land area of India that sticks out into the ocean

[–] SuckMyWang@lemmy.world 3 points 7 months ago

The air sucks in India too

[–] emergencyfood@sh.itjust.works 2 points 7 months ago

No idea about the other two, but India's sports administration is corrupt to the core. Funds are stolen by those on top, and athletes who complain - even about obviously criminal things like sexual assault - are pushed out. Some sports bodies (chess, for example) are better, but the big ones (cricket, wrestling, football) are mostly bad.

[–] illah@lemmy.world 37 points 7 months ago

Yeah like the other commenter said this isn’t it, nobody is commuting up and down 10,000’ on a regular basis, especially in antiquity. Just because different elevations “look close” on a map means nothing.

Far more likely is this is a concentrated population of folks with highly desirable traits for distance running.

[–] NewNewAccount@lemmy.world 28 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

The school of thought has generally changed.

Live high, train low is now the prevailing methodology.

[–] SuckMyWang@lemmy.world 3 points 7 months ago (2 children)

That’s good. I thought the map was being racist

[–] NeatNit@discuss.tchncs.de 10 points 7 months ago (1 children)

The map is being racist by labelling Canada, Morocco and USA but not the super-relevant African countries. I'm baffled by that...

Like, I don't think it's intentional but how does that happen?

[–] SuckMyWang@lemmy.world 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I didn’t really notice that. Oh shit, am I racist?

[–] TonyTonyChopper@mander.xyz 1 points 7 months ago

You're better off than many if you already know which countries those are without the labels

[–] tetris11@lemmy.ml 9 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Maps aren't racist. Map owners are racist. Map creators are just filling demand.

(replace "maps" with "dogs" and "racist" with "at fault for dog eugenics")