Superior shoe technology?

Here is an interesting statistic.

The argument for cushioned running shoes is that they protect you and help you run faster.

How can it be then that the country that produces the most 'innovative' running shoes ie America has not produced a winner for the NYC marathon or Boston Marathon in nearly 30 years in both mens and womens categories.

In the NYC marathon the last American born runner to win was in 1982, since then there have been 15 African winners in the mens category.

The last woman winner was in 1977, well over 30 years ago, there have been 7 African women winners.



For the Boston Marathon, similar statistics.

Last American man winner was in 1983 and since then there have been 21 no less, African runners who have won.

Last American woman winner in 1983 and since then there have been 12 African runners who have won.



Why could this be? Could it, by any chance be due to the Africans having stronger feet and, more than likely not had access to the latest and greatest running shoes.

My argument is not original, the question has been asked before.

It's been argued that they win because they have to run as it is the only way they had to get to school when children, but that is just training, nothing special.

What about the altitude, can it be that they have better lung function. There must be high altitude places in America also so why can't runners train there.

A mystery eh?



Neil
 
I think African dominance has

I think African dominance has more to do with the integration of running in the culture. In the US, we don't have to run to do anything... we can drive our cars. The result- we don't do much to develop running in our population. The shoe theory is probably a factor, too.

As far as altitude, I've been looking at some data. Training at high altitude doesn't seem to be beneficial, but living does (hence the "train low, live high" philosophy).
 
I think it's a combination of

I think it's a combination of all those things but plus their body style, very lean, probably helps a lot.
 
 Maybe we should look into

Maybe we should look into the proximity of all race winners to a McDonalds. :bigsmile:
 
 Another overlooked aspect is

Another overlooked aspect is the ability for African born runners to get the chance to be in America's big races. Before the growth of running as a mainstream sport they rarely came here to run in races. Now that travel is easier, and companies are throwing around big dollars for the athletes, they can come here and win/dominate our races.

Jason also made a big point in that running was not part of their culture, at least not in the competition aspect. Meb Keflezighi is an outstanding point of this as he came from a small African country and he never ran for competition until he was in 7th grade (in America) when he ran a mile for a grade. Only recently have the people in his country come to understand the idea of running for sport so it's not this natural thing they train for their whole lives...or at least it wasn't.

The altitude does make a difference and if you look up some of the current American runners that are making waves they all live and train at altitude. Meb, Deena Kastor, and Ryan Hall all live in Mammoth while others are doing their thing in Colorado and Utah so that they can get the same results in lung capacity and oxygen consumption that our African counterparts get from living at altitude their whole lives.