>From: Jon Entine <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Subject: Re: t-and-f: Follow the money?....one last post...I promise..:)
>
>Alan:
>
>You could say all you want that the 800 meters is not a distance event, but
>this is a matter of climes, not boxes. Physiological studies show that one
>needs to draw on your aerobic energy reserves after about 45 seconds or so.
>That makes 800 meters very much a distance race. The anatomical and
>physiological profile of every event is slightly different. Check out
>JMTanner's studies on this, or more recent ones by Robert Malina, Claude
>Bouchard, Lindsay Carter, and many others. There is quite a large gap
>between the 400 meter profile and the 800 meter profile. Period.
And the 1500 and 800 profiles are very different as well. Coe and
Juantorena represent two examples of completely different profiles that
were essentially equally successful at 800 (and not that NEITHER is
Kenyan). Essentially, the 800 stands at the fuzzy border between distances
and sprints, with more and more sprint types moving into the event over time.
>Here is a fact: athletes of West African ancestry (African Americans in
>particular) will NEVER become great long distance runners. There might be
>some abberations, generally because of racial mixing and the roulette wheel
>of genetics, such as Johnny Gray.
There you go again, making ABSOLUTE generalized statements that you cannot
support. What about Brazilian Roba DaSilva? And if you are counting the
800 as a distance event, Gray is far from an "aberration"--he is in fact
the norm! I think you need to take a look at the US 800 all time list, or
just the start of the Olympic Trials 800 this year. It makes me wonder if
you have ever been to a track meet! African-Americans, whom I assume are
of West African origin, hold an almost dominant position in the event. And
few blacks competed in this event until James Robinson started in the
mid-1970s. We're seeing more of them in the 1500 as well now, with Holman
and Lassiter as good, but not sole, examples. There may be proportionately
FEWER great distance runners of West African descent, but that is far from
NONE, which is what you're saying.
Richard McCann
