Yesterday I set aside an hour to watch the New York Marathon highlight show, and it didn’t disappoint. Jelena Prokopcuka repeated her victory from last year, Brazilian Marilson Gomes dos Santos pulled an upset and became the first non-African to win the men’s race in years, Lance made his sub-3:00 goal with 24 seconds to spare, and Dean finished his 50th marathon and 50th state on the 50th day.
As I was watching, I started to wonder why the women’s elite marathon field seems more diverse. Though there are many fast men, the major men’s marathons are usually dominated by Kenyans — or at least Africans. The women, though, are from all over the place. There are Kenyans and other Africans, to be sure, but there are Americans and Europeans and all others. Prokopcuka is Latvian. The second-place woman is Ukrainian. Deena Kastor, an American, was the pre-race favorite (she finished 6th). And the world record at the moment is held by Paula Radcliffe, a Brit, who didn’t run yesterday because she’s pregnant and due in January.
Why isn’t the men’s field as diverse? I have no idea.
The NY Times had a particularly interesting article today about rabbits — runners paid to set the pace for half the race before dropping out and leaving the elites to fend for themselves. Yesterday, the women’s rabbit was controversial because she ran away from the elite field; she was running the pace that had been agreed upon the day before, but the women’s lead pack chose not to follow her. Was she right to keep the pace she’d agreed to, or should she have fallen back to the lead pack? I tend to think that she did her duty by running the set pace, but then again, I’m not an elite runner so I don’t know all the specifics.
Part of the issue is that the African nations, and more specifically, Kenya, didn’t support their female runners until very recently–while the men date back to Kip Keino and perhaps even before, the current “generation” of Kenyan women–Catherine Ndereba, Lornah Kiplagat, etc.–are really the first generation of Kenyan women. The European countries have a longer tradition of supporting female athletes.
But there is some diversity on the men’s side. Yesterday’s winner was Brazilian. The reigning Olympic champ is Italian (yay!). And there were Americans and Africans near the lead. But the sport is still somewhat “dominated” by East Africans, you’re right.
As for the rabbit, well, that’s a bit tricky. She did run the agreed upon pace, but when she realized no one was going with her, she should probably have dropped back to the pack and held them at a consistent, if slower, pace
Here’s one theory. Let’s accept the theory that Africans are better distance runners, whether through nature (good genes) or nurture (diet yield sparse frame, children grow up at high altitudes running a lot). Either way, it’s arguable that they’re better runners.
The question then becomes, why don’t AFrican women dominate?
Answer: African women are oppressed. Many of the top men runners are from Muslim countries. Women there run almost not at all. Others are from countries like Kenya where women run but it’s much more of a struggle and less accepted. yes, kenya has some celebrated women runenrs, but they had to fight prejudice and most women/ girls in Kenya who might have been very talented have to fight prejudice that concept which is prevalant there that a woman’s place is in the home.