A look at the history of the music business paints a
picture of corrupt companies on the one hand, and self
obssessed and self destructive artists, who are greedy
enough to sign anything for the chance at fame, on the
other hand.
Further, the issue with E-lan on this news group
appears to be personal. E-lan Records is not the only
record label to work with artist in the Bay Area, yet
someone or some people keep writing about E-lan to the
point where perhaps E-lan is really as powerful as the
writer/s claim. So what if they put together this or
that show. So what if they are trying to host an
event. Beside Slam, as I read it on www.e-lanmedia.com,
stands for Support Local Artists and musicians. Not
bad.
I know Anna Gurski, we dated once. She also dated
Eric Boardman(MOMO's, Washbag), CLA, Steve whyte, Craig Olson,
Christine Immfeld,Jenn Haggen, mother, Nick(formerly of
Club181), Olu, Tony( Little City), Paul Hayes, Kartik
Gada, et al -all in the space of one year. She also also initimately
to every bartender on town-free drinks.
For sure, when E-lan signed Anna Gurski,now back to waitresessing at
ZAX in North Beach, (label changed last name to Kristina) she used to
drink a whee bit and perfored cover songs in a boat,
and at thirty seven, she cannot be all that gullible.
She signed with the tiny indie and things began to
happen. I know of no court case initiated by any
artist or business aginst E-lan. I believe if you have
been scammed then you either go to court or call the
police. Just saying that E-lan is scam does not make
them a scam. Please provide hard proof against E-lan
or shut up.
As you write about E-lan, keep in mind the bad
reputations of Bad Boy, The Row, No limit, Roc a
Fella, Priority, interscope, MCA, Def Jam Motown,
labels that were all very controversial when they
began. These labels dominate the scene today. Keep
in mind that there will be new greedy artists who
will take a gammble at anything thrown to them by any
recording entity. Keep in mind too that there will be
spectators on the sidelines, people with no
spectacular talent but only mediocre and average talents.
There will always be people who will just whine and
complain about others, but hoist nothing of their own
for others to see-but that is the world we live in. I
belive in any situation no one party is particularly
blameless. It takes two to tango. I
As you write about this infamous E-lan, note that the
entire enetrtainment industry is full of crap- from
the agents to managers, from the companies to the
artist. Besides, the artist as a virtous, helpless
victim of theevilrecord labels is an overated notion.
Artists are narccisstic whinners, self obbsessed
individuals who will sleep with any one and sign
anything just because they want to be rich famous.
It is better to be talked about than not taked about
at all. As a reult of your posts reagarding E-lan, it
is my view that E-lan is a legitimate business
organization that has not violated any laws or scammed
any one. The peopl on this nes group have a right to free speech. A
reserch on any cases against E-lan showed
no case pending , active or past, plus they are
registered in Sacramento as a Califronia Corporation.
I also reserched their lawyers,and they have them in LA and SF and in
Miami.
Iam of the opinion that the legitimacy of the label holds up. On
calling the label, they
indicated that they rarely participate in the news
group, and they never pay attention to the comments
therr nor do the comment on them.
Phill Shaffe
Then how come
1) Olu wants us to send checks made out to him instead of E-lan?
2) Narada Michael Walden repeatedly denies involvement?
3) Speedracer Enterprises denies involvement?
I suppose it's possible that *E-Lan* is legit and *Olu* isn't. I
don't really know, nor do I really care any more.
phill...@yahoo.com (phill shaffe) wrote in message news:<f2d73b7d.01101...@posting.google.com>...
The whole industry is full of crap and you are part of the crap. As
far Speed Racer goes time will tell who is telling the truth. I
highly doubt that they could have such a high profile brand on their
site without some serious legal repurcussions. Was that Narada on the
archive section of the E-lan Website? They are all at it.
Phill
news:<f2d73b7d.01101...@posting.google.com>...
Phill
Steve O'Neill <ste...@omsoft.com> wrote in message news:<3BCCA727...@omsoft.com>...
Did this Olu actually ask you for a Check? Send it to him at his
medical resiesdency, then sue him. Safe the rquest info for your
records though.
Narada- he is pictured with them at the grammy's and you can see it on
their archive page. They are all at it. Is it true that Narada lost
his house in Tiburon?
Speed Racer-that brand is huge. How can it be on their site without
some major action? You are being suckered by the entertainment
industry hype. Read People magazine or the Hollywood variety and you
will know tha they are all part of the same game. Since when did it
become fashinable for entertainment companies and folks not to be
notorious?
Berry Kercheval <be...@kerch.com> wrote in message news:<o3d4jg...@lyorn.kerch.com>...
Siele Rotich Baliach = E-lan....It's one man
Enough attention on him... Keep truth and the music alive.
phill...@yahoo.com (phill shaffe) wrote in message news:<f2d73b7d.01101...@posting.google.com>...
phill...@yahoo.com (phill shaffe) wrote in message news:<f2d73b7d.0110...@posting.google.com>...
Index on Africa: Africa News Update
... authorised illegal trade,'' argues Nehemiah Rotich, who heads
Kenya Wildlife Services ... the
conference, Kenya's president Daniel arap Moi urged delegates to bear
...
http://www.afrika.no/index/update/archives/2000April11.shtml
More Results From: www.afrika.no
la Diocesi di Zuglio - Cjargne Online
... Il penultimo vescovo titolare di Zuglio era stato il kenyano
Kipkoech Arap Rotich
Alfred che pur lavorando in Vaticano, non era mai stato a visitare la
chiesa ...
http://www.cjargne.it/zuj/zuj1.htm
ELECTORAL COMMISSION OF KENYA
... 4. Kipkelion, Samuel Kimutai Arap Rotich, Kenya African National
Union. source:
1997 General Election Report (ECK) and PR dept Back to MP's index ...
http://www.kenyaweb.com/politics/rvalley_mps.html
Kenya Government Presidential News- Cabinet Appointments 11th ...
... Natural Resources. Minister for Water Development: Kipng'eno arap
Ngeny. ... Eng. Samuel
Rotich, Charfano Mokku, Jembe Mwakalu. Permanent Secretary: Erastus
Mwongera. ...
http://www.kenyaembassy.com/ministers.html
Center for Religious Freedom
... OKOTH (Kisumu) The Revd. Vincent WAMBUGU (Nyeri) The Rt. Revd.
Alfred Kipkoech arap
ROTICH (Military ORO.) The Rt. Revd. Ambrose RAVASI (Marsabit) The Rt.
Revd ...
http://www.freedomhouse.org/religion/country/sudan/sudan_appeal.htm
Environment News Service: Elephants Are Top Issue on Day One ...
... and pageantry by Kenya's President Daniel arap Moi, whose country
is crusading for ... the
evidence is there," said Nehemiah Rotich, director of the Kenya
Wildlife ...
http://ens.lycos.com/ens/apr2000/2000L-04-11-02.html
More Results From: ens.lycos.com
Fides - f19990528
... L’Ordinariat Militaire : Ordinaire Militaire, Alfred
Kipkoech Arap Rotich, 42 ans.
Population : 32.000 ; catholiques : 13.163 ; églises 23 ; aumôniers :
15 ...
http://www.fides.org/French/1999/f19990528.html
More Results From: www.fides.org
SDA Yearbook 2000 - WESTERN KENYA FIELD
... Tisen. Administration: Executive Director, Job Rotich.
Secretary-Treasurer, Elisha
Mursi. Departments ... Aming'a, E. Apollo, Kania Arap, S. Biegon, B.
Chemaket, I ...
http://yearbook.gc.adventist.org/ast/yb2000/view.asp?InstNum=140
Index on Africa: Africa News Update
... authorised illegal trade,'' argues Nehemiah Rotich, who heads
Kenya Wildlife Services ... the
conference, Kenya's president Daniel arap Moi urged delegates to bear
...
http://www.afrika.no/index/update/archives/2000April11.shtml
More Results From: www.afrika.no
10th March 2000 CITES NEWS
... of 2000 elephants annually. The government of president Arap Moi
says opening trade
in the endangered species ... fly out through the window," according
to Rotich.
http://www.save-the-elephants.org/Elephant%20News%20Items/KENYA%20AND%20INDIA%20CHALLENGE%20CITES%20ON%20IVORY%20TRADE.htm
More Results From: www.save-the-elephants.org
AMECEA - KENYA
... Military Ordinariate Rt. Rev. Alfred Arap Rotich PO
Box 40668 Nairobi Tel: (02) 72.11.00 Ext. 5409. ...
http://www.amecea.org/kenya.htm
More Results From: www.amecea.org
Catholic Dioceses in Kenya
... Military Diocese. Rt. Rev. Alfred Arap Rotich PO Box 40668
NAIROBI, Kenya. Tel: (02) 72.11.00 Ext.5400 E-Mail: ...
http://www.rc.net/africa/kenyacatholic/dioceses.htm
Daily Nation On the Web
... Dr Rotich was speaking at Kimondi Primary School at the weekend,
where an Assistant
Minister for Labour, Mr Joseph arap Leting and District Commissioner
...
http://www.nationaudio.com/News/DailyNation/30102000/News/News34.html
More Results From: www.nationaudio.com
Wildlife-film.com Newsletter 3 - Sep 99
... of Kenya Wildlife Service has been appointed. He is Nehemiah arap
Rotich, long time
head of the East African Wildlife Society. Dr. Rotich is a quiet
spoken man ...
http://www.wildlife-film.com/wfn3.htm
Issue 358 Kenya facts & Figures
... Military Ordinariate, The military Ordinary is the Rt. Rev. Alfred
Arap
Rotich. There are 15 chaplains, 24 catechists, and 23 churches. ...
http://www.thewhitefathers.org.uk/358fct.html
FAF - Preamble
... MA Galgallo, Cyrus Jirongo, Suleiman Kamolleh, Kipruto arap Kirwa,
Peter Maundu,
Odongo Away and ... Nyaga, F. Nyenze, C. Okemo, SK Rotich, I. Ruto and
Saitoti. ...
http://www.freeafrica.org/looting12.html
News
... Nominated Fr. Alfred Kipkoech arap Rotich, of the diocesan clergy
of Nakuru,
as auxiliary to the archbishop of Nairobi (area 3,271, population
3,570,000 ...
http://www.christusrex.org/www1/news/4-96/es4-10-96.html
More Results From: www.christusrex.org
Insidekenya.com: Offers domain registration, web hosting, web ...
... Minister for Water Development. Hon. Kipng'eno arap Ng'eny, EGH,
MP. Minister for
Environment. ... Hon. Eng. Samuel Rotich, MP. Hon. Basil Criticos, MP.
Hon. Jembe ...
http://www.insidekenya.com/enviro.htm
ilovepla.htm
... month old. "Jesus took away my fear to stand before others and
tell them to follow
Him." These are the words of William Arap Rotich a new Christian in
Mosore. I ...
http://www.africamissions.org/africa/Ilovepla.htm
Philly.com | African Odyssey
... 3: Great Rift Valley Sports Camp. Lukas Rotich (left), 29, and Ben
Koech, 25 ... Christine
Owabosha, a seamstress... Moses Arap Mososei offers a chicken... A
hippo ...
http://inquirer.philly.com/specials/2000/africa/photos_00.asp
phill...@yahoo.com (phill shaffe) wrote in message news:<f2d73b7d.0110...@posting.google.com>...
The Official Athletic Site, Tulane University Green Wave - ...
... Rotich. ... 2000 Outdoor: A key distance runner for the Wave. Had
the team’s top
time in the 3,000 meters at 8:32.97. Posted a best time of 3:50.35 in
the 1 ...
http://www.fansonly.com/schools/tul/sports/c-track/mtt/rotich_peter00.html
More Results From: www.fansonly.com
Milligan College Sports News Release
... Men's Results Women's Results Place, Runner, Time, Avg. Mile,
Place, Runner,
Time, Avg. Mile. 13. Philip Rotich, 25:21(SR), 5:05, 68. Rebecca
Dixon, 20:34(PB),
6:37. ...
http://www.milligan.edu/sports/News/Index.htm
More Results From: www.milligan.edu
Runner's World Daily
... Games with a 3:57.46 behind Laban Rotich's 3:55.69. McMullen, 26,
is a 1995 ... wife,
Jill, was a US 800-meter runner at the 1997 World Championships. He
will run ...
http://www.runnersworld.com/dailynew/archives/1998/February/980224.html
More Results From: www.runnersworld.com
Wanamaker Mile 2000
... Nolan, who has been primarily an 800m runner, debuted this season
in the 1,500m ... behind
in fifth and sixth. Laban Rotich, the 1998 winner trailed in second
with ...
http://www.irishrunner.com/milwm00.html
More Results From: www.irishrunner.com
Swiss runner edges Johnson for GP title
... finished with 116 points to 105 for runner-up Maria Mutola of
Mozambique, the world ... Ngeny,
Kenya, 3:34.76. 5, Laban Rotich, Kenya, 3:35.13. 6, Craig Mottram ...
http://www.canoe.ca/SlamResults010909/tra_grandprix-ap.html
MALONE COLLEGE: CROSS COUNTRY: Home
... from last year's outstanding team is top runner Dave Leonard, who
graduated, and
Ryan Mol ... to graduation are Jacob Fetzer and Mark Rotich who ran 6
th and 7 th ...
http://www.malone.edu/page2.cfm?pageid=435
More Results From: www.malone.edu
RUNNING STATS.COM
... in 28:41.16, with 21-year-old Alexander Lubina runner-up in
28:42.46. ... César Troncoso,
28:01 to 28:02, with Paul Rotich (KEN) 3rd in 28:10, José Mansilla 4th
...
http://www.runningstats.com/Pages/718/Feathers.html
More Results From: www.runningstats.com
Hampton Half marathon
... the line (as well as the third 40+ runner), finishing in 1:11:11,
close to ... Kenyans,
Simon Cherogony (24:17) and Julius Rotich (24:21). Masters 8K wins
went to ...
http://www.runnersgazette.com/results/hampton.htm
Event reports from Day 2
... clear of the USA team final leg runner Tim Harden, leaving Africa
in third place. ... the
African men's team total, when Laban Rotich of Kenya was first across
the ...
http://www.iaaf.org/wcp98/News/980912events.html
More Results From: www.iaaf.org
Daily Nation On the Web
... was the 1999 world fastest 10,000 metres runner, stalked his
opponents for 26 and
a ... played a crucial role with Laban Rotich producing a deadly kick
to take the ...
http://www.nationaudio.com/News/DailyNation/24062001/Sports/Sports31.html
More Results From: www.nationaudio.com
2001 Ridgewood Mile Results
... M 212 04:23 4:23 4.Robert Rotich S. Hackensack,NJ 20 M 213 04:32
4:32 RIDGEWOOD ELITE
MILE OPEN TOP FEMALE FINISHERS PLACE RUNNER'S NAME CITY/TOWN AGE SX
TEAM ...
http://www.compuscore.com/cs2001/may/ridgemi.htm
More Results From: www.compuscore.com
The Weekly Review
... years. Last year, Laban Rotich became the first Kenyan to win the
mile since Kipchoge
Keino in 1966. Tanui swept past American runner Ritchie Boulet to win
in 3 ...
http://www.africaonline.co.ke/weeklyreview/990212/sports2.html
More Results From: www.africaonline.co.ke
Southern Miss Track & Field Home Page
... titles and won by 40 points over runner-up Tulane, 162-122. South
Florida finished ... Foltz,
Memphis 3:54.08; 3. Peter Rotich, Tulane 3:54.43; 4. Jacob Busienei
...
http://www.athletics.usm.edu/wtrack/wtrack.html
Unofficial Page of miler Hicham el-Guerrouj
... onto the world scene as a world class runner in 1994, and in just
three years, has ... 1
El Guerrouj Hicham MAR 3:47.10 2 Rotich Laban KEN 3:50.79 3 Kaouch
Adil ...
http://www.geocities.com/e200298/guerrouj.html
Morceli's 1996 Season - Reports
... 3:35. It's Morceli, Cacho, Bile, Tanui, Rotich, Maazouzi
(MOROCCO), Mayock (ENGLAND)
and Tolgyesi. I ... his reputation as the best middle-distance runner
ever. ...
http://www.cs.rochester.edu/u/tetreaul/m96s.html
More Results From: www.cs.rochester.edu
Auto58CG
... Others not filmed (ended 13:48) * Lapped runner timed in error -
Clark & Anentia ... 57.0)
(Heat 2) Lean 51.81 (51.8) Rotich 52.98 (52.9) Goudge 53.85 (53.7)
Shaw ...
http://easyweb.easynet.co.uk/~rsparks/auto58cg.htm
2001 Drake Relays - Photos
... of Iowa City West. 2000 Iowa state 1600 runner-up Eric Goff of
Bettendorf. ... Stephen
F. Austin State's Nahan Flores. Jacob Rotich of Harding in the 10,000.
South ...
http://www.mensracing.com/photos/drake01/
More Results From: www.mensracing.com
News Column
... in August,' said Johnson, who trailed runner-up Jon Drummond
through the first ... in
the world this year. Kenya's Laban Rotich, already owner of the
fastest 1500m ...
http://www.coolrunning.com/newscol/new0558.htm
More Results From: www.coolrunning.com
Merchandise -- Big Sur International Marathon
... a cellular phone. Ann Trason, the top ultra-runner in the country,
zapped her own ... Chad
Bennion from Utah and Sammy Rotich from New Mexico bouncing shoulder
to ...
http://www.bsim.org/racehistory.html
2001 NEC Men's Cross Country
... and tenth (26:29.9), respectively. Sophomore Robert Rotich
(Kericho, Kenya/Nakuru)
rounded out the ... Ondieki, who became the fourth runner to become a
two-time ...
http://www.northeastconference.org/mcc01.html
phill...@yahoo.com (phill shaffe) wrote in message news:<f2d73b7d.0110...@posting.google.com>...
Boston.com / 2000 Boston Marathon
... Ruto (Kenya) John Kagwe (Kenya) Philip Rotich Tarus (Kenya)
Jackson Kabiga (Kenya)
Alejandro ... will seek to do what no runner - not Bill Rodgers,
Clarence DeMar ...
http://www.boston.com/marathon/stories/0329elite.htm
More Results From: www.boston.com
http://www.thenccaa.org/oldsite/99mxcc.txt
... 1-3-4-5-6) to soundly defeat runner-up Spring Arbor College (MI)
which had 47 ... placed
4th overall in 24:47 while Mark Rotich (Jr., Kapsabet, Kenya) was 6th
in 25 ...
http://www.thenccaa.org/oldsite/99mxcc.txt
More Results From: www.thenccaa.org
2000 AMC Men's Cross Country
... Place, Runner, School, Time, Yr, Hometown. 1. Sergio Reyes,
Cedarville, 25:46, Jr,
Los ... 6. Mark Rotich, Malone, 27:08, Sr, Kapsabet, Kenya. 7. Steve
Wakefield, Cedarville,
27:09, ...
http://www.amcsports.org/2000-01/mxc.htm
CNN/SI - 1998 Commonwealth Games - Malaysia wins first track ...
... athletes to win the men's 1,500. Rotich, who as fourth at the
Atlanta Olympics ... Another
Englishman, Mick Hill, who hasfinished runner-up for the past three
Games ...
http://www.cnnsi.com/olympics/1998/commonwealth/news/1998/09/21/track_wrap/
More Results From: www.cnnsi.com
TRACK AND FIELD: Johnson wins 200
... was back in August,' said Johnson, who trailed runner-up Jon
Drummond through the
first 90m but ... Kenya's Laban Rotich, already owner of the fastest
1500m in the ...
http://www.nando.net/newsroom/sports/oth/1997/oth/mor/feat/archive/052597/mor10388.html
2000 Ragin Cajun Invitational
... 22:26.88. Bouterie has been a solid runner for the Cajuns,
finishing in the top ... points
in the team standings. Tulane's Peter Rotich led all runners with a
time ...
http://www.ragincajuns.com/crosscountry/2000results/2000ragincajun.htm
Informe Maratón 2001
... se dividió la carrera. Los kenianos Benjamín Rotich y Daniel Komen
rompieron en
principio ... 2.18:37 4. Jorge Juan Sempere (Runner Transportes)
2.18:43 5. Igor ...
http://www.atletisme.com/marato/informe2000/
7/22/96 INT/MASTER RACERS
... BY JOHN MANNERS. American distance runner Bob Kennedy was thrilled
with his ... only by
anecdotal evidence. Marathoner Paul Rotich, for example, was one of
several ...
http://www.time.com/time/international/1996/960722/middle.html
Jones narrowly avoids shock defeat | Athletics Online
... Olympic fourth-placer Laban Rotich was second in 3:29.51, while
his fellow Kenyan
Noah Ngeny ... US trials runner-up Ramon Clay also ran the year's
quickest time in ...
http://www.athletics-online.co.uk/110704lausanne.htm
More Results From: www.athletics-online.co.uk
Kenyan Practice
... below: HEAT 1 1) Patrick Nduru (former 400m runner) 1:47.5, 2)
Patrick Konchellah
(94 Comm ... 1:45.45 in 96) 1:52.7, 2) Lucas Rotich 1:53.0 HEAT 3 1)
Henry Ongeta ...
http://www.iatfcc.org/Kenyan.html
The Athletics Site: Marathons and Cross Country Results
... 56-K 15 April, Capetown, South Africa FROM: Runner's World Men -
1. Honest Mutsakani,
ZIM, 3 ... BENEDICT AKO 02:13:53; 2 BENJAMIN ROTICH 02:14:01; 3 DANIEL
KOMEN 02 ...
http://www.athletix.net/Athletics/Results/XC_Marathons01.html
More Results From: www.athletix.net
Most talented leaving poverty behind
... as Isaiah Sanga, Vincent Kemboi, Michael Rotich, Peter Kipkoskei
Bett, Tuddah Tallam,
Isaac ... in the 10K.) Who is the best runner in the camp? Sanga,
Kiyenny and ...
http://www.bix7.com/kenya/4b_poverty.html
www.NCAAChampionships.com
... win in 16:47.21. Skieresz, who was also runner-up last year and in
1995, was six ... JR
TN- Chattanooga 33:23.90 160 196 Rotich, Peter FR Tulane 33:24.20 161
197 ...
http://www.ncaachampionships.com/news/cross/mcross/1998/11/23/955567608712.html
More Results From: www.ncaachampionships.com
July's Running, Ranting and Raving
... G for the meet record. Sinead Delahunty was runner-up in 4:30.41.
Mark Carroll (IRE)
also ... 3:35.58, a second up on Laban Rotich who ran 4 plus at
Millrose for ...
http://www.washrun.org/feb00.html
1999 PBC Men's Cross Country Championship
... CSU), Edwin Bii (KSU), Joseph Kirior (CSU), Geoffery Rotich (CSU),
Paul McRae (AASU),
Jari Tuominen (KSU ... Runner of the Year: Jari Venalainen, Kennesaw
State ...
http://www.peachbelt.com/cross_country/99-mPBCchamp.htm
2000 Cooper River Bridge Run Results - Charleston, SC - The ...
... Cherop, 25, Chapel Hill,NC, 00:29:34 4. Julius Rotich, 23, Chapel
Hill,NC, 00:29:43
5. Sammy Nyamongo ... MALE. Runner, Time, Year. 1. James Koskei,
27:40, 2000. 2. Joseph ...
http://www.charleston.net/bridgerun/2000results.html
Razorback Sports, The Arkansas Traveler
... mile was Kenya’s Laban Rotich. Rotich recorded the fastest
time in the ... second in
the meet after professional runner Brian Baker and automatically
qualified ...
http://www.uark.edu/campus-resources/travinfo/archives-9900/2-12-01/sports_4.html
http://www.unipanthers.com/mcc/00regional.pdf
... at Pre-NCAAs and was the Big 12 runner-up, while Hinds finished
eighth at Pre- NCAAs ... Fr
310 JP LaVenture Fr 363 Abraham Rotich Fr 419 Steven Orange So 311
Brian ...
http://www.unipanthers.com/mcc/00regional.pdf
Ivanova strikes gold, cash with world record walk -DAWN - ...
... year-old European champion has twice finished runner-up to the
world No.1 Kwan ... Kevin
Sullivan (Canada) 3:56.81; 3. Laban Rotich (Kenya) 3:56.88. 5,000
metres: 1 ...
http://www.dawn.com/2001/09/07/spt9.htm
Rotary Club of Kuala Lumpur DiRaja - 70 years of service
... RM 30,000 to set up the RoTICH Fund under our Rotary Charity
Foundation ... appeal. Won
6 district awards and 1 runner up. Established bakery cum training
centre at ...
http://www.jaring.my/rckl/70years.html
phill...@yahoo.com (phill shaffe) wrote in message news:<f2d73b7d.0110...@posting.google.com>...
Mountclair, New Jersey
This article is about a tribe in Kenya that has a remarkable faculty
for turning out world class distance runners. The people are called
the Kalenjin. They occupy an area about the size of Wales and they
number something under 3 million, or about 10 % of Kenya's population.
But this group has earned about 75% of Kenya's distance running
honors. That number is impressive enough, in view of the degree to
which Kenya now dominates the sport, but looked at another way, the
figures are even more remarkable: over the past 10 years, athletes
from this small tribe have won close to 40% of all the biggest
international honors available in men's distance running.
Most of this article will be a discussion of various notions that have
been advanced to account for this phenomenon, but before going into
that I want to throw out a few more numbers to show what I mean by
that 40% figure. First, I want to make it clear that I am talking
about men's distance running. Kalenjin women - African women in
general - have lagged behind their male counterparts for reasons I am
afraid I will not have time to get into.
Now, the Kalenjin excel in varying degrees in all three of distance
running's disciplines: cross country, road racing and track. I will
take them one at a time, starting with cross country.
Three weeks ago, the annual World Cross Country Championships were
held in Turin. I do not know how much coverage the press here gave the
event, but from an international perspective, the World Cross Country
Championships are a big deal. In fact, it is often said that the men's
championship is the toughest of all foot races to win because it
attracts the world's best at distances from the mile to the marathon,
and each country can enter not just three runners, but nine. In this
year's men's race there were 280 competitors from 60 different
countries, most of them hoping somehow to upset the Kenyan juggernaut,
but in the end, out of those 280 runners, five of the first seven to
finish were Kenyans - and four of those five were Kalenjin.
Remarkable as it may seem, this result is fairly typical. Since 1986,
when Kenya began taking these championships seriously, the country has
yet to lose the men's team race. And Kalenjin athletes have made up
fully three-quarters of the scoring runners on those 12 winning Kenyan
teams. In fact, in eight of the 12 winning years, if only the Kalenjin
runners had competed, they would still have taken the team title. What
is more, of the 36 individual medals awarded in the men's competition
in those 12 years, Kalenjin runners have won 18, precisely half the
total.
In road racing, Kalenjin participation has been comparatively limited
until recent years, but they have had a perceptible impact at the top
- the unofficial "world best" times for the standard road race
distances. Kalenjin men own the world bests at five of the eight
commonly run distances shorter than the marathon, and in two of the
remaining three, Kalenjin runners have bettered the listed world best
while running in longer races. As for the marathon itself, a Kalenjin
claims history's second fastest time - 2 hours, 7 minutes, 2 seconds -
and Kalenjin runners have won the Boston Marathon, the world's oldest
and most remunerative road race, four times since 1988. In fact, at
last year's Centennial Boston Marathon, the richest road race in
history, Kalenjin runners took the first two places, three of the top
five, five of the top eight and 12 of the top 18.
But nowhere in road racing do Kalenjin achievements compare with the
record they have built up in the more exacting discipline of track.
Here we are talking about distances from 800 meters to 10,000 meters,
and success in these events is measured mainly in two ways: medals and
times. I will start with medals. First, Olympic medals. Kalenjin
distance runners have won 26, eight of them gold. The only meaningful
numbers to compare this to are medals won in men's distance events by
whole countries during approximately the same period. If we begin in
1964, the first Olympics to which Kenya sent more than a token
contingent, and if we exclude the two Olympics that Kenya boycotted -
1976 and 1980 - the nearest national total is the 10 medals won by the
U.S. Next, I am happy to tell you, is Britain, with eight. Fourth
place, seven medals, is a tie between Morocco and non- Kalenjin Kenya.
Here are the leading national totals, medals and gold medals. As you
can see, in the Olympics in which they have fully participated,
Kalenjin distance men have won nearly three times as many medals and
three times as many golds as rivals from any whole country.
MEDALS, MEN'S TRACK EVENTS 800m TO 10,000m
Olympic Games, 1964-96 (excluding boycotted Games of 1976 & 1980)
All Medals Gold
Kalenjin 26 8
USA 10 3
GB 8 1
Non-Kalenjin Kenya 7 4
Morocco 7 3
Germany (East & West) 6 1
Ethiopia 5 1
Finland 4 3
New Zealand 4 2
Tunisia 4 1
Until 1983, the Olympics were the only worldwide open competition in
track and field. But in that year the sport's governing body
introduced the Athletics World Championships, which provide
Olympic-level competition without the Olympics' political baggage.
Kenya has participated in each of the five World Championships so far,
and Kalenjin distance men have built a record much like the one they
have established in the Olympics: 17 medals and nine golds. The
countries that come closest are Germany (East plus West), with eight
medals and two golds, Morocco with seven medals and one gold, and
non-Kalenjin Kenya, with five and three.
If we concentrate on more recent worldwide competition - say, in the
last 10 years - the medal totals become altogether lopsided. In three
Olympics and three World Championships, Kalenjin distance runners have
won 31 medals and 12 golds in men's track events - 34% and 40%,
respectively, of the available totals. The nearest whole countries are
Morocco with 11 medals and Algeria with four golds (all won by
Noureddine Morceli), each total equal to about one-third that of the
single Kenyan tribe.
So much for medals. The other gauges of success on the track involve
recorded times. The most comprehensive of these are what are called
all-time lists, which set out in order the top performers in the whole
history of an event, strictly on the basis of their best recorded
times. As you might expect, Kalenjin runners are well represented.
Here are the number of Kalenjin appearing in the all-time lists for
the five Olympic distance events at three different levels_top 10, top
20 and top 50:
NUMBER OF KALENJIN IN MEN'S ALL-TIME LISTS
Event Number of Kalenjin
Top 10 Top 20 Top 50
800 2 7 13
1500 0 4 13
5,000 3 6 13
10,000 5 7 13
3,000 St. 9 13 20
19 / 50 37 / 100 72 / 250
38% 37% 29%
If we tally up these figures for all five events, we find that members
of the tribe make up 38% of the all-time top 10, 37% of the top 20 and
29% of the top 50. But even these numbers do not quite convey Kalenjin
runners' enormous recent impact . That shows up more clearly in annual
rankings from the last several years. These are also based solely on
recorded times. Here are the numbers of Kalenjin in the top 10 in the
five years from 1992 to '96:
NUMBER OF KALENJIN IN ANNUAL TOP TEN LISTS
Event 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996
800 4 5 4 5 5
1500 4 2 2 2 6
5,000 3 3 3 5 3
10,000 2 4 3 4 5
3,000 St. 7 4 6 9 9
20 18 18 25 28
40% 36% 36% 50% 56%
Another quick tally reveals that in the last five years Kalenjin
runners occupied 43.6% of the top ten spots in the five men's
endurance events. Take this together with their 38% of the top-ten
spots on the all-time lists for those events, and the 34% of all
Olympic and World Championship medals they have won in those events
since 1988. Then throw in their collection of world bests in road
racing and the incredible 50% of all men's medals that they have won
at the World Cross Country Championships since 1986, and you can boil
this down to the generalization I made at the beginning: in recent
years, of the biggest worldwide honors available in men's distance
running, Kalenjin runners have won something like 40%.
I contend that this record marks the greatest geographical
concentration of achievement in the annals of sport, and if we had
time I would welcome arguments to the contrary, but for now, let us
look at what makes these people so good. There has been a fair amount
of published speculation on this subject. I am going to look at a few
of these ideas, and then I am going to offer a couple of suggestions
of my own.
Altitude is most people's first thought, and with reason. 2,000 meter
elevations are common in Kalenjin country, and leading a vigorous
outdoor life in the thin air at such altitudes has been shown to help
create the high aerobic capacity that is vital to distance running
success. Every athletics fan has heard stories of runners' childhoods
in these highlands spent covering mile upon mile chasing cattle or -
to cite the contemporary chestnut - jogging back and forth to school.
The question is, why have these circumstances been so much more
helpful to the Kalenjin than to other high-altitude dwellers? Where
are the world-class athletes from Nepal, Peru and Lesotho? And what
about elsewhere in Kenya? A dozen tribes around the country lead
similar lives at comparable altitudes and have produced no notable
runners.
How about diet? When I first wrote about Kalenjin runners 20 years
ago, nutritional theories of the time ascribed benefits to the
relatively high proportion of protein in their diet (from cow's milk
and blood) compared with the diets of other African peoples. Actually,
by Western standards, Kalenjin protein intake was pretty low - lower
still among mess-fed soldiers and school boys, from whose ranks most
of the athletes come. These days, however, conventional dietary wisdom
touts "complex carbohydrates," and Kenyans' starchy fare has been
cited as a possible source of runners' strength in several recent TV
programs and articles in the consumer press. There is no question that
the Kalenjin do live on a starchy diet. But then so do most Third
World peoples. Starch, after all, is what subsistence farmers produce.
Material incentives are the time-honored explanation for ethnic
disproportion in professional sports - the classic examples in my
country being the succession of Irish, Italian, Black and Latino
boxers from the wrong side of the tracks. By this line of thinking,
the downtrodden groups' inordinate success results from hordes of boys
taking up boxing because they see it as an escape route from their
desperate poverty. The same reasoning is often applied to running in
Kenya today. The availability, first of U.S. college scholarships and
now prize money and appearance fees, has had a demonstrable effect in
boosting interest and participation throughout the country. But the
Kalenjin were turning out world-class runners long before such rewards
became available, and they continue to turn out three times as many as
the rest of Kenya's tribes combined, incentives or no incentives.
Clearly, none of these factors is a sufficient explanation for
Kalenjin success, but neither can they be dismissed out of hand.
Altitude by itself, for example, does not account for much. But when
you combine 2,000 meter elevations with equatorial latitudes, you get
an ideal climate for sustained outdoor activity - comfortably warm
days, cool nights, low humidity. That, together with altitude's
aerobic benefits, begins to show why Kenya's highlands as a whole are
an ideal home for distance running. And it is worth pointing out that
while about a quarter of Kenya's population lives in comparatively
sultry conditions at altitudes below 1,200 meters, every one of the
country's world class runners is a highlander.
Diet, too, has some significance, though I doubt if it has much to do
with complex carbohydrates. Rather, it is that, like most Kenyans, and
unlike many of the world's poor, the Kalenjin have enough to eat. The
simple fact that Western Kenya has a lot of excellent farm land and a
reliable food supply sets the country apart from many places that
might otherwise be breeding grounds for runners.
That brings me back to poverty, which is also an important factor, but
not quite in the clichéd sense of an oppressively grim environment
that drives young men to train maniacally as they dream of escape.
Rural western Kenya, where almost all the runners come from, is a far
cry from a teeming slum or a grimy coal field. It is a land of
beautiful green hills, not unlike Somerset or Wiltshire. And compared
with other African countries, Kenya is fairly well supplied with basic
necessities. Malnutrition is rare, infant mortality is among the
lowest in Africa, life expectancy and literacy among the highest. More
than 85% of all children attend at least a few years of primary
school. And the country has been able to support the institutions -
schools, uniformed services - that provide a fairly solid athletic
infrastructure. So Kenya is at least prosperous enough to provide
athletic opportunities.
Yet the people are poor, and unemployment is high. Kenya's per capita
Gross Domestic Product is about $1,200 a year, less than 1/20th the
figure of a prosperous Western country. This means that to the average
Kenyan, even the meager winnings brought in by most professional or
semi-professional runners look pretty lavish. The prospect of earning,
say, $10,000 a year as a second- or third-rank road racer is a
powerful incentive, and in view of the hundreds of Kenyans now making
that kind of money, not an unrealistic ambition. Someone who thinks he
has potential as a runner might quite reasonably devote a year or two
to intensive training in the hope of attracting the attention of an
agent and landing an invitation to a foreign road race or track meet.
Still, while there is something in each of these - altitude, diet,
poverty - that helps explain the phenomenon of Kenyan running as a
whole, none of them begins to account for the hugely disproportionate
success of the Kalenjin. For that, we have to look more closely at
circumstances unique to the tribe.
An obvious thought is that the Kalenjin might be endowed with some
sort of collective genetic gift. This is touchy stuff, of course, and
there is nothing like replicable scientific data to support the idea.
But the prima facie case for a genetic explanation makes some sense:
the Kalenjin marry mainly among themselves; they have lived for
centuries at altitudes of 2,000 meters or more; and, at least by
tradition, they spend their days chasing up and down hills after
livestock. So it is not unreasonable to suggest that over time some
sort of genetic adaptation has taken place that has turned out to be
helpful in competitive distance running.
This notion gets some flimsy support from the fact that linguistic
data link the Kalenjin to tribes elsewhere in East Africa that have
turned out a majority of their countries' world class runners: these
groups, all of them historically pastoral as opposed to agricultural,
include the Oromo in Ethiopia, the Iraqw and Barabaig in Tanzania and
the Tutsi in Burundi. There is a temptation to imagine a race of lean,
cattle-herding uebermenschen wandering up and down the Rift Valley.
What I find more intriguing, however, is the possibility that some of
these peoples' customs might have functioned indirectly as genetic
selection mechanisms favoring strong runners. I am thinking
specifically of the practice of cattle theft - euphemistically known
as cattle raiding. It was common to all these pastoral peoples, but in
Kenya, at least, the Kalenjin were it is foremost practitioners. Of
course they did not regard it as theft; they were merely repossessing
cattle that were theirs by divine right and happened to have fallen
into other hands. Never mind that those into whose hands the cattle
had fallen often felt the same way. Anyway, Kalenjin raids often
called for treks of more than 100 miles to capture livestock and drive
them home before their former owners could catch up. The better a
young man was at raiding _ in large part, a function of his speed and
endurance - the more cattle he accumulated. And since cattle were what
a prospective husband needed to pay for a bride, the more a young man
had, the more wives he could buy, and the more children he was likely
to father. It is not hard to imagine that such a reproductive
advantage might cause a significant shift in a group's genetic makeup
over the course of a few centuries.
Much as I enjoy this sort of speculation, however, a different kind of
data is needed to substantiate anything approaching a scientific
genetic theory, and so far none exists.The most rigorous work to date
has been done by the Swedish exercise physiologist Bengt Saltin, who
took a team of researchers to western Kenya in 1990 and conducted
elaborate treadmill tests and muscle biopsies on several dozen Kenyan
men, all of whom happened to be Kalenjin. He discovered unusual
features in his subjects' muscle tissue and response to physical
exertion, but he concluded that these were probably the result of the
Kenyans' lifetime of vigorous activity at altitude.
One of his findings does suggest the possibility that the Kalenjin
evince uncommon "trainability" - the capacity to increase aerobic
efficiency with training - and research by the Canadian geneticist
Claude Bouchard has shown this trait to be largely hereditary. Before
drawing any firm conclusions about Kalenjin gifts, however, further
studies would have to determine that trainability - or any other
heritable trait - was truly instrumental in distance running success
and that ordinary Kalenjin exhibit the trait to an unusual degree.
Without such evidence, notions of Kalenjin genetic superiority rest on
anecdotal data - and as you might imagine, there is an abundance of
that, some of it surprisingly persuasive. My favorite data of this
sort are a dozen brief "case studies" I have collected of Kalenjin
young men in their 20s who had never thought of themselves as runners
at all until they wound up in circumstances that more or less obliged
them to take up the sport. Most often this was because friends who
were runners helped them to secure American track scholarships under
false pretenses, and once on campus, the non-runners had to run in
order to stay. In each case, what happened when they started training
is quite remarkable. I will give one example.
Paul Rotich is the son of a prosperous Kalenjin farmer. The father
wanted his son to go to college in the U.S., and in 1988, when Paul
was 22, he was packed off to South Plains Junior College in Texas,
where there were several other Kalenjin already enrolled, all of them
on track scholarships. Rotich, however, went with no scholarship but
with $10,000 his father had managed to collect, a sum that should have
been plenty to pay his tuition, room and board for two years. By the
end of the first year, though, Paul found that he had spent $8,000,
and he realized he had to do something to get himself through the next
year. Under the circumstances, the first thing that came to mind was a
track scholarship. Trouble was, he had never run a race in his life,
and he was fat _ 85 kilos (13 and 1/2 stone) at a height of 1.73
meters (5 ft. 8 in.). He began training - running at night because he
was embarrassed to be seen lumbering around the track. In the autumn
he managed to make the cross-country team, and by the end of the
season he finished in the top 50 in the national junior college
championships. But that was just the beginning. He landed a track
scholarship - to nearby Lubbock Christian University - and over the
next two years he earned "All-American" honors 10 times in cross
country and various track events. When he went back to Kenya and told
his cousin what he had done, the cousin replied, "So, it is true. If
you can run, any Kalenjin can run."
It may be true, and if it is, it may be because of some as yet
unspecified genetic endowment. But even if the Kalenjin are blessed
with an innate physical gift, that does not account for their
astonishing record in major championships. To succeed in those
circumstances, an athlete must not only be able to run fast, but to
run fastest when it matters most. And in this, the ability to rise to
the occasion, to perform under pressure, the Kalenjin are supreme. I
have tried to quantify this ability by evaluating performances in the
most pressure-laden of all athletic events, the Olympic Games, and to
compare Kalenjin performances with those of their rivals in the
distance events. The aim was to rate performances not just in terms of
medals or finishing places but in comparison to each athlete's
pre-Olympic personal best. The base line, 0, was what I judged to be a
respectable but undistinguished Olympic performance: not getting a
medal, not reaching the final but coming close - within half a percent
- of the pre-Olympic PB. In the 1500 meters, that means within about a
second. I gave positive points for reaching the final, finishing in
the top eight and for winning medals, and also for improving a
personal best by various percentages, negative points for failing to
finish and for falling short of a personal best by various
percentages. Here is a summary of the scoring system:
PERFORMANCE UNDER PRESSURE _ Point System
Base line: 0 = <0.5% slower than pre-Olympic PB, not finalist, not
medalist.
Positive points:
+1 for reaching final +1 for PR by <1 %
+2 for reaching top eight +2 for PR by >1 % but <2 %...etc.
+3 for bronze +1 additional for PR in final
+4 for silver +1 additional for OR (no WRs in sample)
+6 for gold
Negative points for times slower than pre-Olympic PB by >0.5% (e.g. 1
for time >0.5% but <1% below PB; 2 for time >1 % but <2 % below PB,
etc.)
I evaluated every performance of every Kenyan in men's track events
from 800 m to 10,000 m, for every Olympics from 1964 to 1996, and I
did the same for the two countries with the next best records in terms
of medals, the U.S. and Britain. I paid special attention to first
Olympic appearances, figuring that's when the athletes felt the
greatest pressure. Here's a brief rundown of the aggregate scores:
USA _ aggregate score
107 for 82 men in 104 appearances in 7 OG
120 for 75 men in first OG appearances
Avg. per man: 1.30
Avg. per man _ first appearance: 1.60
Avg. per appearance 1.03
9 PBs; 7 PBs in finals
Great Britain - aggregate score
95 for 76 men in 92 appearances in 7 OG
76 for 67 men in their first OG appearances
Avg. per man: 1.25
Avg. per man _ first appearance: 1.13
Avg. per appearance 1.03
6 PBs; 5 PBs in finals
Non-Kalenjin Kenya _ aggregate score
+49 for 18 men in 24 appearances in 7 OG
+30 for 17 men in first OG appearances.
Avg. per man: +2.72
Avg. per man _ first appearance: +1.76
Avg. per appearance +2.04
9 PBs; 7 PBs in finals
Kalenjin
+175 for 41 men in 59 appearances in 7 OG
+122 for 41 men in first OG appearances.
Avg. per man: +4.27
Avg. per man _ first appearance: +2.98
Avg. per appearance +2.97
25 PBs; 15 PBs in finals
What accounts for this extraordinary difference? What is it that gives
seemingly every Kalenjin runner the ability to summon a supreme effort
when it matters most? We tend to think of such emotional strengths as
acquired rather than inherited, though of course there's the
possibility that cattle raiding or some other custom might have
conferred a reproductive advantage upon, say, individuals who stood
firm in crises, and that that faculty was somehow passed on. But I am
inclined to believe this ability is the result of conditioning - that
the tribe's austere warrior culture prepares young Kalenjin almost
from birth not to quail under pressure.
The most obvious and probably the most significant set of customs in
this regard is the series of escalating physical ordeals each child
undergoes while growing up, culminating in circumcision, which marks
initiation into adulthood. Circumcision is the central event in the
life of every Kalenjin youth, anticipated for years with dread, and
suffered with unblinking stoicism under the eyes of watchful elders,
who are ready to brand a boy a coward for life if he so much as
winces. It is not hard to see how this rite might help develop a
capacity to put up with pain, which, of course, is vital in running
long races.
But circumcision is far from unique to the Kalenjin. Dozens of
societies in Kenya and hundreds elsewhere in Africa use more or less
the same operation for more or less the same purpose; in many the rite
has much the same significance and is accompanied by comparable
community-wide commotion. For this reason, I was at first inclined to
look beyond circumcision for whatever it was in Kalenjin culture that
gave the runners their special strength. I changed my mind after going
to a couple of circumcision ceremonies. I do not have time now to give
a detailed account of what I saw, but when I compared it to what I was
able to glean about other initiation rites from standard ethnographies
and cross-cultural studies, I found what I think are significant
differences.
They are not in kind, but in degree. In general, the Kalenjin rite and
the long recovery period that follows are invested with greater
secrecy and solemnity, and with greater importance as a means of
inculcating standards of behavior. The operation itself is more
physically arduous and the sanctions for failure more severe
(flinching in fear or pain can result in what amounts to a kind of
permanent internal banishment). Perhaps most important is the
pervasive sense among adults, children and initiates that the traits
of character tested in the ritual - courage, endurance, determination,
restraint - are the ones the tribe values above all, and that to pass
the test is to affirm those values, to fail it is to betray them. Thus
as the initiates approach the predawn ceremony, they're quite
conscious of bearing the weight not only of their own fears and hopes
and those of their family and friends, but also those of the whole
community, the tribe and centuries of Kalenjin tradition. A boy who
stands up under that kind of pressure at 14 or 15 is unlikely at 25 to
be anything but invigorated by the comparatively benign tensions
accompanying an Olympic final. And if he was able as a boy to muster
the strength to endure the excruciating pain of circumcision, what
must he be able to do as a man when faced with nothing more than the
aches and fatigue of the closing laps of a tough race.
Now, as a final note, since this is a gathering of British sports
historians, I would like to bring up another possible reason for
Kalenjin success that has to do with a British colonial law
enforcement policy. I once had high hopes for this idea, but up to now
I have not had much luck finding evidence to support it. I have talked
about cattle raiding. In the early part of the century, it was endemic
in Western Kenya, and the colonial administration went to some lengths
to stamp it out. Because the Kalenjin were the most frequent
offenders, they got more than their share of attention from the
British in this regard. Raiders who were caught were jailed, and
prisoners were sent out as laborers on public works projects; among
these were the leveling and marking out of running tracks. Thus
rustling and running seemed to be connected in an odd kind of
symbiosis. This connection was confirmed in a letter I have from a
former colonial officer - now dead - who recalled a campaign he
conducted in one part of Kalenjin territory in the 1930s, promoting
athletics as a surrogate for cattle raiding with a slogan that
translates roughly as, "Show your valor in sports and games, not in
war."
So it seemed that the Kalenjin fondness for raiding earned them an
extra push from the colonial administration to take up racing instead.
But try as I may, I haven't been able to find any evidence in colonial
records that my correspondent's approach was ever applied throughout
Kalenjin country. There are lots of references to Kalenjin cattle
raiding, some with a detectable note of admiration, but none that
mention the promotion of sport as a surrogate. I have looked through
some of the literature on sport as a mechanism of social control, and
there's certainly evidence that it was used this way among another
Kenyan tribe, the Kikuyu, after the Mau Mau rebellion in the '50s. But
I have found nothing about the Kalenjin. I have even looked at the
encouragement of cricket as a surrogate for ritual warfare among
Trobriand Islanders to see if I could in some way argue that this sort
of thing was a common policy throughout the Empire. But that argument
seemed a little thin. And in any event, if athletics was encouraged
disproportionately among the Kalenjin in the '30s, the effects of the
policy were long delayed: Kalenjin names do not start turning up with
any frequency on the rolls of national champions until after World War
II, when the tribe began to join the mainstream of rapidly
Westernizing Kenya. Still, I am eager to pursue this idea further if
anyone here can suggest sources that I may have overlooked on colonial
law enforcement or the use of sport as a means of social control.
Mail Thread Index
... Possible follow-up(s)> t-and-f: Runner's World On-Air, Steve
Sievert. t-and-f: Creatine ... Marathon,
Peter Larsson; t-and-f: altitude record for Rotich, GHTFNedit: ...
http://wso.williams.edu/listserv/tfselect/Jun198-Jun1598/threads.html
More Results From: wso.williams.edu
Kenya's Running Tribe
... ambition. Someone who thinks he has potential as a runner might
quite reasonably
devote a year or two to ... Paul Rotich is the son of a prosperous
Kalenjin farmer ...
http://www.umist.ac.uk/sport/2_art2.htm
Top American Marks Posted at Tyson Invitational
... Laban Rotich of Kenya ran the fastest time in the world this year
... hard. Last year
was my first year running as an elite runner, I feel like I have more
speed.". ...
http://www.usatf.org/news/release20010210.shtml
tamaraton - resultatbørs
... 2) Abel Gisema, Kenya 2.11.01, 3) Benjamin Rotich, Kenya 1.11.56,
4) Artur Osman,
Polen 2.11 ... 2.26.17, 5) Madina Biktagirova, Russland 2.26.33.
Runner's World. ...
http://www.maratonservice.net/resultat/resultat00.htm
Out of Africa
... such as Isaiah Sanga, Vincent Kemboi, Michael Rotich, Peter
Kipkoskei Bett, Tuddah
Tallam, Isaac Kirwa ... Who is the best runner in the camp? Sanga,
Kiyenny and ...
http://web.duluthnews.com/content/duluth/2001/06/11/marathon/du_KENYA0611.htm
Trackwire Online
... Jenny Adams produced a personal best 12.67 as a runner-up in the
first heat while
Gail Devers claimed ... clocking a 3:40.57 to knock out Kenya's Laban
Rotich. ...
http://www.trackwire.com/2001worlds/wc8101.html
UTEP Athletics: News
... Ibrahim, who finished 10th in the 238 runner field. Ibrahim ran
the 10k race in ... Shadrack
Kimeli, KSU, 30:21; 8. Jacob Rotich, Harding, 30:21; 9. Jason Sandfort
...
http://www.utepathletics.com/news/archive/101301tf1.htm
allAfrica.com: Meet the Kenyan University Student Athlete ...
... team and with William Chirchir and Laban Rotich, we are going to
give a good account
of ourselves.". An economical runner, Lagat competed in Europe in only
...
http://allafrica.com/stories/200108060014.html
More Results From: allafrica.com
DyeStat
... 3000 meters - El Gherrouj, Ngeny, Lagat, Rotich, Chirchir battle
in mens 1500 -
TV ... from Arroyo San Lorenzo CA. Young runner is
Portuguese-Irish-Japanese, and ...
http://www.dyestat.com/priorpage1/page1-0108017.htm
SportServer.com - Kenya names just 23 to world championships ...
... William Chirchir, and Reuben Koskei finished runner-up to world
record-holder Bernard ... 1,500:
William Chirchir, Laban Rotich, Noah Ngeny. 5,000: Richard Limo ...
http://www.sportserver.com/track_field/story/31695p-535974c.html
RunMichigan.com - New Mile World Record 7/7/99
... Michigan Don McLaughlin, his girlfriend and Michigan runner
Michelle Slater, and
former Pioneer standout and ... s ESP 3:51.15 8 5 Rotich Laban KEN
3:51.66 7 6 Sa ...
http://www.runmichigan.com/news/99/sullivan7799.html
More Results From: www.runmichigan.com
lee_news
... spare over another former Providence College runner Michael
Donnelly when he posted
a ... of 3:58.10, behind winner Laban Rotich, Kenya, in the Wannamaker
Mile at ...
http://www.leevale.org/lee_news98.htm
More Results From: www.leevale.org
http://www.ncaa.org/news/1980/19801130.pdf
... second in the team Oregon, last year's runner-up and four-time
race, only five ... son-Teaneck,
29:08.4; 4. James Rotich. Texas-El Central Missouri State, 30.33; 6
...
http://www.ncaa.org/news/1980/19801130.pdf
More Results From: www.ncaa.org
American Track and Field -- Regional News Article
... McMullen of the US, Graham Hood of Canada, Laban Rotich of Kenya .
The pack hit the
400 meters ...
http://www.american-trackandfield.com/news/WCD7Up1.html
More Results From: www.american-trackandfield.com
Hello All
... was the hardest on paper. El Guerrouj, Rotich (KEN), Kaouch (MOR),
and others were
likely ... summer. Nick Rodgers is not the runner he was last year and
finished ...
http://www.barn.to/Chatham%20Edmonton%20II.htm
BGSU Men's Cross Country Results
... Windsor)....30:41.36 24-Unidentified runner.....30:59.49 25-Greg
Achroyd ... State University 26:44.30 25 26 Rotich, Mark 3 Malone
College 26 ...
http://www.bgsu.edu/offices/athletics/mccountry/results.html
More Results From: www.bgsu.edu
National Geographic Magazine @ nationalgeographic.com
... Dawn overtakes Kenyan runner Philip Rotich as he stretches before
a workout 8,000
feet (2,438 meters) high above his country’s Rift Valley.
Training at high ...
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0009/feature5/zoom1.html
17th ANNUAL BERWYN 5000 RUN
... 340 FINAL REPORT FOR: MALE RUNNERS - AGE GROUP 20 - 24 Runner name
Sex Age City State
Time Overall/Sex Place 1 ROTICH JULIUS M 22 COLUMBIA KY 0:14:37.5 2 /
2 2 ...
http://www.drkomputing.com/results/berwyn99.htm
KENYA'S RUNNING TRIBE
John Manners
Mountclair, New Jersey
This article is about a tribe in Kenya that has a remarkable faculty
for turning out world class distance runners. The people are called
the Kalenjin. They occupy an area about the size of Wales and they
number something under 3 million, or about 10 % of Kenya's population.
But this group has earned about 75% of Kenya's distance running
honors. That number is impressive enough, in view of the degree to
which Kenya now dominates the sport, but looked at another way, the
figures are even more remarkable: over the past 10 years, athletes
from this small tribe have won close to 40% of all the biggest
international honors available in men's distance running.
Most of this article will be a discussion of various notions that have
been advanced to account for this phenomenon, but before going into
that I want to throw out a few more numbers to show what I mean by
that 40% figure. First, I want to make it clear that I am talking
about men's distance running. Kalenjin women - African women in
general - have lagged behind their male counterparts for reasons I am
afraid I will not have time to get into.
Now, the Kalenjin excel in varying degrees in all three of distance
running's disciplines: cross country, road racing and track. I will
take them one at a time, starting with cross country.
Three weeks ago, the annual World Cross Country Championships were
held in Turin. I do not know how much coverage the press here gave the
event, but from an international perspective, the World Cross Country
Championships are a big deal. In fact, it is often said that the men's
championship is the toughest of all foot races to win because it
attracts the world's best at distances from the mile to the marathon,
and each country can enter not just three runners, but nine. In this
year's men's race there were 280 competitors from 60 different
countries, most of them hoping somehow to upset the Kenyan juggernaut,
but in the end, out of those 280 runners, five of the first seven to
finish were Kenyans - and four of those five were Kalenjin.
Remarkable as it may seem, this result is fairly typical. Since 1986,
when Kenya began taking these championships seriously, the country has
yet to lose the men's team race. And Kalenjin athletes have made up
fully three-quarters of the scoring runners on those 12 winning Kenyan
teams. In fact, in eight of the 12 winning years, if only the Kalenjin
runners had competed, they would still have taken the team title. What
is more, of the 36 individual medals awarded in the men's competition
in those 12 years, Kalenjin runners have won 18, precisely half the
total.
In road racing, Kalenjin participation has been comparatively limited
until recent years, but they have had a perceptible impact at the top
- the unofficial "world best" times for the standard road race
distances. Kalenjin men own the world bests at five of the eight
commonly run distances shorter than the marathon, and in two of the
remaining three, Kalenjin runners have bettered the listed world best
while running in longer races. As for the marathon itself, a Kalenjin
claims history's second fastest time - 2 hours, 7 minutes, 2 seconds -
and Kalenjin runners have won the Boston Marathon, the world's oldest
and most remunerative road race, four times since 1988. In fact, at
last year's Centennial Boston Marathon, the richest road race in
history, Kalenjin runners took the first two places, three of the top
five, five of the top eight and 12 of the top 18.
But nowhere in road racing do Kalenjin achievements compare with the
record they have built up in the more exacting discipline of track.
Here we are talking about distances from 800 meters to 10,000 meters,
and success in these events is measured mainly in two ways: medals and
times. I will start with medals. First, Olympic medals. Kalenjin
distance runners have won 26, eight of them gold. The only meaningful
numbers to compare this to are medals won in men's distance events by
whole countries during approximately the same period. If we begin in
1964, the first Olympics to which Kenya sent more than a token
contingent, and if we exclude the two Olympics that Kenya boycotted -
1976 and 1980 - the nearest national total is the 10 medals won by the
U.S. Next, I am happy to tell you, is Britain, with eight. Fourth
place, seven medals, is a tie between Morocco and non- Kalenjin Kenya.
Here are the leading national totals, medals and gold medals. As you
can see, in the Olympics in which they have fully participated,
Kalenjin distance men have won nearly three times as many medals and
three times as many golds as rivals from any whole country.
MEDALS, MEN'S TRACK EVENTS 800m TO 10,000m
Olympic Games, 1964-96 (excluding boycotted Games of 1976 & 1980)
All Medals Gold
Kalenjin 26 8
USA 10 3
GB 8 1
Non-Kalenjin Kenya 7 4
Morocco 7 3
Germany (East & West) 6 1
Ethiopia 5 1
Finland 4 3
New Zealand 4 2
Tunisia 4 1
Until 1983, the Olympics were the only worldwide open competition in
track and field. But in that year the sport's governing body
introduced the Athletics World Championships, which provide
Olympic-level competition without the Olympics' political baggage.
Kenya has participated in each of the five World Championships so far,
and Kalenjin distance men have built a record much like the one they
have established in the Olympics: 17 medals and nine golds. The
countries that come closest are Germany (East plus West), with eight
medals and two golds, Morocco with seven medals and one gold, and
non-Kalenjin Kenya, with five and three.
If we concentrate on more recent worldwide competition - say, in the
last 10 years - the medal totals become altogether lopsided. In three
Olympics and three World Championships, Kalenjin distance runners have
won 31 medals and 12 golds in men's track events - 34% and 40%,
respectively, of the available totals. The nearest whole countries are
Morocco with 11 medals and Algeria with four golds (all won by
Noureddine Morceli), each total equal to about one-third that of the
single Kenyan tribe.
So much for medals. The other gauges of success on the track involve
recorded times. The most comprehensive of these are what are called
all-time lists, which set out in order the top performers in the whole
history of an event, strictly on the basis of their best recorded
times. As you might expect, Kalenjin runners are well represented.
Here are the number of Kalenjin appearing in the all-time lists for
the five Olympic distance events at three different levels_top 10, top
20 and top 50:
NUMBER OF KALENJIN IN MEN'S ALL-TIME LISTS
Event Number of Kalenjin
Top 10 Top 20 Top 50
800 2 7 13
1500 0 4 13
5,000 3 6 13
10,000 5 7 13
3,000 St. 9 13 20
19 / 50 37 / 100 72 / 250
38% 37% 29%
If we tally up these figures for all five events, we find that members
of the tribe make up 38% of the all-time top 10, 37% of the top 20 and
29% of the top 50. But even these numbers do not quite convey Kalenjin
runners' enormous recent impact . That shows up more clearly in annual
rankings from the last several years. These are also based solely on
recorded times. Here are the numbers of Kalenjin in the top 10 in the
five years from 1992 to '96:
NUMBER OF KALENJIN IN ANNUAL TOP TEN LISTS
Event 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996
800 4 5 4 5 5
1500 4 2 2 2 6
5,000 3 3 3 5 3
10,000 2 4 3 4 5
3,000 St. 7 4 6 9 9
20 18 18 25 28
40% 36% 36% 50% 56%
Another quick tally reveals that in the last five years Kalenjin
runners occupied 43.6% of the top ten spots in the five men's
endurance events. Take this together with their 38% of the top-ten
spots on the all-time lists for those events, and the 34% of all
Olympic and World Championship medals they have won in those events
since 1988. Then throw in their collection of world bests in road
racing and the incredible 50% of all men's medals that they have won
at the World Cross Country Championships since 1986, and you can boil
this down to the generalization I made at the beginning: in recent
years, of the biggest worldwide honors available in men's distance
running, Kalenjin runners have won something like 40%.
I contend that this record marks the greatest geographical
concentration of achievement in the annals of sport, and if we had
time I would welcome arguments to the contrary, but for now, let us
look at what makes these people so good. There has been a fair amount
of published speculation on this subject. I am going to look at a few
of these ideas, and then I am going to offer a couple of suggestions
of my own.
Altitude is most people's first thought, and with reason. 2,000 meter
elevations are common in Kalenjin country, and leading a vigorous
outdoor life in the thin air at such altitudes has been shown to help
create the high aerobic capacity that is vital to distance running
success. Every athletics fan has heard stories of runners' childhoods
in these highlands spent covering mile upon mile chasing cattle or -
to cite the contemporary chestnut - jogging back and forth to school.
The question is, why have these circumstances been so much more
helpful to the Kalenjin than to other high-altitude dwellers? Where
are the world-class athletes from Nepal, Peru and Lesotho? And what
about elsewhere in Kenya? A dozen tribes around the country lead
similar lives at comparable altitudes and have produced no notable
runners.
How about diet? When I first wrote about Kalenjin runners 20 years
ago, nutritional theories of the time ascribed benefits to the
relatively high proportion of protein in their diet (from cow's milk
and blood) compared with the diets of other African peoples. Actually,
by Western standards, Kalenjin protein intake was pretty low - lower
still among mess-fed soldiers and school boys, from whose ranks most
of the athletes come. These days, however, conventional dietary wisdom
touts "complex carbohydrates," and Kenyans' starchy fare has been
cited as a possible source of runners' strength in several recent TV
programs and articles in the consumer press. There is no question that
the Kalenjin do live on a starchy diet. But then so do most Third
World peoples. Starch, after all, is what subsistence farmers produce.
Material incentives are the time-honored explanation for ethnic
disproportion in professional sports - the classic examples in my
country being the succession of Irish, Italian, Black and Latino
boxers from the wrong side of the tracks. By this line of thinking,
the downtrodden groups' inordinate success results from hordes of boys
taking up boxing because they see it as an escape route from their
desperate poverty. The same reasoning is often applied to running in
Kenya today. The availability, first of U.S. college scholarships and
now prize money and appearance fees, has had a demonstrable effect in
boosting interest and participation throughout the country. But the
Kalenjin were turning out world-class runners long before such rewards
became available, and they continue to turn out three times as many as
the rest of Kenya's tribes combined, incentives or no incentives.
Clearly, none of these factors is a sufficient explanation for
Kalenjin success, but neither can they be dismissed out of hand.
Altitude by itself, for example, does not account for much. But when
you combine 2,000 meter elevations with equatorial latitudes, you get
an ideal climate for sustained outdoor activity - comfortably warm
days, cool nights, low humidity. That, together with altitude's
aerobic benefits, begins to show why Kenya's highlands as a whole are
an ideal home for distance running. And it is worth pointing out that
while about a quarter of Kenya's population lives in comparatively
sultry conditions at altitudes below 1,200 meters, every one of the
country's world class runners is a highlander.
Diet, too, has some significance, though I doubt if it has much to do
with complex carbohydrates. Rather, it is that, like most Kenyans, and
unlike many of the world's poor, the Kalenjin have enough to eat. The
simple fact that Western Kenya has a lot of excellent farm land and a
reliable food supply sets the country apart from many places that
might otherwise be breeding grounds for runners.
That brings me back to poverty, which is also an important factor, but
not quite in the clichéd sense of an oppressively grim environment
that drives young men to train maniacally as they dream of escape.
Rural western Kenya, where almost all the runners come from, is a far
cry from a teeming slum or a grimy coal field. It is a land of
beautiful green hills, not unlike Somerset or Wiltshire. And compared
with other African countries, Kenya is fairly well supplied with basic
necessities. Malnutrition is rare, infant mortality is among the
lowest in Africa, life expectancy and literacy among the highest. More
than 85% of all children attend at least a few years of primary
school. And the country has been able to support the institutions -
schools, uniformed services - that provide a fairly solid athletic
infrastructure. So Kenya is at least prosperous enough to provide
athletic opportunities.
Yet the people are poor, and unemployment is high. Kenya's per capita
Gross Domestic Product is about $1,200 a year, less than 1/20th the
figure of a prosperous Western country. This means that to the average
Kenyan, even the meager winnings brought in by most professional or
semi-professional runners look pretty lavish. The prospect of earning,
say, $10,000 a year as a second- or third-rank road racer is a
powerful incentive, and in view of the hundreds of Kenyans now making
that kind of money, not an unrealistic ambition. Someone who thinks he
has potential as a runner might quite reasonably devote a year or two
to intensive training in the hope of attracting the attention of an
agent and landing an invitation to a foreign road race or track meet.
Still, while there is something in each of these - altitude, diet,
poverty - that helps explain the phenomenon of Kenyan running as a
whole, none of them begins to account for the hugely disproportionate
success of the Kalenjin. For that, we have to look more closely at
circumstances unique to the tribe.
An obvious thought is that the Kalenjin might be endowed with some
sort of collective genetic gift. This is touchy stuff, of course, and
there is nothing like replicable scientific data to support the idea.
But the prima facie case for a genetic explanation makes some sense:
the Kalenjin marry mainly among themselves; they have lived for
centuries at altitudes of 2,000 meters or more; and, at least by
tradition, they spend their days chasing up and down hills after
livestock. So it is not unreasonable to suggest that over time some
sort of genetic adaptation has taken place that has turned out to be
helpful in competitive distance running.
This notion gets some flimsy support from the fact that linguistic
data link the Kalenjin to tribes elsewhere in East Africa that have
turned out a majority of their countries' world class runners: these
groups, all of them historically pastoral as opposed to agricultural,
include the Oromo in Ethiopia, the Iraqw and Barabaig in Tanzania and
the Tutsi in Burundi. There is a temptation to imagine a race of lean,
cattle-herding uebermenschen wandering up and down the Rift Valley.
What I find more intriguing, however, is the possibility that some of
these peoples' customs might have functioned indirectly as genetic
selection mechanisms favoring strong runners. I am thinking
specifically of the practice of cattle theft - euphemistically known
as cattle raiding. It was common to all these pastoral peoples, but in
Kenya, at least, the Kalenjin were it is foremost practitioners. Of
course they did not regard it as theft; they were merely repossessing
cattle that were theirs by divine right and happened to have fallen
into other hands. Never mind that those into whose hands the cattle
had fallen often felt the same way. Anyway, Kalenjin raids often
called for treks of more than 100 miles to capture livestock and drive
them home before their former owners could catch up. The better a
young man was at raiding _ in large part, a function of his speed and
endurance - the more cattle he accumulated. And since cattle were what
a prospective husband needed to pay for a bride, the more a young man
had, the more wives he could buy, and the more children he was likely
to father. It is not hard to imagine that such a reproductive
advantage might cause a significant shift in a group's genetic makeup
over the course of a few centuries.
Much as I enjoy this sort of speculation, however, a different kind of
data is needed to substantiate anything approaching a scientific
genetic theory, and so far none exists.The most rigorous work to date
has been done by the Swedish exercise physiologist Bengt Saltin, who
took a team of researchers to western Kenya in 1990 and conducted
elaborate treadmill tests and muscle biopsies on several dozen Kenyan
men, all of whom happened to be Kalenjin. He discovered unusual
features in his subjects' muscle tissue and response to physical
exertion, but he concluded that these were probably the result of the
Kenyans' lifetime of vigorous activity at altitude.
One of his findings does suggest the possibility that the Kalenjin
evince uncommon "trainability" - the capacity to increase aerobic
efficiency with training - and research by the Canadian geneticist
Claude Bouchard has shown this trait to be largely hereditary. Before
drawing any firm conclusions about Kalenjin gifts, however, further
studies would have to determine that trainability - or any other
heritable trait - was truly instrumental in distance running success
and that ordinary Kalenjin exhibit the trait to an unusual degree.
Without such evidence, notions of Kalenjin genetic superiority rest on
anecdotal data - and as you might imagine, there is an abundance of
that, some of it surprisingly persuasive. My favorite data of this
sort are a dozen brief "case studies" I have collected of Kalenjin
young men in their 20s who had never thought of themselves as runners
at all until they wound up in circumstances that more or less obliged
them to take up the sport. Most often this was because friends who
were runners helped them to secure American track scholarships under
false pretenses, and once on campus, the non-runners had to run in
order to stay. In each case, what happened when they started training
is quite remarkable. I will give one example.
Paul Rotich is the son of a prosperous Kalenjin farmer. The father
wanted his son to go to college in the U.S., and in 1988, when Paul
was 22, he was packed off to South Plains Junior College in Texas,
where there were several other Kalenjin already enrolled, all of them
on track scholarships. Rotich, however, went with no scholarship but
with $10,000 his father had managed to collect, a sum that should have
been plenty to pay his tuition, room and board for two years. By the
end of the first year, though, Paul found that he had spent $8,000,
and he realized he had to do something to get himself through the next
year. Under the circumstances, the first thing that came to mind was a
track scholarship. Trouble was, he had never run a race in his life,
and he was fat _ 85 kilos (13 and 1/2 stone) at a height of 1.73
meters (5 ft. 8 in.). He began training - running at night because he
was embarrassed to be seen lumbering around the track. In the autumn
he managed to make the cross-country team, and by the end of the
season he finished in the top 50 in the national junior college
championships. But that was just the beginning. He landed a track
scholarship - to nearby Lubbock Christian University - and over the
next two years he earned "All-American" honors 10 times in cross
country and various track events. When he went back to Kenya and told
his cousin what he had done, the cousin replied, "So, it is true. If
you can run, any Kalenjin can run."
It may be true, and if it is, it may be because of some as yet
unspecified genetic endowment. But even if the Kalenjin are blessed
with an innate physical gift, that does not account for their
astonishing record in major championships. To succeed in those
circumstances, an athlete must not only be able to run fast, but to
run fastest when it matters most. And in this, the ability to rise to
the occasion, to perform under pressure, the Kalenjin are supreme. I
have tried to quantify this ability by evaluating performances in the
most pressure-laden of all athletic events, the Olympic Games, and to
compare Kalenjin performances with those of their rivals in the
distance events. The aim was to rate performances not just in terms of
medals or finishing places but in comparison to each athlete's
pre-Olympic personal best. The base line, 0, was what I judged to be a
respectable but undistinguished Olympic performance: not getting a
medal, not reaching the final but coming close - within half a percent
- of the pre-Olympic PB. In the 1500 meters, that means within about a
second. I gave positive points for reaching the final, finishing in
the top eight and for winning medals, and also for improving a
personal best by various percentages, negative points for failing to
finish and for falling short of a personal best by various
percentages. Here is a summary of the scoring system:
PERFORMANCE UNDER PRESSURE _ Point System
Base line: 0 = <0.5% slower than pre-Olympic PB, not finalist, not
medalist.
Positive points:
+1 for reaching final +1 for PR by <1 %
+2 for reaching top eight +2 for PR by >1 % but <2 %...etc.
+3 for bronze +1 additional for PR in final
+4 for silver +1 additional for OR (no WRs in sample)
+6 for gold
Negative points for times slower than pre-Olympic PB by >0.5% (e.g. 1
for time >0.5% but <1% below PB; 2 for time >1 % but <2 % below PB,
etc.)
I evaluated every performance of every Kenyan in men's track events
from 800 m to 10,000 m, for every Olympics from 1964 to 1996, and I
did the same for the two countries with the next best records in terms
of medals, the U.S. and Britain. I paid special attention to first
Olympic appearances, figuring that's when the athletes felt the
greatest pressure. Here's a brief rundown of the aggregate scores:
USA _ aggregate score
107 for 82 men in 104 appearances in 7 OG
120 for 75 men in first OG appearances
Avg. per man: 1.30
Avg. per man _ first appearance: 1.60
Avg. per appearance 1.03
9 PBs; 7 PBs in finals
Great Britain - aggregate score
95 for 76 men in 92 appearances in 7 OG
76 for 67 men in their first OG appearances
Avg. per man: 1.25
Avg. per man _ first appearance: 1.13
Avg. per appearance 1.03
6 PBs; 5 PBs in finals
Non-Kalenjin Kenya _ aggregate score
+49 for 18 men in 24 appearances in 7 OG
+30 for 17 men in first OG appearances.
Avg. per man: +2.72
Avg. per man _ first appearance: +1.76
Avg. per appearance +2.04
9 PBs; 7 PBs in finals
Kalenjin
+175 for 41 men in 59 appearances in 7 OG
+122 for 41 men in first OG appearances.
Avg. per man: +4.27
Avg. per man _ first appearance: +2.98
Avg. per appearance +2.97
25 PBs; 15 PBs in finals
What accounts for this extraordinary difference? What is it that gives
seemingly every Kalenjin runner the ability to summon a supreme effort
when it matters most? We tend to think of such emotional strengths as
acquired rather than inherited, though of course there's the
possibility that cattle raiding or some other custom might have
conferred a reproductive advantage upon, say, individuals who stood
firm in crises, and that that faculty was somehow passed on. But I am
inclined to believe this ability is the result of conditioning - that
the tribe's austere warrior culture prepares young Kalenjin almost
from birth not to quail under pressure.
The most obvious and probably the most significant set of customs in
this regard is the series of escalating physical ordeals each child
undergoes while growing up, culminating in circumcision, which marks
initiation into adulthood. Circumcision is the central event in the
life of every Kalenjin youth, anticipated for years with dread, and
suffered with unblinking stoicism under the eyes of watchful elders,
who are ready to brand a boy a coward for life if he so much as
winces. It is not hard to see how this rite might help develop a
capacity to put up with pain, which, of course, is vital in running
long races.
But circumcision is far from unique to the Kalenjin. Dozens of
societies in Kenya and hundreds elsewhere in Africa use more or less
the same operation for more or less the same purpose; in many the rite
has much the same significance and is accompanied by comparable
community-wide commotion. For this reason, I was at first inclined to
look beyond circumcision for whatever it was in Kalenjin culture that
gave the runners their special strength. I changed my mind after going
to a couple of circumcision ceremonies. I do not have time now to give
a detailed account of what I saw, but when I compared it to what I was
able to glean about other initiation rites from standard ethnographies
and cross-cultural studies, I found what I think are significant
differences.
They are not in kind, but in degree. In general, the Kalenjin rite and
the long recovery period that follows are invested with greater
secrecy and solemnity, and with greater importance as a means of
inculcating standards of behavior. The operation itself is more
physically arduous and the sanctions for failure more severe
(flinching in fear or pain can result in what amounts to a kind of
permanent internal banishment). Perhaps most important is the
pervasive sense among adults, children and initiates that the traits
of character tested in the ritual - courage, endurance, determination,
restraint - are the ones the tribe values above all, and that to pass
the test is to affirm those values, to fail it is to betray them. Thus
as the initiates approach the predawn ceremony, they're quite
conscious of bearing the weight not only of their own fears and hopes
and those of their family and friends, but also those of the whole
community, the tribe and centuries of Kalenjin tradition. A boy who
stands up under that kind of pressure at 14 or 15 is unlikely at 25 to
be anything but invigorated by the comparatively benign tensions
accompanying an Olympic final. And if he was able as a boy to muster
the strength to endure the excruciating pain of circumcision, what
must he be able to do as a man when faced with nothing more than the
aches and fatigue of the closing laps of a tough race.
Now, as a final note, since this is a gathering of British sports
historians, I would like to bring up another possible reason for
Kalenjin success that has to do with a British colonial law
enforcement policy. I once had high hopes for this idea, but up to now
I have not had much luck finding evidence to support it. I have talked
about cattle raiding. In the early part of the century, it was endemic
in Western Kenya, and the colonial administration went to some lengths
to stamp it out. Because the Kalenjin were the most frequent
offenders, they got more than their share of attention from the
British in this regard. Raiders who were caught were jailed, and
prisoners were sent out as laborers on public works projects; among
these were the leveling and marking out of running tracks. Thus
rustling and running seemed to be connected in an odd kind of
symbiosis. This connection was confirmed in a letter I have from a
former colonial officer - now dead - who recalled a campaign he
conducted in one part of Kalenjin territory in the 1930s, promoting
athletics as a surrogate for cattle raiding with a slogan that
translates roughly as, "Show your valor in sports and games, not in
war."
So it seemed that the Kalenjin fondness for raiding earned them an
extra push from the colonial administration to take up racing instead.
But try as I may, I haven't been able to find any evidence in colonial
records that my correspondent's approach was ever applied throughout
Kalenjin country. There are lots of references to Kalenjin cattle
raiding, some with a detectable note of admiration, but none that
mention the promotion of sport as a surrogate. I have looked through
some of the literature on sport as a mechanism of social control, and
there's certainly evidence that it was used this way among another
Kenyan tribe, the Kikuyu, after the Mau Mau rebellion in the '50s. But
I have found nothing about the Kalenjin. I have even looked at the
encouragement of cricket as a surrogate for ritual warfare among
Trobriand Islanders to see if I could in some way argue that this sort
of thing was a common policy throughout the Empire. But that argument
seemed a little thin. And in any event, if athletics was encouraged
disproportionately among the Kalenjin in the '30s, the effects of the
policy were long delayed: Kalenjin names do not start turning up with
any frequency on the rolls of national champions until after World War
II, when the tribe began to join the mainstream of rapidly
Westernizing Kenya. Still, I am eager to pursue this idea further if
anyone here can suggest sources that I may have overlooked on colonial
law enforcement or the use of sport as a means of social control.
26th Annual Charleston Distance 15 Mile & 5K Run
... a time of 1:14:24. Julius Rotich from Cambellsville, KY came in
third with a ... ended
in defeat for the Mountaineers. One runner sporting an Ohio State
shirt was ...
http://www.iplayoutside.com/Events/1998/09/0106c.html
Price stays away from predictions
... 000 meters - marking the sixth consecutive season an LCU runner
has won the event
at the national outdoor ... Willy Rotich and Simon Kipkemboi didn't
post national ...
http://www.lubbockonline.com/news/052197/price.htm
phill...@yahoo.com (phill shaffe) wrote in message news:<f2d73b7d.0110...@posting.google.com>...
STATE RECORDS
... in New Mexico, regardless of where the runner lives. Due to
technical/clerical
glitches in ... RICHARD Child5K97 36 M 0 15 43 ROTICH SAMMY Nob5K94 37
M 0 16 06 ...
http://www.tgrande.com/recmen5k.htm
More Results From: www.tgrande.com
Sport
... Gebrselassie 1500 m med 3.31.76, rett foran Laban Rotich på
3.32.11, begge svært
sterke tider. På ... han fortjener. Les mer om denne saken her:
Runner's world. ...
http://www.hatleberg.sib.hl.no/home/lronningen/sport.html
Run Fasta - Eat Pasta: Here We Go Again
... 14:43, Eliasa Tanui 14:44, Julius Rotich 14:46 25-29: Rich Tremain
14 ... You can contact
us at info@michigan runner.com Copyright© Great Lakes Sports
Publications ...
http://www.michiganrunner.com/0899/runfasta.html
THE HINDU ONLINE : Thursday, September 03, 1998 Sport ...
... Noah Ngeny of Kenya was a distant second in 3.33.54 and another
Kenyan runner, Laban Rotich, was third in 3:33.81. ...
http://www.webpage.com/hindu/daily/980903/07/07030115.htm
Jason's Infoteria - Press Links
... Globen Galan Men, 1500 meters - 1. Laban Rotich, KEN, 3:33.99; 2.
Venuste Niyongabo ... seconds
per round and nearly lapped runner-up Canadian Jason Bunston who ran
...
http://webhome.idirect.com/~jbunston/press.html
Copacabana Runners - O espaço dos corredores
... Fontes : Runner's World & IAAF. A organização da prova ofereceu
... 2:23.52. A prova
foi vencida pelo queniano Laban Rotich em 2:20.96. Fonte : The
Athletics Site. ...
http://www.copacabanarunners.net/2001-02-18.html
http://home.rmi.net/~woodyg3/Olys.text
----- RUNNER'S NICHE ----- Vol. 1 No. 5(A) August, 1996 ... 3. Stephen
Kipkorir - Kenya 3:36.72 4. Laban Rotich - Kenya 3:37.39 5. Willian
Tanui 3 ...
http://home.rmi.net/~woodyg3/Olys.text
Memphis Track Posts Strong Performances at Big Cat Classic : ...
... the 200, where Gibson finished as a runner-up, and the 100-meter
hurdles. ... Doran Giat,
Unattached, 15:06.46 5. Jacob Rotich, Harding, 15:08.78 6. Andrew
Hodges ...
http://www.gotigersgo.com/sports/m-track/recaps/033101aaa.html
ATHLETICS : Carroll eyes second win
... of Canada and Daniel Zegeye of Ethiopia. Laban Rotich also of
Kenya is another leading ... New
York is James Nolan, who finished runner-up to Carroll last year in 4
...
http://www.ireland.com/sports/athletics/2001/0202/athletics1.htm
More Results From: www.ireland.com
BBC News | World Athletics | Seville winners: Day four
... 3 R Estevez (Spa) 3:30.57 4 F Cacho (Spa) 3:31.34 5 A Diaz (Spa)
3:31.83 6 L Rotich
(Ken) 3:33.32 7 D Lelei (Ken) 3:33.82 8 D Maazouzi (Fra) 3:34.02 9 S
Holman ...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sport/world_athletics/newsid_429000/429373.stm
More Results From: news.bbc.co.uk
Race Results Weekly Sample Issue
... Race Results Weekly(tm) is sponsored by: RUNNER ' S WORLD MAGAZINE
For breaking
news, race listings ... 1:20:36 (MP 3000) 8. Jane Rotich, KEN, 1:20:41
(MP 2000) 9 ...
http://www.raceresultsweekly.com/sample.htm
TIME SCHEDULE EXXONMOBIL BISLETT GAMES 2001
... juniors, Norway, Sweden, Finland The 400 metres runner Einar Inge
Aasen was pace-setter,
running ... 3. Ngeny, KEN 3.50.29 4. Rotich, KEN 3.52.19 5. Estevez,
ESP ...
http://www.bislettgames.com/Live.htm
University of Delaware Men's Indoor Track: 1999 - ...
... time of 4:16.99, outdistancing teammate and runner-up Troy Bockius
(Dover/Dover,
DE), who ... Maryland-ES 1:56.50 1 9 Wycliff Rotich Norfolk St.
1:56.54 2 10 Mark ...
http://www.udel.edu/sportsinfo/mens_indoor_track/MTrackInvite4.html
El Guerrouj confirms supremacy in 1,500 m race
... at 3:26.45, beating out Kenyan runners Laban Rotich and John
Kibowen. By winning
the race ... steeple, which was captured by young Kenyan runner
Bernard Barmasai. ...
http://www.arabicnews.com/ansub/Daily/Day/980813/1998081333.html
Atlanta: Robinson runs for mate to reach hurdles semi
... a disappointing morning for Paul Cleary, the middle-distance
runner who beat Moses
Kiptanui over 1,500m in ... Laban Rotich, of Kenya, had the fastest
heat time ...
http://www.smh.com.au/atlanta/articles/3950.html
Boston 1995
... und überholt wurde. Der 24jährige Barnabas Rotich lief zuvor
Zwischenzeiten von
30:08 ... anstatt zu laufen. Die Fachzeitschrift Runner's World hat in
den USA ...
http://www.uta-pippig.com/utabst95.htm
Instant riches for Ivanova's world record walk
... Canadian Kevin Sullivan and countryman Laban Rotich, with fellow
Kenyans, William
Chirchir and ... European champion has twice finished runner-up to the
world No.1 ...
http://in.sports.yahoo.com/010906/6/147xp.html
Indiana Athletics - Press Release
... top ten, while Wisconsin had one male runner and four female
runners finish in the ... Lindsay
Wilson 31:20.24 2. Julius Rotich, Lindsay Wilson 31:36.11 3. Joseph
...
http://www.athletics.indiana.edu/pressrel/archive/1997/trpress.html
generale assoluta
... 7. ITA, 0007, ASSM, AVO COVER SPORTIVA VCO, 00:24:39, 00:00:45,
2'54". 8, ROTICH,
EVANS, ... 62. ITA, 0359, ASSM, RUNNER CLUB BORGHESIANA, 00:31:15,
00:07:21, 3'41". 63,
GIOVE, MICHELE, ...
http://www.amatriceconfigno.it/classifiche/generale_assoluta.htm
Rubin 20km 2000i
... Milltown NJ 1:34:11 7:35 49 Kiprono Rotich 623 31 Elizabeth NJ
1:35:20 7:41 ... MORLAES,
JONATHAN FRIEDER, JOHN PAPP, ROB CURRY 2. RUNNER'S PACE 1:09:06
1:16:06 1 ...
http://www.eliteracingsystems.com/rr_results/rubin20k2000.html
phill...@yahoo.com (phill shaffe) wrote in message news:<f2d73b7d.01101...@posting.google.com>...
News
4.17.00 News: LIVE coverage
4.17.00 News: Kenyans beat neighboring Ethiopians in closest Boston
finishes ever
4.17.00 News: Former fat man wins Boston
4.17.00 News: Ndereba first Kenyan woman to win Boston Marathon
4.17.00 News: First American Man and Woman
4.17.00 News: Boston Masters
4.17.00 News: Kenyan Olympic Marathon Selection
4.17.00 News: Driscoll records a record 8th Boston victory
4.17.00 News: China's best finish sixth and eighth in women's division
of Boston 2000
4.17.00 News: Photo finish for second between Bogacheva and Roba
4.17.00 News: Dr. Dave Martin watches London, then jets to Boston
4.16.00 News: Cheruiyot wins Rotterdam Marathon in 2:08:22
4.16.00 News: Pinto, Loroupe winners at London Marathon; Khannouchi
third
4.16.00 News: Adidas/Runner's World present "Women On The Run"
4.16.00 News: Track Talk
4.16.00 Notes and Quotes: Todd Williams and Grete Waitz on
marathoning and youth fitness
4.16.00 News: New Hampshire teacher, denied a "personal day," will
teach, then run on Monday
4.16.00 News: Fila and Runner's World Announce Discovery USA
Partnership
4.16.00 News: Pinto, Loroupe win London, Khannouchi third - London and
Rotterdam Marathons preliminary results
4.15.00 News: Twenty-five years of wheelchair competition have made
the Boston Marathon the crown jewel of wheelchair distance racing.
The Women's Race | The Men's Leader | The Pioneer
4.15.00 News: A Living Legend: "Old John" Kelley, Runner's World
Runner of the Century
4.15.00 News: Alberto Salazar returns to Boston
4.15.00 News: Champions' Breakfast
4.14.00 Interview: A Brief Chat with Annmari Sandell
4.14.00 Interview: A brief chat with Silvio Guerra
4.14.00 News: Notes and Quotes From the Boston Marathon's Friday
morning press conference
4.14.00 News: Newcomers could shake up men's race: Gezahenge Abera and
Jackson Kabiga
4.14.00 News: Notes from the Friday press conference including "Old
John's" baseball career, Kenyan politics, Roba's fan club, and "second
string" elites.
4.14.00 News: Hopkinton Elementary School hosts its "adopted" Kenyan
runners
4.14.00 News: Kenya's Kiplagat and Ndereba plan to challenge 3-time
winner Fatuma Roba
4.14.00 Interview: Elena Meyer has been second twice and third once in
Boston, and talks here about her plans for 2000.
4.13.00 First Person: Center of the Universe? Boston may be an annual
event, but getting here takes years.
4.13.00 Interview: Neil Weygandt: On Monday, he will run in his 34th
consecutive Boston Marathon.
4.12.00 Interview: Lisa Rainsberger: Monday marks the 15th anniversary
of Lisa Rainsberger's 1985 Boston Marathon victory in 2:34:06.
4.11.00 Interview: Martin Duffy: attempts to finish his 31st
consecutive Boston
4.04.00 News: Boston Marathon Trophy unveiled
3.29.00 News: Chebet, Roba, head Boston 2000 Marathon field
3.28.00 News: Rodgers inducted into Faneuil Sports Hall of Fame
3.28.00 History: The More things Change, the More They Stay the Same :
A History of the BAA Marathon in 25-year intervals
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The preceding information may not be published, broadcast or otherwise
distributed without the prior written authority of Rodale,
Inc./Runner's World Magazine, 33 E. Minor St., Emmaus, PA 18098; (610)
967-8809.
Visit the official B.A.A. Boston Marathon® site.
phill...@yahoo.com (phill shaffe) wrote in message news:<f2d73b7d.01101...@posting.google.com>...
2001 Indoor: A strong performer in the mile and the 3,000-meters. Had
his top mile time (4:24.97) at LSU, while his top 3,000 time (8:50.79)
came at the C-USA Championships.
2000 Cross Country: Ran in all seven corss country meets. Won the
Ragin’ Cajun Invitational, covering the four-mile course in
20:51.09. Finished 11th at the C-USA Championships and 33rd at the
NCAA District Championships.
2000 Outdoor: A key distance runner for the Wave. Had the team’s
top time in the 3,000 meters at 8:32.97. Posted a best time of 3:50.35
in the 1,500 and a 14:58.22 in the 5,000 meters.
2000 Indoor: Tulane’s second-best runner in the mile with a best
time of 4:17.91. Also ran the 3,000 in a season-fastest 8:35.2.
1999 Cross Country: Qualified for the NCAA Championships by finishing
17th at the NCAA South Central District Championships in Denton,
Texas. Ran in all seven events, finishing a season best fourth at the
Popeye’s Ragin’ Cajun Invitational.
1999 Outdoor: Posted season-best efforts of 1:56.65 in the 800 and a
32:06.54 in the 10,000 meters. Earned an 11th-place finish in the
10,000 meters (32:58.04) and a 21st-place finish in the 5,000 meters
(15:27.40) at the C-USA Championships.
1999 Indoor: Ran an 8:57.91 3,000 meters at the C-USA Indoor
Championships to finish 17th.
1998 Cross Country: Member of Tulane’s NCAA Championship
qualifying team. Ran in all eight events, earning four top-10
finishes. Earned all-Conference USA and NCAA all-district honors with
strong finishes at those events.
Prep: Posted a 5,000-meter time of 14:20.59 on the district level in
his native Kenya. Ran a 3:54.27 1,500 meters on the provincial level.
Personal: Born June 24, 1978. Full name is Peter Kiprono Rotich. Major
is computer eng
phill...@yahoo.com (phill shaffe) wrote in message news:<f2d73b7d.0110...@posting.google.com>...
Sydney 2000 Olympics
... CJ Hunter off the Olympics Monday, September 11. The rumours of CJ
Hunter's ... the withdrawal
of Konchellah at the 800 m. and Rotich at the 1500 m., who will be ...
http://www.athletix.net/Athletics/Sydney2k/Sydney2knews.html
More Results From: www.athletix.net
Olympics-Kenya and Ethiopia predicts best Olympics yet
... 800 metres champion William Tanui and soldier Laban Rotich will
carry Kenyan hopes
in the 1 ... It is a long way to the Olympics," Kiptaunui said. ``I
feel good, I ...
http://www.coolrunning.com/olympic/aap7101.htm
More Results From: www.coolrunning.com
Men's 1500m Run
... that this opportunity passed me by. The Olympics only come around
every four years
and I ... times advance to semifinal. Heat 1 1. Rotich, Laban, (KEN)
3:35.88Q 2 ...
http://www.runnersworld.com/specials/olympic/events/m1500m.html
More Results From: www.runnersworld.com
OLYMPICS: Athletism- Morocco's El Guerrouj seen as favourite ( ...
... on the way. At the 1996 Atlanta Olympics EL GUERROUJ suffered a
tragic fall in the ... in
history. CHIRCHIR has replaced Laban ROTICH on the Kenyan team - and
has ...
http://www.africanewswire.com/annews/categories/morocco/story4091.shtml
Athletics
... Olympics Kenya makes her debut in the Olympics but no medals are
won. Maiyoro is ... games.
Later in the competition Bartonjo Rotich scoops the same medal in the
...
http://www.kenyaweb.com/sports/athletics/
World of Sport: Olympics: 1996 Atlanta
... Olympics 1996 Atlanta Athletics Men 100m Dash 1. Donovan Bailey
... 40 3. Stephen Kiprorir
(KEN) 3.36.72 4. Laban Rotich (KEN) 3.37.39 5. William Tanui (KEN)
3.37 ...
http://wos.www8.50megs.com/og1996ath.html
Fayetteville Hosts Olympians
... bronze medal in Sydney, won NY in 3:58.26 to Rotich's 3:58.40. The
top American in
the field is Jason ... was the 10th place 1,500m finisher at the 2000
Olympics. ...
http://www.usatf.org/news/release20010206-3.shtml
More Results From: www.usatf.org
allAfrica.com: Meet the Kenyan University Student Athlete ...
... Lee at WSU before qualifying for Sydney Olympics. Now he is
working for a world ... team
and with William Chirchir and Laban Rotich, we are going to give a
good ...
http://allafrica.com/stories/200108060014.html
More Results From: allafrica.com
CNN/SI - 1998 Commonwealth Games - Malaysia wins first track ...
... athletes to win the men's 1,500. Rotich, who as fourth at the
Atlanta Olympics, clocked
3:39.50, with John Mayock second, .96 behind, and Tony Whiteman third.
...
http://www.cnnsi.com/olympics/1998/commonwealth/news/1998/09/21/track_wrap/
More Results From: www.cnnsi.com
7/22/96 INT/MASTER RACERS
... a dazzling 5,000-m win at the 1984 Olympics. ... a notion
supported only by anecdotal
evidence. Marathoner Paul Rotich, for example, was one of several
Kenyans at ...
http://www.time.com/time/international/1996/960722/middle.html
Ivanova sets first track world record at Goodwill Games
... Tourky said. "We saw at the Olympics what an advantage a home
crowd can ... Kevin Sullivan,
Canada, 3:56.81. 3, Laban Rotich, Kenya, 3:56.88. 4, William Chirchir
...
http://www.canoe.ca/SlamResults010906/ama_goodwill-ap.html
Year's best marks set in Fayetteville
... Rotich, the Kenyan fourth-placer from the Atlanta Olympics,
clocked 3:53.64 to
be the first of six athletes finishing under the 4-minute mile mark.
Senneca ...
http://www.athletics-online.co.uk/010210fayetteville.htm
More Results From: www.athletics-online.co.uk
If you want more on Rotich let me know.
Phill
Yahoo! Groups : clubwaudo Messages :605-634 of 634
... 607, Olympics, ted njoroge, Sat 8/19/2000. 608, Re: Salamu kutoka
Australia, ted
njoroge, ... Peter Kerre, Mon 8/21/2000. 612, Re: Je munamjua?
Veronica Rotich, Mon 8/21/2000. ...
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/clubwaudo/messages
More Results From: groups.yahoo.com
Marius Bakken News Archive
... indoor mile of the year - Kenya's Laban Rotich ran the fastest
mile of the year ... the
proud winner of last years Olympics in 1500m ?Who was that?? was the
...
http://www.mariusbakken.com/cgi-bin/news/arc1-2001.htm
Kenya's Running Tribe
phill...@yahoo.com (phill shaffe) wrote in message news:<f2d73b7d.0110...@posting.google.com>...