Based on population percentages alone, the likelihood of such a performance is one in 1.6 billion. 40 percent of top international distance running honors and three times as many distance medals as athletes from any other nation in the world. One tiny district, the Nandi, with only 500,000 people, sweeps an unfathomable 20 percent of major international distance events. By almost any measure, the Nandi region is the greatest concentration of raw athletic talent in the history of sports. The genetics revolution has decisively overturned the dated belief that all humans are created with equal potential, a tabula rasa, or blank slate, for experience and culture to write upon.
Humans are different.
Acknowledging human biodiversity may approach a danger zone, but pretending that there are no slippery questions does not prevent them from being asked, if only under one's breath. Although the African biological edge is not great, at the level of an elite athlete, even a small advantage can be the difference between a gold medal finishing out of the money. On the field trends create a cultural advantage that forms a biosocial feedback loop, with nature and nurture fueling each other. But one would have to be blind not so see a pattern here. I hope we are not at a time and place where we are afraid to talk about remarkable events.