Any coincidence that the numbers of Qatari steeplers are up??
bk
From: Roger Ruth <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Reply-To: Roger Ruth <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: t-and-f@lists.uoregon.edu
CC: Dan Kaplan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: t-and-f: Kenyan Dominance
Date: Sun, 29 Jan 2006 13:55:43 -0800
Earlier today, Dan wrote to ask whether Kenya's 22 steeplechasers in the
world top 100 represented a considerable drop-off. When I checked, that was
not the case. Dan then wrote:
Interesting. Was it the 5k/10 list that they filled with greater numbers,
or something altogether different I'm remembering?
I thought the comparison might have been with Kenya performance in the
steeple as compared with the marathon, where they remain strong. When I
posted the marathon summary, I commented on Kenya's 51 representatives,
"(That's the first time since I've been charting national depth that one
country has been represented by more than half of the top 100 athletes in
any event. Previous high was Kenya's 47 in the 2004 men's marathon.)"
As far as the 5K/10K are concerned, I only got as far as checking this
year's 5K, where I'd already posted 45 Kenyans in the top 100, and the 10K,
where they have 39 in the top 100 and a highest rank of #4. (I also found,
to my embarrassment, that Mirko has lists for both the 10,000 meters and
the 10K, with the latter being the list for the road race. Fortunately, I
sent the wrong info just to Dan, before I noticed the difference. In the
much shorter list for the road race, Kenya has 62 of the top 100 and 17 of
the top 20!)
In all, I don't see any dramatic fall-off for Kenya in any of the distance
events. Maybe it might be true for the steeple if I looked back farther
than 1998. Anybody have the answer, without doing the work?
