Out of thin air

Always suspicious of simplistic genetic explanations, I was happy to pick up Michael Crawley’s Out of thin air which finally recognizes the hard work behind the success of East African runners:

‘This tendency to describe African runners as “effortless” or as “born to run” masks the years of preparation and sacrifice that have gone into creating this illusion’

In my own line of work, few things make me angrier than when people, who themselves have everything, romanticize agricultural poverty. Similarly, poverty is often invoked to explain away how hard these runners work:

‘The implication is that growing up in rural poverty necessitates a more “natural” way of life […] We come to believe that running for Africans is something they take to easily, without thought or consideration’