Amanda Smith: Today, why are Kenyans the best distance runners in the world?

Commentator: ... and the Kenyans are going to take it out - a big performance in the 3,000 metre steeplechase; Mathew Birir first, Sang second, Mutwol third, Kenya 1, 2 and 3 - Lambruschini fourth...

Amanda Smith: Later in the program we'll be looking into the phenomenal success of Kenyan athletes on the world scene over the past 30 years; and the various reasons that have been put forward to explain this success.

Plus I'll be speaking to Martin Keino, who's starting to make his mark as a runner, in the tracks of his legendary father, Kip Keino, the first of the great Kenyan runners.

Hi, I'm Amanda Smith, thanks for joining me on The Sports Factor.

Now after two years of brawling, and continuing court cases, Australia's two rival rugby league seasons are about to kick off for the year. In a week's time, the Australian Rugby League competition gets under way, while tomorrow Super League starts, with a launch featuring local and international celebs and razzmatazz. As well as a game of football.

ABC Television is broadcasting the launch nationally tomorrow night, as well as the Super League Sunday games from this weekend onwards. Now, it's a while since ABC-TV has been able to get the rights to broadcast high profile mass appeal sports like the major football codes, so how come they got Super League? And what are the whys and wherefores of the public broadcaster running this Rupert Murdoch owned sport?

Justin Holdforth is the producer of Super League telecasts for the ABC:

Justin Holdforth: Once the decision was made that there would be two competitions for this year, the head of our department, the Sports Department, at that time Gerry O'Leary, approached both the ARL and Super League to see if they'd be interested in the ABC broadcasting their matches on the weekend, and the ARL didn't respond particularly, but Super League came back and said, 'Let's talk'. So then a deal was done.

Amanda Smith: So when was the deal sewn up?

Justin Holdforth: Oh I couldn't give you an exact date, but I was notified about it sort of very late January, early February.

Amanda Smith: Right, so you've had to swing into gear very quickly on this one?

Justin Holdforth: Yes, it hasn't been a bit lead-up time.

Amanda Smith: What's the ABC paying for the broadcast of Super League games?

Justin Holdforth: There is no rights fee, and Foxtel deliver the signal to us of each game.

Amanda Smith: Right. So there's no broadcast fee payable; should the ABC then be accepting a hand-out from Rupert Murdoch?

Justin Holdforth: Well it's not a hand-out, you know, we're not actually paying any rights fees, and we still have to pay certain production costs to actually get the program on air. So it's not a hand-out at all, and it is a fledgling rugby league competition, there's no doubt about that, and as such, I don't see any reason why we should pay a rights fee.

Amanda Smith: Well I guess the thing about Super League is that it's all about a commercial media baron buying up a game for big bucks returns through Pay-TV, and that sits strangely with the ABC as the commercial-free, free-to-air public broadcaster. Is there any anomaly there do you think?

Justin Holdforth: No, I don't think so. I think sport is all about big business and money now, especially elite sport. If you follow that line to the nth degree, you wouldn't be able to show English soccer or American football or golf or any of those sorts of sports, even the Olympics. Even the ARL is a commercial venture, so I don't see there's any problem with it at all.

Amanda Smith: The whole Super League/Australian Rugby League battle and court cases over the past two years have been very divisive, not only for the code itself and the clubs and the players, but also the fans. So by broadcasting the Super League version of this game, is the ABC effectively taking sides in a battle for a sport that's as yet unresolved?

Justin Holdforth: Not at all. I think because we approached both sides - I mean we'd love to be showing the ARL on a Saturday you know, if we could; and I think it's also important to point out that in States like South Australia, now in Western Australia and particularly Queensland, Super League is the only competition. You know, that's what rugby league is. In New South Wales the battle's a lot fiercer, naturally, but we're taking a legitimate rugby league competition to as many people as we can, and we hope people will watch it. And we gave the ARL a chance to screen on the ABC and they declined.

Amanda Smith: But inevitably by broadcasting Super League, isn't the ABC putting itself into the Murdoch camp and saying to the public, 'Watch and support Super League and all that it stands for, and forget about the Australian Rugby League'?

Justin Holdforth: Regardless of who actually is the financial backer of a sporting event, elite sport is elite sport, and it is a legitimate rugby league competition, with supporters all over Australia. We are just broadcasting rugby league, we're not promoting anything else. And the sheer fact that we're not showing Super League logos now, I think that in effect says that we are only concentrating on the rugby league itself, and that's what we want to show.

Amanda Smith: Justin Holdforth, who's producing the ABC's Super League telecasts.

Super League promo: Saturday night and it's finally here - Super League! It's going to be huge! A big weekend of Super League, starts 9.30 Saturday here, on ABC.

Amanda Smith: However, not everyone thinks ABC-TV should be running Super League. Murray Phillips is a sports historian at Canberra University.

Murray Phillips: It's problematic because you're just showing Super League and not the Australian Rugby League, and by taking this path, are now part of what is the Super League propaganda machine. You've got to consider that this has been a propaganda war since what Ken Arthurson called the "Pearl Harbour Raid" on April Fool's Day in 1995, and since that time both sides have been trying to win the hearts and souls of league followers, in the press, on the radio and on television. The ABC is now effectively, by taking this path, an arm of Super League, and by de facto an arm of Foxtel, and by de facto an arm of News Limited.

Amanda Smith: But why shouldn't ABC-TV run a high profile sport like this if it can get it?

Murray Phillips: Well it provides a conflict of interests. You've got to consider that the ABC is the most respected broadcaster in Australia. It has wide credibility within the community and it's given that credibility to Super League, and Super League has been yearning and spending a fortune to gain that credibility over the last two years. It could have broadcast both competitions, and by doing so would have presented itself as the ABC does in most cases, as a balanced reporter.

Amanda Smith: Now the ABC says that it did approach the Australian Rugby League to get the broadcast of some of their games, but ARL weren't interested. Should then the ABC have declined to do Super League to maintain that sort of non-partisan position - all or nothing?

Murray Phillips: No, they shouldn't have declined Super League, but what should happen, and I hope in the future will happen, is that the ARL will go back to the ABC. Sort out whatever problems there have been and are at the moment - and there has been a long history of conflict. You've got to consider that the ABC has always been dished off poorer quality games, and I think at the end of 1995 they actually lost the contract for Saturday League. So there's a history of conflict there. The ABC should attempt to promote both games equally and not be seen to be taking a partisan side.

Amanda Smith: Why do you think Mr Murdoch has given away his Super League Sunday games to the ABC?

Murray Phillips: Well the ABC televises most widely throughout Australia, particularly in country and rural areas, and Super League games on a Sunday will be going nationwide. So effectively the game is being spread like no other network can, and that's the big advantage for Super League.

Amanda Smith: What's your argument against the Super League model of sport?

Murray Phillips: Well to me, Amanda, this is the big sleeping issue. It's a key issue because Australian sport has traditionally been publicly owned. What the Super League model is all about is a series of private franchises. Let me just point to some of the pitfalls of private ownership in sport. The key issues are that franchises are different to clubs; clubs have some sort of geographical base, and they're also owned in part by their members, so their members have some say over the future of their clubs. Franchises are different. They are accountable to their owners and they reflect things like market share and in that sense, they're not geographically fixed. And if you just look at the North American example, franchises move between cities for a whole host of reasons, primarily economic reasons.

Amanda Smith: So is that really the crux of your argument against the ABC broadcasting Super League, that it's a private enterprise model that you're opposed to?

Murray Phillips: Yes, the ABC is mandating the Super League model, probably unwittingly. And it's that model which is contradictory to what Australian sport has developed over the last hundred or so years, whereby we have a system of public ownership which gives the rights to the members rather than the larger economic interests.

Amanda Smith: Well last Sunday night, Murray, ABC-TV broadcast a preview program to herald their broadcast of this weekend's Super League launch and the replays of the Sunday matches. The program was called The ABC of Super League. What did you think of that?

Murray Phillips: I thought it was a terrific free 30-minute commercial. If you were going to run that sort of an ad. - and that's all that promotion was - on commercial television, it would cost you a fortune. The ABC did it for nothing.

Amanda Smith: So you're really saying that you think the ABC has played into the hands of Murdoch and Super League?

Murray Phillips: Unwittingly, it's caught up in the whole propaganda war; by taking one side as opposed to the other, it has then become an arm of propaganda for the Super League.

Amanda Smith: Murray Phillips, from the Centre for Sports Studies at Canberra University.

***

Now Kenyans first competed internationally in the mid-1950s, and since that time have held and broken many, many world records, from Kip Keino onwards. Indeed Kenyan runners continue to make up at least half of the world top ten rankings in events from the 800 metres through to the 10,000 metres. And a recent book called "Kenyan Running" sets out to analyse this phenomenon. One of the authors, John Bale, says the timing of Kenya's emergence as a running nation in the mid-50s, is significant:

John Bale: It was shortly after Kenyan independence, or at least it was during I should say, the fight for Kenyan independence, during the Mau Mau period. One could read this as a form of resistance if you like, to colonial rule. It also came after a period of considerable attention by various actors on the athletic stage in Kenya to develop athletics in that colony, as it then was. A number of people - District Commissioners, before them, missionaries, much, much earlier, the military, as well as missionaries - had encouraged athletics and running in Kenya. But it did mark not only the beginnings of the revolution in Kenya, it also marked as I said, a revolution in long-distance running.

Amanda Smith: Well there have been various theories put forward to explain Kenyan running success, John, and I want to look at these with you to assess their relevance. First of all, are there any conclusive biological or physiological factors - do Kenyans have running genes?

John Bale: I would be very sceptical about accepting that thesis. I think this thesis has been explored in a number of other national contexts: the basketball gene, the long jumping gene, the high jumping gene - isolating a gene that could attribute athletic success to one particular event - I'm highly sceptical about it, though I'm not a medical person.

Let me just say that medical scientists - particularly a Swedish scientist called Bengt Saltin, tends to reject biological explanations of Kenyan running success - and this is a medical person saying this - and pay much greater attention to cultural factors. Simply because there are a number of ethnic groups, a number of nationalities, all living in similar environmental conditions to the Kenyans, and indeed many people in various areas of Kenya, that are simply not long distance runners. And there are other regions very similar to Kenya that simply don't produce large numbers of long distance runners. So I'm suggesting there may be specific cultural factors within Kenya, specific historical factors in Kenya that lead to this over-emphasis in the "production" of world-class Kenyan runners.

Amanda Smith: All right. Well we'll get onto historical and cultural factors in a minute, but I want to talk about environment. Because you say that it's not actually Kenya, but a particular region of Kenya, that produces a disproportionate percentage of that country's running championships - the Rift Valley province. Now the Rift Valley's a region of high altitude, and living and training in high altitude is supposed to be an advantage for distance runners; so does that account for their success?

John Bale: OK, that's a well-tried theory, and I think most people would link high altitude with running success by Kenyan runners. I'm not saying that high altitude has no effect, I think anybody from any nationality living and training at high altitudes is likely to gain some benefit; though the precise links between timing of training, precise location of training, and subsequent performance at sea level, are not fully understood.

But let me make this one point: within Kenya it's absolutely true, a greater proportion of world class long distance runners came from the Rift Valley. But there are two caveats I would like to make. The first is that other parts of East Africa which have similar physical characteristics to the Rift Valley, other countries in East Africa, don't produce nearly as many world class athletes as Kenya does. Even Ethiopia, which produces some, produces in fact much less than you would expect of its population, and far less than Kenya produces when you adjust for national populations. Likewise Zimbabwe, to the south Tanzania, some world class athletes, but nowhere near the numbers that Kenya produce.

What's also interesting about the Rift Valley is that it is a fairly large region, and within it there are very, very specific clusters of areas of high productivity in terms of athletic production, and other areas that are very, very sparsely provided with world class athletes. And if you look at the district level, if you break it down to the district level, we find that one district - the Nandi district in the Rift Valley - produces 23 times the number of world class distance runners that you'd expect for its population. Some of the other districts around it produce four times, three times, five times, the amount. But other districts within the Rift Valley produce hardly any world class runners at all.

So again, when you begin to look at the Rift Valley, it's an over-generalisation which suggests it's not some broad environmental factor. Because production of world class athletes, the output of world class athletes is highly localised within the Rift Valley. There may be specific cultural factors, and it does seem related to one particular ethnic group, the Kalenjin group, within which is a sub-group called the Nandi. And those two groups contribute an overwhelming proportion of Kenyan world-class runners. The Kalenjin, for example, account for 76% of all Kenyan world record holders.

Amanda Smith: So what is so special about the Kalenjin and Nandi peoples?

John Bale: Well there are again numerous possible explanations, and I think the danger in this kind of discussion is that we fall down into what social scientists call "mono-causality" - we're looking for one causal explanation for this phenomenon. I think it's a combination of historical and cultural factors. The Kalenjin have certain cultural traits which other Kenyan groups do not have; they are an ascetic group, they subscribe to notions of deferred gratification, they're prepared to work very, very hard. They have these traditions of hard work and asceticism. Untutored Kalenjin boys have a propensity to prefer individual sports than, shall we say, team sports. And let's remember that football is actually the most popular sport in Kenya, not athletics. Most Kenyan kids prefer soccer. Kalenjin kids have cultural traditions of asceticism and individuality and individualism, which is not inconsistent with track running.

What's more, this part of East Africa has had a long tradition, a longer tradition than other East African countries, a longer tradition than other parts of Kenya, of white settlement and white cultural influence. It was a centre of missionary development; there were a number of centres there associated with the King's African Rifles, which attracted and initially developed athletics in the country. And of course, once a region gets one or two prominent athletes, even at the national scale, it has a knock-on effect. These people become role models for other athletes.

So we find the first Kenyan runner who was really world known - Kipchoge Keino - his father was a runner. His father was a runner on a plantation where he worked. He passed this on to his son; his son was influenced by the likes of Maiyoro and Chepkwony, and other more localised and locally-known Kenyan runners.

Kip Keino wasn't a natural athlete. When Kip Keino was 14, he was keeping records of his times, when he was running just under six minutes for the mile. He kept annual statistical records. He didn't run in the wild, he build his own running track. These are cultural phenomena, these are historical phenomena, not biological phenomena.

Commentator: ... followed by Jipcho, but it's all Keino - he looks round over his shoulder - he's eight or ten metres in front of Jipcho who's making a great effort to get second - it's Keino first, Jipcho will get second - it's one, two for Kenya. Keino first...

Amanda Smith: Well on that subject of cultural expectations, I should mention we had hoped to have your co-author Joe Sang join us from Nairobi for this discussion. Unfortunately we couldn't get a line into him, but I think his experience as a child growing up in that Rift Valley area of Kenya was that he was expected to be a good runner, although he wasn't particularly, as I understand it.

John Bale: That's absolutely right. Joe was a Nandi student at one of the major private schools in Kenya as a boy. He was a tall guy, he was labelled a long-distance runner on arrival at the school, and he was immediately put on the running team. But in fact he was slightly better as a long jumper, although I don't even think my colleague, Joe Sang would claim any athletic expertise. This was a labelling process which frankly, goes on in the western world in a number of sports. In Britain we found for example, black soccer players tend to be placed in certain positions on the football field. This is a global phenomenon of labelling, self-fulfilling prophecy, stacking, which is based on, in a sense, stereotypes of certain peoples.

Amanda Smith: Now is there a traditional culture of running in pre-modern Kenya, or this part of Kenya that we're talking about, that's been transformed into competitive running?

John Bale: No, I think this is a really very fascinating question that we really enjoyed working on when we were writing this book. Because I think it's a classic historical question, this problem of continuity or change. Does modern running represent a continuity, a clear link with pre-modern running? And we've developed in the first couple of chapters - certainly two chapters of the book - some interesting work on how the west represented and recorded Kenyan running in the late 19th century and in the early 20th century.

Certainly the travel writers who explored Kenya at that time really eulogised the Kenyan. I suppose it was a variation on the Noble Savage, the Rousseau-ian view of the Noble Savage, and particularly - and we can only judge this from the number of reference one finds in the writing - the Maasai were the ethnic group that were most singled out as fantastic athletes. They were fantastic runners. A disproportionate number of references seem to allude to the Maasai in this respect. But there were occasional references to other groups, the Nandi as well for example. But what's interesting I think, is that one doesn't necessarily see a continuum. The Nandi have developed as long distance runners, the Maasai are the group that have resisted most vehemently, western acculturation, and they have not emerged in any large numbers as long-distance runners.

So this question of continuation and change is a little bit ambiguous. It seems to me that pre-modern running was a different thing from modern racing. One can't assume that because Africans appear to be good runners in the pre-modern era, they will necessarily become world class athletes today. The Maasai obviously had a name as runners, they have not continued to the present day as runners, they have tended to resist western culture.

Amanda Smith: Well in a similar way that poor black American kids believe that to succeed in sport, especially basketball, it's their way out of the ghetto, is there a prevalent belief in Kenya that running is their way out of an economically poor country?

John Bale: Yes, I think the parallels are very, very clear there. I think the prime motive for most Kenyan athletes - as I suspect the prime motive for many Australian and British and American athletes who discover that once they reach a high level, there is big money to be earned in this sport these days - see economics as the prime motive in their running. And that is undoubtedly a major factor in the incentives that we've been talking about.

Amanda Smith: John Bales, speaking to me there from the University of Keele in the UK, and co-author of the book "Kenyan Running".

In Australia at the moment, eight Kenyan athletes are competing in events around the country. Last week at the International Grand Prix Track Classic in Melbourne, they won in the two distance events - the 5,000 metres and the mile. And in the mile, a bloke with a famous surname ran second, behind fellow Kenyan Elija Maru. Martin Keino has just started running full-time this year, and is currently ranked 11th in the world in the 1500 metres - the event his father Kip won at the 1968 Olympics. Unlike his father, Martin went to High School and College in the United States. But as a Kenyan, did everyone automatically expect he'd be a runner?

Martin Keino: More so because of my name, not because really I was a Kenyan - because I had a famous name and people expected me to be a runner. So there were a lot of expectations.

Amanda Smith: So how did you come to running?

Martin Keino: I began running in High School. I was asked by the coach to try cross-country, and I did it, but with little success. But eventually a lot of training and a lot of persistence, I became successful.

Amanda Smith: So you're saying you weren't very good when you started, so you weren't a natural runner?

Martin Keino: Oh absolutely, I wasn't. I was always in the back and I didn't like it at all really when I began. And just with proper training and a lot of motivation here and there, I became better and better, yes.

Amanda Smith: Do you have any thoughts on why so many world champion middle and long distance runners over the past 30 years are Kenyan?

Martin Keino: I think because of the strong tradition at the end of the 60s when the running tradition began. A lot of people look up to those runners, and work hard and want to be like those runners. Therefore you see so many athletes coming from Kenya, because they're coming from a great tradition and they're willing to work hard and sort of lift their standard of living through running.

Amanda Smith: Now you had a college athletic scholarship in the States, in Arizona. What do you think of training system for athletes?

Martin Keino: The training system in Arizona was greatly beneficial to me, and to the rest of the runners, because I think we had a great coach and he sort of brought us along at our own pace instead of really his pace. So he wanted the athletes to develop their own pace. Therefore it prepared you for the future, not really just once you've done the college that's the end of your athletics career. So it was a great system because coming from there you were able to do more work afterwards and become better, so it's a great system.

Amanda Smith: Well how does that compare with how athletes are trained and supported in Kenya?

Martin Keino: Well it's a different system because I think in Kenya you don't have that close nurturing and help that you get from the college system, and the facilities. So in Kenya there are not too many facilities, and sort of guidance that we get in the college system in America. So most of it has to be the natural talent in a lot of people - just go through the motions really without proper guidance. So I think it's a lot different.

Amanda Smith: So Martin, if you'd stayed in Kenya, do you think you'd be a runner?

Martin Keino: I think so. I think I probably would have wound up being a runner one way or the other. Probably not as soon as I did, like in America where I started in High School. I think I would have started a bit later in Kenya.

Amanda Smith: Well for you, is it good or bad to have a father who was such a great runner?

Martin Keino: I think it's both good and bad. Because obviously it's hard to live up to a name like that, because he was the best, in his time. So there's a lot of pressure and expectations, so that's the bad side. The good side is that it opened a lot of doors for me really: the name recognition and the support that people give. So I think that's tremendous, the support and the encouragement that I've got from people who were familiar with him, and obviously the genes - the genes, that's a good thing! So it's made it a little bit easier, but obviously another thing is his encouragement and his advice. I mean that's probably the best I can get from anybody really.

Amanda Smith: And what about in terms of the name, Keino, does it intimidate other athletes? Is that an advantage?

Martin Keino: Yes, it is. Not so any more, like at this level really, because you do have to perform. Back in High School and in College it was an intimidating thing for some athletes. When an announcer would mention my father's accomplishments, Olympic gold medallist and that sort of thing. But I always wondered why they did because he was not running for me, or he wasn't running the race himself. So I suppose it was a good thing, because then I was always relaxed while my competitors, some of my competitors were intimidated. So that was a good thing.

Amanda Smith: Martin Keino, who'll be running this weekend at the Australian Athletics Championships, being held in Melbourne this year, as well as the Grand Prix final coming up in Brisbane.

And that's the program for this week. Join me, Amanda Smith, for another edition of The Sports Factor next Friday morning.

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The Sports Factor can be heard on Radio National, 8.30am Fridays (Repeated Friday evenings at 8.00pm).