Clean Sweep

A clean sweep in any event is hard but a clean sweep in the marathon is nearly impossible. But the nearly impossible happened today. What a race the Kenyans ran! They were properly prepared and had a plan for the conditions and executed the plans as a team.

The Ethiopians seemed so inept and unprepared. On this blog we have on numerous occasions suggested that the Ethiopian coaches need to change the training program so that Ethiopians can perform under hot and humid conditions. We know they don't read this blog. The weather where most of the Kenyan runners come from is not much different than Ethiopia. Sammy Wanjiru, by setting an Olympic record in hot and humid Beijing showed the weather is just an excuse. Proper training for the conditions is required. The Kenyans now know how to train their marathon runners for hot and humid conditions. The Ethiopians clearly have no clue. In any well run country such an embarrassing result would cause heads to roll. But in Ethiopia, they will continue to train the runners the same way and blame it on weather. Some things never change.