Sports, known knowns and their unknowns

He who knows and knows not he knows: he is asleep – wake him. I am often amazed, the older I get, at the things that I do not know. But I am even more astounded when things that society collectively knew to be true are found, an X number of years later, to not be true. I become mildly horrified when I learn that the things experts, such as medical doctors or scientists, held as scientific proof are no longer true. That the world is flat is an age-old example. But there are also current mis-beliefs. The reason for this reflection is a text I received, predicting that within 10 years the world would see an African winning a major international cycling race. The predictor cited up and coming cyclists from the region: Eritrea, Rwanda and Kenya. With a decades old riding culture, Eritrea would likely be that winner. Of course, Kenyan-born-Brit Chris Froome already won the Tour de France in 2013, but he is not counted as an African. However, an African, Tour du Rwanda winner Valens Ndayisenga, won the 8km prologue stage of the Egypt Tour last week. This may have prompted my morning texter into sending me this prediction; which then set off a string of memories for me. One such memory was of a discussion with a renowned athletics coach on why there was no marathon race in Kenya, the land of arguably the best, long-distance runners. He said, with the authority of his experience, that such an event could never take place in Nairobi. That no one would want to run in it, as the city, at 1500 metres, was too high in altitude and would affect performance. That was some years back and since then the Standard Chartered Nairobi Marathon was created; growing rapidly in importance and attracting some world-class Kenyan runners. How could this knowledgeable specialist have gotten it so wrong? Then there are the statements made by people with certain experiences (I am not sure they can be called experts) and are taken as gospel truth. The late Joy Adamson, in her book “Peoples of Kenya”, notes that Africans are beyond doubt physically stronger than Europeans, but wonders why mentally they are weaker than Europeans. She provides, as evidence, an example of a seemingly healthy, strong, young African man dying – three days after a witch-doctor told him he would die – as evidence of this mental frailty. But back to sport. In the days when the French were winning most of the Tour de France events, it was believed that Europeans had the culture and tactics of winning elite cycling events. These traits included “physical durability, mental and moral strength”. Now that there are Africans being touted as the future of cycling, they are being termed as “biologically gifted”. When Kipchoge Keino stunned the world in 1968 by winning the Olympics, the until then unbeaten favourite, Ryun, was more or less ostracised for his (shameful) failure to win. Kipchoge was described in that race as “running suicidally fast ... [his] tactics in the final appeared either naïve or desperate”. Why was Ryun ostracised and Kipchoge’s excellence not acknowledged? It may be because, at that time, it was believed that only Anglo-Saxons had the “cerebral qualities such as focus and discipline.... The determination and stamina required” for long distance running. It was around the same time period as Joy Adamson’s book. There has been a lot of analysis of Kenyan elite athletes. Conclusions include physical attributes such as thin, long femurs, or low oxygen needs from running at high altitudes or even running to distant schools as children. But as the aforementioned renowned athletics’ coach said, “Kenyans just plain train incredibly hard”. No, I don’t claim to know who or if an African will in the (near) future win the most elite international cycling race. But, one writer looking at the cyclists admits that the Rwandans have an “innate resilience” given their history. Psychology defines resilience as a mental ability. All this is maybe best understood in the context of what the United States then Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, (in)famously quipped as the known knowns, the known unknowns, and the unknown unknowns. These are things we know that we know... there are things that we know we don’t know. But there are also things ...we don’t know we don’t know. Is how he explained it. So how about this as the next stage of the unknowns and the knowns? There are strong similarities, as shown in a country like The Netherlands, between speed cyclist and ice speed skaters. So the era of African, world-class, ice speed skaters may be unknowingly close. A mentally liberating or brain-freezing concept? Currently based in Rwanda, the writer comments about people, organizations and countries whose stories create a chrysalis for ideas.

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Sports, known knowns and their unknowns