(Zane Robertson, one of two identical twin brothers from NZ who live & train in Kenya and ran 2:08:19 for the marathon):
"That’s when Robertson got involved, commenting that Kipchoge is over 40. When challenged on this, Robertson claims “There [sic] passport ages are all fake so they can cheat Jr’s and get contracts,” and claiming authority on the subject because he lives and trains in Kenya, along with his brother."
Jr's refers to races for men & women under 20 years old.
It's much easier to do well against non-African teenagers if you're several years older and have trained for that much longer.
Most of the times I am good at guessing other people's age. With Kipchoge I was really confused!
His voice, his face his move. He looks older than me (37) and now it's probably getting clear.
But still I am not surprised. Maybe you get older and you loose some aerobic capacity but your are getting more experienced and the body more immune to injuries!
Ultra-marathons and ultra-endurance events are very much less of a young person sport, and we are still trying to figure out exactly why performance can keep increasing into the 40s and even early 50s. Marathoning is a considerably younger peak though, usually thought to be 20-35, so depends on whether you think that is "young" or not :)
Look at the following table that has been compiled about how much contribution from the body's aerobic and anaerobic systems are used for various race distances:
A well-known secret in running circles - many Ethiopian and Kenyan runners have dubious official birth years including Eliud Kipchoge.
from https://runningmagazine.ca/the-scene/zane-robertson-swears-k...
(Zane Robertson, one of two identical twin brothers from NZ who live & train in Kenya and ran 2:08:19 for the marathon):
"That’s when Robertson got involved, commenting that Kipchoge is over 40. When challenged on this, Robertson claims “There [sic] passport ages are all fake so they can cheat Jr’s and get contracts,” and claiming authority on the subject because he lives and trains in Kenya, along with his brother."
Jr's refers to races for men & women under 20 years old.
It's much easier to do well against non-African teenagers if you're several years older and have trained for that much longer.