Crazy verticle jump by tribesman

The reason for the incredible stiffness is likely the structure of the Achilles tendon and the lack of torque through:

– very high calf insertion
– very long tibia relative to femur
– very thin lower legs
– very thin upper body

These characteristics do not lend themselves to big vertical jumps or elite 100/200 performances but they do lend themselves to mass-specific stiffness and can give very high reactive strength indices and have a strong impact on performance as the distance increases to 400 and 800 (and beyond), giving these athletes much better times at the middle distance than their anaerobic power should indicate, due to incredible efficiency.
The Kenyans are extremely famous for their distance runners but barring this culture they would produce some likely medalists and they do have a very proud history at 400m. Many are aware of David Rudisha’s father Daniel taking silver in the 4X400 at Munich and the relay teams of that era but there is also some more recent:

– Ezra Sambu 44.43 in 2003, 44.47 in 2001.
– Silver for the 4X400 as recently as 1993 World Championships
– Samson Kitur with 44.18 PR and bronze at 1992 Olympics and 1993 WC
– Charles Gitonga with 44.20 PR and commonwealth gold in 1994
– David Kitur 44.73 PR, 6th in Rome 1987 WC.
– Kennedy Ochieng 44.77PR and finalist in Stuttgart 1993 WC.
– Simeon Kipkemboi 44.93 in 1990
– Simon Kemboi 44.94 in 1993

While not up with Michael Johnson, these are very good drug free times often run of lesser 200m ability. There are almost certainly cultural issues due to distance running’s financial incentive as nations do not go from having medal winning 4X400 teams to no-one in sight. The other cultural issue is that Athletics Kenya are an interesting “organisation” and Kenya is generally a crazy place not conducive to optimal performance, as per below incident after the crazy saga of Sammy Wanjiru’s life ended tragically:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tokm53Mv9vk

David Rudisha is an example of this extreme body type of very long tibia, high gastroc and thin upper body. I would be very interested to see what he could run for 400m in peak form as he has run 45.50 in February 2010 while only being in 1:43mid shape for the 800, and went on to 1:41.01 later that year. Below is a video of a 46.50 400m in Melbourne the week before 45.50 (1 sec drop in a week obviously indicates more might be possible with race practice), Obviously the stride is just poetry and the swing phase is super efficient with the lack of distal mass.

also https://edwardovadia.files.wordpress.com/2008/03/img_0012.pdf

Wilson Kipketer is another example of extreme anthropometry in terms of low distal mass and the way he moved over the ground was truly remarkable. If anyone in history has had lower metabolic cost at 8m/s it would surprise me, not much muscular power but efficient as it gets. His form in his 1:41.11WR breaking run from 1:00 to 1:20 below is effortless, amazingly upright with no upper extremity tension and near perfect swing phase (perhaps I could buy Dan Pfaff’s statement of 10-11mM at the end of a 400m if we are talking about guys like Kipketer 😉 ) :

Asbel Kiprop is a more extreme example who may well be somewhat malnourished. He possesses incredible distance credentials with a World Junior Cross Country Championship over 8km and recent form at the same distance against the best elites, but also has 1:43 for 800 and runs about 47.mid at altitude in the video below on a less than state of the art track. Realistically he is probably the best clean 1500/mile athlete in history or at least the most talented.