Marathon Specialization in Elites: A Head Start for Africans This study pursued the evaluation of the differences in event-specific specialization between African and non-frican male marathon runners based on age, performance and career length. For this purpose, the top 90 of the African marathon runners from 2001 to 2015 with the top 90 of non-African marathon runners from the same period over various markers in terms of age, performance and career length compared. It turned out that African marathon runners specialize in excellence and retreat from competitive sports as non-African marathon runners. In addition, African marathon runners were faster in these career periods and in half marathon performance faster. There was no significant difference in the number of marathons between the groups, but African marathon runners ran more frequently than non-African marathon runners. The half marathon performance correlated positively with the marathon performance. Marathon runners specializing in young years showed significantly higher suggestions rates than those specializing in older age groups.
The results show that African marathon runners in recent years reach a higher level of performance than their non-African opponents. In addition, the current marathonental identification practice can benefit from the use of semi-marathon achievements. The study can be found under https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28488940/