The Large Number of Brazilian’s Runners does not Result in Excellent Performance in World Marathons

Abstract

Despite the number of practitioners it seems that there are few athletes in Brazil with expressive results internationally. Objective: Compare the performance of the Brazilian elite runners in the marathons around of the world. Methods: A retrospective study comparing the time and positions of the Brazilian founders with the main athletes in the world in the 12 main marathons of the world, from 2016 to 2018. Results: Data show that the number of street marathon runners increases in Brazil each year, but our elite marathoners have not achieved lower times (p<0.001), positions far from the main African athletes and poor performance in the majors, worldwide and Olympic Games. Conclusion: Despite physical training, the performance of Brazilian marathoners is not enough to compete with Kenyan athletes and Ethiopians due to the genetic superiority, and physiology, and biomechanics features of Africans. This distance seems to occur due to differences in the metabolic and biomechanical mechanisms that make the running economy of these African marathoners more efficient, so they are almost unbeatable in marathons, because the modality requires a lot of resistance and great cardiorespiratory capacity.

International Road Race of São Silvestre: why don't brazilians win anymore and what do we need to do?

“…Despite the large number of practitioners as shown in the Figure 1 only in the IRRSS, the country is unable to train outstanding elite athletes in endurance races so much that the Brazilian athlete runners did not present affect performance in long-distance running in the most important road races such as the major's marathons 6 . In this sense, the findings of the present study also showed that in the IRRSS the performance of male and female Brazilian elite runners were not efficient to win the most important road race of Latin America.…”

“…To change the actual reality in the major's marathons and in the IRRSS is necessary more actions of CBAt and COB. Studies showed that there is a massive participation of people in road races, but this phenomenon is not reflected in results in the elite athlete runners 6 . In this sense, the present study can collaborate pointing out some important actions that Brazilian committees need to adopt: i) encourage the creation of many athletics schools in Brazil, such as the miniature sports recommended by World Athletics, which would be a way to increase the amount of future good endurance athletes, this action exists, but it is insufficient and few young coaches have access; ii) make a greater exchange with Brazilian and foreign coaches encouraging the creation of a true sports science academy according to the needs of Brazilian athletes, then trained technicians who understand the practice, the physiology of exercise and the most current forms of scientific research of the high performance in the sport.…”

“…In Brazil, road racing is extremely popular with thousands of practitioners in the country, an amount that has grown a lot since the 1970s 5 . The country currently has numerous runners and sporting events throughout the country 6,7 apparently with a greater participation of men 8 . In addition, Brazil produced runners that are part of the history of road racing like Ronaldo da Costa, who was once the world record holder for the marathon, Vanderlei Cordeiro de Lima, bronze medalist in the historic Olympics in Athens and Marilson Gomes dos Santos, two-time champion of the marathon in New York.…”

“…For this reason, long-distance runners are expected to perform well in important events in the country and worldwide. Despite this, in recent years the most traditional race in Brazil has been won by African athletes, so much so that in 2020 it will complete 10 years of the last Brazilian winner, Marilson Gomes dos Santos, showing that the number of runners does not reflect on the performance of athletes from elite Brazilians 6 .…”

“…The African runners have dominated the road races ,9 . Today, the record holders of the most traditional events such as 5 kilometer (km), 10 km, 15 km, half-marathon, and marathon are all Africans, mostly Kenyans and Ethiopians 10 , with a weak attempt by some athletes from the USA, UK and Japan trying to compete with Africans 6 .…”