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Tuesday, August 14, 2012

More evidence for the sweet spot

I'd been wondering what happened to Genzebe Dibaba, the Ethiopian pre-Olympic favorite in the 1500 meter run and the younger sister of Tirunesh Dibaba, who won the 10,000 meter run in London. Turns out she pulled her hamstring in the opening round of the 1500.

Looking at her picture reminded me of what I'd said earlier about how from an attractiveness point of view, it's far better to run middle distance than distance races. With two sisters, we actually have a somewhat controlled experiment. Here's Tirunesh, the 10K champ:



She has that somewhat emaciated, mummified look that long distance runners can get.

Here's Genzebe, the younger sister. She doesn't have Olympic gold; but she does still have her cuteness:



Even Genzebe may be too lean for some; but at least your initial instinct on seeing her would not be to wonder what refuge camp she came from.

2 comments:

Brian Fradet said...

Very excellent article, John, especially when it reinforces all that I've come to know about extreme exercises that, I believe, humans were never meant to do. Learned that from Dr. Tabata. Thanks, Brian

John Craig said...

Thank you Brian.