We’ve all known it for a long time, but now rigorously researched statistics appears to back up the (overwhelming) anecdotal evidence: East Africans make the fastest . Well, when it comes to 50km ultra races anyway. In a study recently published in researchers investigated the age and race locations of elite ultra marathon runners, paying specific attention to their countries of origin.
The researchers, headed by a team at the University of Zurich, and involving various sports science bodies from across Europe and South America, used data from over a million race records. Their results indicate that the fastest runners of 50k ultras are indeed from Africa such as Ethiopia and Kenya, with the fastest races occurring in Middle Eastern countries and Europe, with peak performance age being between 20 and 24 years. Studies on longer races, like the 100km and 100mile races, identified top performers from Japan, Russia, Brazil, Sweden, and Hungary (with potential influences from doping scandals).
Meanwhile, previous research on 50km ultra marathons has concentrated on performance linked to age, sex differences, inflammatory responses, nutritional needs, cardiovascular impacts and running biomechanics. But performance relating to geographical origin is a new area. The study analyzed data from 1,398,845 race records from 549,154 runners (1,026,546 men and 372,299 women) from 122 countries, who competed in 50km races held in 86 locations between 1894 and 2022.
Men averaged faster spe.
