African long-distance runners are endowed with super-human cardiac capacities or extraordinary strong hearts. The achievements of the African athletes often invite cynical remarks from the European coaches, who despite having all the means are unable to produce a long-distance champion.

   The “Black Power” in athletics is well-known while the American and the Caribbean’s blacks dominated the sprint event right from the days of Jesse Owens and Carl Lewis to the Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt, widely considered to be the greatest sprinter after Ownes and Lewis. Bolt held the world record of 100m, 200m, and 4x100 m relay. Thus, in distance running it’s the Africans who dominated the world of athletics.

  The African athlete is the very image of the hero of Olympism, who without ulterior motives and without proper preparation does well, even so, every four years, by the sheer force of this will to....