American distance runner Bob Kennedy was thrilled with his performance in the 5,000 m at last week's Stockholm Grand Prix meet. He marked himself a contender for an Olympic medal in the event by breaking the formidable 13-min. barrier, becoming the first non-African to do so. That was also his problem. Eight Africans--five so far this year--have accomplished that same feat, and the man who finished seven full seconds ahead of Kennedy in Stockholm, 20-year-old Daniel Komen, wasn't even good enough to make Kenya's Olympic team.

Most athletes need no reminder that over the past 10 years, African men have set the standard in international distance running. In the two Olympics and four world championships since 1986, they have won two-thirds of all the medals and 90% of the golds in the men's middle- and long-distance track events (800 m, 1,500 m, 5,000 m, 10,000 m and 3,000-m steeplechase). What's more, at each of these distances, save the 800, an African holds the world record.

African women are not yet so dominant. The continent's two female champions at Barcelona, Derartu Tulu of Ethiopia in the 10,000 and Hassiba Boulmerka of Algeria in the 1,500, will both be among the favorites in Atlanta, and the U.S.-trained Maria Mutola of Mozambique is in a class by herself in the 800. But Africa's depth in the women's distances is not yet up to that in the men's.

For example: Ethiopia's Haile Gebrselassie, world-record holder at 5,000 and 10,000 m, is as firm a gold-medal favorite as any in the Games. His counterpart in the steeplechase, Moses Kiptanui of Kenya, has won three straight world championships and set the six fastest times on record. Algerian Noureddine Morceli, just 26, has dominated the 1,500 (the "metric mile") for so long that outstanding natural milers have changed events to avoid him. Picked to win in Barcelona, he got caught in traffic on a frenetic last lap and finished seventh, but not even his most optimistic rival imagines that will happen again.

While countries such as Burundi and Namibia are hatching future champions, most of Africa's best come from three nations: Kenya, Morocco and Ethiopia. All have extensive high-altitude regions that have been populated from antiquity by warlike nomadic herdsmen--factors often cited as a source of natural hardiness and high aerobic capacity. Perhaps equally important, each has produced a charismatic forerunner whose feats have inspired the country's youth. In Ethiopia it was Abebe Bikila, winner of black Africa's first two Olympic golds, with marathon victories in 1960 and 1964. In Kenya, Kipchoge Keino became black Africa's first world-record holder and won gold and silver medals at the 1968 and 1972 Games. And in Morocco, Said Aouita set five world records and scored a dazzling 5,000-m win at the 1984 Olympics.

Aouita's role has been especially significant. Since his victories, King Hassan II has taken an interest in track and made it a "patriotic priority," says Aziz Daouda, director of the Royal Moroccan Athletics Federation. Hassan established a National Athletics School in Rabat and a training camp in the Atlas Mountains resort of Ifrane, where Morocco's finest live all expenses paid and get what is by African standards a munificent monthly stipend of $1,000.

Kenya and Ethiopia can boast no such elaborate cosseting. Their informal systems rely on school and regional competitions to spit out talented athletes, who are offered sinecures in the armed forces or the civil service. The national federations run occasional meets and training camps, but they are known primarily for mismanagement. The Kenyan-born world champion in the 800 m, Wilson Kipketer, cites the federation as one reason he has chosen to run for his adopted country, Denmark.

What, then, accounts for the extraordinary achievements of these two countries--especially Kenya, by far the continent's leading track power? "There's no secret," says Moses Kiptanui. "It's hard training." Kenyans are known for their ferocious workouts, more intense than many Westerners would dare attempt for fear of injury. But that doesn't explain the most striking feature of Kenya's success. One ethnic group, the Kalenjin, that makes up about 10% of the country's 28 million people, has won three-quarters of Kenya's Olympic and world-championship medals--nearly as many as the rest of Africa combined.

Kenyans believe the Kalenjin are gifted by nature, a notion supported only by anecdotal evidence. Marathoner Paul Rotich, for example, was one of several Kenyans at South Plains Junior College in Levelland, Texas, in 1988, but the sole one without a track scholarship. "I was fat," he says. "I weighed 80 kilos, and I had never run in my life. But I was almost finishing the money my father had raised for me, so I decided to try for a scholarship." He trained at night, embarrassed to be seen lumbering around the track, and within a year had a scholarship to Lubbock Christian University. By his 1992 graduation he had won All-American honors 10 times in track and cross-country. "When I went home and told my cousin," Rotich recalls, "he looked at me and he said, 'So, it is true. If you can run, then any Kalenjin can run.' " Western runners, be warned.

--Reported by Stephen Hughes/Rabat and Andrew Purvis/Nairobi