Recently my daughter and I watched a pretty hi profile road race. The Kenyan who won was basically invisible afterwards. My daughter was dissapointed because she wanted to get his autograph to show her schoolmates.
I think there should be more of a chance for the running athletes to be shown to, and interact with, the fans. They shouldn't just cruise into town, run, get their money and leave. In other sports there's usually some pre-game and post game fan interaction. I think the organizers should try to hook up with the local media, get some public interest stories about these runners out before the race, and have some event where they get to meet these international runners, say at a local running store.
My point is that for most fans, I don't think it's mostly nationalism or racism. There are many "non-white" soccer players that get huge fan attention here. I really think that the main reason why many people here ignore the african runners is that they simply don't know much about them, there's no real "personality" to attach to the name. That's just bad management, bad marketing.
By telling some of the Africans stories, Letsrun is actually doing a good thing to attach the "people" to the names.