HRE wrote:
In case you check back in and as you expanded your list beyond only white US runners, you missed Dieter Baumann. I think you've established here that running under 13:10 is possible for non-Africans and not something that requires an unusual amount of scrutiny.
Absolutely.
13:10 is an arbitrary number; to look at this another way, five of the GB's all time top 10 at 5000m are currently active (with #10 being 13:11.51).
To tie in with another discussion on here, for potential elite athletes in the UK who are able to get onside with the system, there is a relatively significant amount of funding and support available at the moment.
Also, the UK has far fewer elite/sub elite distance runners than the US, so an athlete who can get to, say 13:30, is far more likely to get international competition and so have a much better opportunity to break through to the next level.
PS There are loads of Italian, Spanish, Portugese, Germans etc under 13:10. I mean, this is letsrun, what about Marius Bakken for a start...