Haron Lagat left off world half team??

USATF didn't leave him off the world half team. IAAF has a freeze on transfers of allegiance and Haron didn't transfer before the deadline.

Career dwindling away? He just ran 1:01:01 at Houston. What have you done? He has also been here since 2004 and has wanted to be a US citizen for as long as I've known him (we were college teammates), and now he is. And you say he's in it for the money? He has been working and giving back to the sport the entire time as a coach and pacer. But I guess it's easier to make assumptions and troll LetsRun.

I understand you were a groupie and probably chased him In your college days thus you are blinded. He was struggling, making no money as Nike athlete, they cut him he was running bad so he found an easy solution, join wcap. He had no intention of being a soldier and serving our country or being an actual "American". He needed money easier than the Kenyan national team would allow as he wasn't good enough to make their teams. That's great he ran 61, but with USA citizens paying for him after his career was dying. Clearly you didn't read or follow the storyline I mentioned

You establish baseline criteria for an athlete to be considered a representative of a country, then you follow those rules. The criteria should be more strict than just obtaining citizenship imo, but I don't have any real solutions. The motivation behind a nationality switch is irrelevant though, and can't be one of those criteria. It will just have to remain something people speculate and complain about on LRC. If he had a more heartwarming story about wanting to be an American, but took the same path to citizenship would you still be upset?

Localiteez wrote:

There are now petitions to sign in order to show disapproval that usatf decided to leave army soldier Haron Lagat off of the world half team.

My opinion, he is just a Kenyan whose career was dwindling away and decided to become American solely for $$ and to continue running. He had no intention of being a soldier and fighting for our country so it's completely fake that he spouts that. He has no allegiance to America, america was simply a way for him to run "pro". Usatf did good, we can't keep allowing people who don't actually want to serve our country take advantage of army WCAP just to run pro. Get a real contract fellas!

I have to agree. The timing of his joining the Army WCAP is too obvious to be anything but a last ditch effort to stay in America. Coach Simmons is trying to make a fuss about it and making calls, but everyone knows he’s a scammer from the get go. This situation just adds to the numerous sketchy issues that ride on his snake oil salesman coattails