freshman runner-
You made the statement of "Look at Geb, all of his world record performances came in big European meets with alot of competition" - well that's not really true.
Big European Meets - yes.
A lot of competition - NO.
Here's a summary of the top 3 when Geb set his 10K & 5K records in 1998:
1 - Geb 26:22
2 - Jifar 27:29
3 - Tola 27:32
1 - Geb 12:39
2 - Kipkosgei 13:07
3 - Gachara 13:07
Now, looking closer at Culpepper, you should remember that he has typically been running the 10,000m at Stanford in the spring (and as far as I know, he's running again this spring). A look at the competition from the 2001 race where Meb broke the AR, and Alan PR'd for the 6th fastest American 10K:
Cardinal Invitational 10,000 Meters
Stanford, CA, Friday, May 4, 2001 PL NAME CTZ TEAM TIME
1 Abraham Chebii KEN Puma Int'l 27:04.20, U.S. All-Comers Record
2 Ben Maiyo KEN Puma Int'l 27:07.55
3 Luke Kipkosgei KEN Puma Int'l 27:12.37
4 Meb Keflezighi USA Nike/Team USA 27:13.98, U.S. Record
5 Alan Culpepper USA adidas 27:33.93, 6th fastest American all-time
6 Toshinari Takaoka JPN 27:35.09, Japanese Record
7 Jeff Schiebler CAN Nike 27:36.01, Canadian Record
That's exactly the kind of race that Alan should be in - and it's right here in the States, of all places. There's very few quality 10Ks in the world in a given year. He's raced in some of the best of them (Stanford & World's).
Once again, to those of you who know how to run faster than Alan Culpepper - go ahead.