There used to be groups of east African runners living and training in New York (& other spots I'm sure). Maybe a few 2:10 guys and some sub 29, they would show up to local races in the area offering decent prize money all the time, and since COVID, have seemed to of disappeared.
Just look at the Litchfield Hills RR in CT this year compared to years past.
Rojo - I presume there are a number of factors at play with Falmouth. This is just looking at its history. But I agree, if you look at the top 50 finishers from the 90s and compare it to today, the two are nothing alike.
First, there are a number of other road races both in the US and abroad competing for these same athletes. Races like Falmouth used to be part of the summer road-racing circuit of maybe 4-5 races that paid decent money. Now there are a larger number of races in the US, and newly minted races in Europe, where the runners do not have to travel as far and can earn a similar prize payout. I also think the reluctance by Kipchoge, for instance, to only focus on the marathon and not to run any other races, ever, has hurt the marketplace as other road racers mimic his training/racing plan.
Second, the marketability of the race does not change if you have a blazing fast time compared to a decent time with a handful of competitors filling out your top 10. This is something the race director has mentioned to the various races he has helped to organize over the years. You do not need to bring in dozens and dozens of paid pros to sell your race to sponsors.
Third, drug testing is a factor now too. Falmouth drug tests, so do other major races. I am not going to assume that all African runners were cheating, but for a long enough period of time it was easy for a runner (from anywhere, not just Africa) to dope. Not anymore, and that is a deterrent to some.
Fouth, travel costs/budgets. The races do not want to pay the cost to fly in a runner from Africa if they can avoid it. Previously, races only had to fly/bus in a runner from the last race they were in (usually Beach 2 Beacon). The travel costs have grown immensely thanks to COVID, oil costs, and the origination location for travel. Now that a lot of runners aren't all running the American circuit (because they may be in Europe, for instance), the races are forced to spend a lot more money to transport in the runners, which they do not want to do. Absent a prior agreement, Falmouth used to reimburse a portion of travel if a runner finished in the top 5 or 10. But that requires the runner pay his/her own way, and perform well. Otherwise they are out a lot of money. Athletes don't want to take that risk.
Fifth, prize money. If you compare the prize money for Falmouth now, compared to say the late 90s or early 00s, the prize money I think is LESS. I think for a period of time the first place prize peaked at $12,000 or $15,000. Today it is back to $10,000. And $10,000 does not go as far as it used to 30 years ago when the East African running boom began (and the prize money back then was $10,000, too). The prize money also does not go as deep for the number of top finishers, either. This year, the prize money was not even published, so who knows. The race board members declared that they are most interested in fundraising the highest amount of money possible. They charged about $100 to run this year, so they have probably maxed out entry fee prices for a while. Sponsorships look healthy but there is only so much money to be gained that way. They were forced to limit the number of bibs they could sell from 12,800 to 10,000, which cuts into the budget. So the next way to maximize profit is to cut costs, such as travel budgets and prize money.
Presently, as far as elite athletes go, the races will probably accept runners from anywhere. But appearance fee money is probably slim. Travel reimbursement is also slim, too. So if you are a runner training in Africa or racing in Europe, it is asking a lot to pay your way to travel to Falmouth, run a course that is tough on the legs through tough weather conditions, for a maximum payout of $10,000.
Hate to break it to you bros, but the US of A is not the centre of the universe. Nobody cares. Sorry not sorry.
Exactly. I had never heard of the Falmouth race until it was mentioned here.
Seriously.
If this guy Flanagan can win it running SLOWER THAN ELITE HALF MARATHON PACE for barely half the distance, it's not a serious race on the international scene.
The key reason: It is much easier for East African runners to get to Europe, with direct flights to London, Amsterdam, Frankfurt etc etc. And there are plenty of elite racing opportunities all of Europe.
Another neat feature of the world outside of the U.S. is that black people can go for a run without fear of being shot by police or neighbors. What a terrifying place to base your training!
You know why. The weird thing is I know why and I’m not even part of the industry. How did you miss the big backlash of managers taking advantage of these athletes? I’m even sure you’ve written articles about it.
I think the E. African agents have shifted distance runners to 1/2s and marathons from road races and track. Diamond league has pulled way back on 5k/10k races. So, there are only a small number of top track runners that will get to go to Diamond League, WCs and OGs. Then, there are a lot of 1/2s that have a lot of prize money and pay appearance fees. Valencia, RAK, Houston, Great North, Prague, Lisbon, NY, etc. put a lot of money into prize purses and appearance fees/athlete support. If you are an agent/manager and have a couple of fast runners, you will make a lot more money sending your athletes to one of these half races than you would sending them to race on the roads in the US. Then, your top 1/2 runners will get big invites to WMMs and bank more big appearance fees for their full debut. If they just run US road races, there is not a lot of interest in getting those runners to debut in marathons.
This does pre-date COVID. Around the DC area there used to be a group of Ethiopian athletes who came to all the races. There were also regional Kenyans as well. Competition was pretty good at any given race. Somewhere around 2015 the Africans all disappeared.
Perhaps not coincidentally, the prize money at races dried up. Even low prize money races at the local 10K where the winner would win 100 bucks, completely gone. Then COVID hit and the races that did survive offer no prize money, and may not even have an elite or sub elite field. No more comp entries, etc. It's much more expensive to race much any more these days as a local sub elite so many don't. You see it big time in how slow the local races have gotten.
You know why. The weird thing is I know why and I’m not even part of the industry. How did you miss the big backlash of managers taking advantage of these athletes? I’m even sure you’ve written articles about it.
would you be shocked to find that rojo did not bother writing about the widespread mistreatment of minority athletes from the third world, while simultaneously writing 20 articles defending a white woman who got caught doping?
The Difference between “Less” and “Fewer” Fewer means “not as many.” We use fewer with countable nouns like cookies.
Cookie Monster was told to eat fewer cookies. xemptyz Less means “not as much.” We use less with uncountable nouns like milk. xemptyz Could you give Cookie Monster less milk next time? xemptyz Most often, you will not have to be Sherlock Holmes to deduce whether a noun is countable or uncountable, thus the decision between less and fewer will be an effortless one. xemptyz If fewer people used disposable water bottles, there would be less plastic in landfills.xemptyz Molly has been drinking less water than she should on this dry day. David makes fewer grammatical mistakes than the average person. My new furniture leaves me with less space for yoga practice. As the days passed, the rose had fewer petals left on it. xemptyz In these examples, determining the countability of the nouns involved was easy. People, grammatical mistakes, and petals are all countable nouns. As difficult as it would be to count all the people who use plastic water bottles, it would be possible to enumerate them because they are itemizable individuals.
Oh no you played the forbidden but completely legitimate ‘race card’ go back ten spaces. Yeah when your national headlines are cops choking out black guys in the street or guys shooting up black people at the mall simply because they are black. makes you think twice about entering a country. I’m not a minority and I’ve had my concerns about the gun violence in the US, coming from Canada. You spend enough time here you realize those fears are nonsense but it’s enough to make you weary as a traveller and immigrant.
This is correct. Falmouth only pays airfare to prior winners. The Kenyans that raced were US based and paid their own way or HOKA NAZ paid. David Bett who finished third flew in from Kenya just for this race thanks to his generous sponsor who owns International Elite T.C.
Road racing in 2022 is about outrageously high entry fees, large packs of average runners, slow times, the experience and camaraderie of completing the event together. NOBODY cares about the top five runners, except the top five runners, in most road races in the US. You offer a purse to the winners? Nobody else will care about the purse or the finishing time, so why spend the money on it in the first place?
Another poster said it earlier but it bears repeating: road running in the US is now about the festival atmosphere and the experience of communal running. It's FOMO and Instagram. Just give away a t-shirt and a medal and let a local/regional runner take the win.
Slightly off-topic but I'm an older runner who got back into it this year after time away. A local half marathon recently cost me $95 (!) and a Fall marathon cost $130. I've already decided that next year I'm only running in the hyper-local cheapies put on by the local running club. Racing has become WAY pricey for what it is. At some point race directors are going to be f-cked when the bottom falls out of racing.