I guess Charles Hicks isn't getting any attention on here as the NCAA champion because he isn't American?

"I guess Charles Hicks isn't getting any attention on here as the NCAA champion because he isn't American??"

Yes, that's probably it. Real 'Muricans have had it with these foreign gits taking our athletic scholarships.

yeah but he still lived there for the first 12 years of his life so I would assume he has a real attachment to GB. he likely started running there in some capacity and there's something about your childhood home that just leaves an indelible mark.

I agree that he is probably still choosing to compete there for the better chance he has of making teams but thb it doesn't really seem as flagrantly opportunistic as Pappas, Parsons, or Praught-Leer, for example

As others have said, his parents are American and he happened to be born in London when his dad had a job there. His mom is a Stanford alum. Dad's family is a wealthy and prominent Jacksonville family. Charles didn't start running seriously until he got back to the US. He is as American as apple pie, but he has passports for both countries. He has never said this of course, but he clearly competes for the UK because it's easier to make teams. Remember, he started doing that before he emerged as one of the top young American runners. He was good in high school, but not Nico Young or Cole Sprout good.

So he calls the UK home, he competes for UK, he was born in the UK, grew up in the UK, but is actually american 🤔

I have to say in the face of overwhelming evidence there is something quite plucky about the american way of never conceding any ground. Has trump admitted he lost yet?

His family is American, he’s spent the past decade in America, attended middle and high school in America, and he developed as a runner in America. So what if he calls the UK home. I’d call another country home too if it gave me a better chance of competing internationally. For Hicks, Pappas and others like them, home isn’t where the heart is. Home is where the Olympic bib is.

But he doesnt have to call the UK home to compete for UK. He is free to call usa home and still compete freely for UK, yet he does not 🤔

I cannot see any reason why he would call a place home unless he considered it his home. Where his parents are from or where he lives as an adult seem secondary to where you are born and raised and where you consider your home to be.

This part is just false. He says in his athleticsweekly interview that he competes for gb because it was in the uk where he began to run seriously. He won his first cross country race in london.

He says of the US - "i have been based in the us for the past 7 years". This is how expats talk. You dont say you are based in usa if you consider yourself american, do you?

The reality is some runners get more attention than others. In track and field, sprinters get more attention than throwers and race walkers.

It is what it is. Unless Hicks drops a ridiculous time next year, he will continue to get less share of attention as compared to Tuohy or Nico Young.

What are you talking about! He is the favorite of all hicks.

What were his PBs when he lived over there? What are they now? That will tell you where he developed.

Saying he’s “based in the US” is just one of the talking points he’s learned to make it seem to others as if he’s not American. We can see through the charade.

End of thread

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Has Stacey Abrams?

Has Hillary?

Has Al Gore?

This happens in China all the time. Chinese parents have a kid in Canada, he is raised in Canada, feels Canadian, and doesn't really relate to China. They consider themselves to be....Canadian, even if they later move with their families back to China for a while.

This is no different. CH spent his formative years in the UK. Its what he knows, his earliest memories etc. I am sure he also has friends there, and thinks about going back.

Nationalists always try to claim ownership of people based on their ethnicity. The US is no different.

Don't be daft. His family moved back to Jacksonville when he was 12. He did not "develop" as a runner before age 12. And of course he said it that way in an interview with a BRITISH publication. He has referenced in other interviews that he was delighted about how well he was received by his UK teammates when he has flown to Europe for races. Why would that be notable? Because he is an American child of American parents, speaks with an American accent, and has done all his running in the USA except for some fun stuff when he was quite young.

As an American who grew up partially in London, I have seen plenty of cases like this. We knew a lot of “American” families, some of whom were there a year, and others of whom were there semi-permanently. We always considered ourselves primarily American, but it was a mixed bag among other kids I knew. Some of them felt more American, some of them felt more British. Depended on a lot of factors. What I can say is that the majority of kids (not all) who were born in the UK and spent their first 12 years living there would have considered themselves British, even if their parents were American.

What the hell are you talking about? He's been all over these boards for the last year and a half.

I listened to a podcast interview of him and have seen a couple of his youtube videos and get the impression that it is a talking point. Also, my recollection is that his declared athletics allegiance to England was almost an accident -- when he was a good, but not great, junior runner he saw an opportunity to run in a cross country meet for Great Britain and took it. I don't think it was based on a calculation that it would be easier for him to make the GB Olympic Team in the future.

Maybe.....he likes being English more than he likes being American. There's a lot of that going around. I don't think anyone could blame him.

He certainly can't make a US team, so I don't blame him for Alexi Pappasing