Hall/Cheruiyot: question for the experts

cellie wrote:

I'm not racist but let's be serious... I don't care about color or where your parents are from but we should think about where people were born and raised.

"I'm not racist but..."

Wow. You must be proud of yourself.

Okay, how about bigoted, xenophobic and ignorant? (And racist.) What I see in some of these posts is lots of elaborate--and some not so elaborate--excuses for excluding dark-skinned runners from being recognized as "American" distance runners. It's okay for Shorter and Salazar to be foreign-born, but Meb and Abdi? Not so much.

If they represent the U.S. in international competition for this country, they are "American." Period. And that includes Lagat, too. It's disgusting and offensive to suggest otherwise.

` wrote:

The question was whether an American has beaten a top KENYAN in a major AMERICAN marathon. Boston, Chicago, New York. Not the Olympic marathon (except in '96), not London. For example, at Chicago in 1997 when Christine McNamara, Debbie Kilpatrick, Elaine Van Blunk, and Ann Schaefers-Coles all beat Lornah Kiplagat.

Reread the original post. It clearly said, "Or any marathon for that matter?"

And El G is Caucasian, though I don't see why that is relevant in this discussion.

orbitboy wrote:

What I see in some of these posts is lots of elaborate--and some not so elaborate--excuses for excluding dark-skinned runners from being recognized as "American" distance runners. It's okay for Shorter and Salazar to be foreign-born, but Meb and Abdi? Not so much.

If they represent the U.S. in international competition for this country, they are "American." Period. And that includes Lagat, too. It's disgusting and offensive to suggest otherwise.

Shorter and Salazar were born overseas, but on military bases, ie. US citizens automatically.

Meb, Abdi, Lagat are all foreign born and part of the less than 1% of world gene pool that completely dominates distance running. The disapora of East Africans just increases their dominance by allowing them more spots in the Olympics/Worlds and suppresses the popularity of the sport as whole. Pretend offense all you want, but based on your dishonesty tack with the Shorter/Salazar stuff, you're probably the type who would support forcing in minority managers, coaches, quarterbacks, etc. into sports regardless of performance. Since 10% of the US population is black, at least 10% of positions must be set aside as quotas for them, but don't dare try that in reverse for whites in the NBA.

You guys all realize the El Guerrouj is really of middle eastern decent, right? Northern Africa was settled by a ton of Middle Easterners, more so than any other large group. So I would say he's got the genes of neither africans nor caucasians.

descent**

I watched a race once and heard EL G speak French

I can´t believe you Americans are so obsessed by the pseudo-term "race". Most biologists today say that there is no such thing as human "races".

Big Yawn wrote:

Pretend offense all you want, but based on your dishonesty tack with the Shorter/Salazar stuff, you're probably the type who would support forcing in minority managers, coaches, quarterbacks, etc. into sports regardless of performance.

Regardless of performance?? I don't see Meb or Lagat getting time bonuses based on their skin color. They are American and beat other Americans legitimately.

When was the last time a White, Home grown, born and raised American won a legit marathon against legit individuals from the continent of Africa?????

This is the question we are focusing on.

Race is only a social construct.

Word Up wrote:

When was the last time a White, Home grown, born and raised American won a legit marathon against legit individuals from the continent of Africa?????

This is the question we are focusing on.

Who is this "we" you speak of?

I guess we could simplify the question even further by just asking, when was the last time any American (other than KK) ever won *any* major marathon? Boston? NYC? London? Berlin? Chicago? Frankfurt? Fukuoka? Other than Deena, none comes to mind since the days of Bill, Frank, and Joan. If anyone had, they would have beaten some good Kenyans.

El Geurrouj proves white people can compete with the Africans. Haha.