A lot of generalizations with "ultras." First off there is a big difference between a mountain 100-miler (think UTMB) and a road 50km/100km. Marathon PRs and fitness certainly helps and I have no doubt a lot of East Africans can destroy a lot of trail-ultra records though.I've raced 2:08-2:10 marathon guys at Comrades (55-miles, 5,000' of climbing, net uphill on road). Most competitive ultra in the world. They beat me by quite a bit (Max King and I both fell of the lead pack hard that year!). There is $40,000 to win there - not a bad payday for an ultra. Sometimes 2:17 marathoners win there though..esp on an uphill year. Guys also get busted for PEDs, but that's another story all together. As for coverage.... check out some videos of "UTMB" or "Transvulcania"... media can make things interesting with live drone shots and tracking. If anything the appeal is the challenge of the landscape and/or the mountains. XC and mountain racing can have that appeal as well and the shorter duration would be an advantage for viewers...however the longer distances (like the 50-milers and especially the 100-milers) seem to capture more of the imagination and intrigue for followers in this niche part of running. There is a certain element of drama to an epic bonk after 40 or 80 miles. A race like Comrades has a long history with 20,000 runners now taking part every year and over 1 million people watching live.
Spike Li wrote:
Sorrytodissapoint wrote:I really believe if the olympics opened up to having a 50 miler or 50k that Kenyans would easily win that too. They just don't train for it presently.They probably already do better ultra training than ultras do. They just don't race them because there is no money there. They need to put food on their tables and marathons do that, ultras don't. Throw a gold medal in the equation and you would have all the east africans would lay shame to the current ultra "elites".