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

If he had a real attachment to GB, he'd move there permanently and attend school in GB. He's chosen to get his education in the US. He may love certain parts of GB but he's made choices within American life than go against that.

So according to this logic, Kai Robinson is also American.

Charles is only 21 and lived in the UK until he was 12. Whether his parents are American or not, he still literally lived in the UK for more than half of his lifetime. Regardless of who my parents are, if I was 21 and had lived in England for more than half of my lifetime I’d also feel pretty British. Seems fair to me. Pappas on the other hand never spent extensive time in Greece, so that’s not a relevant comparison at all (although her father is actually from there).

He's not getting attention because it took us three pages just to talk about where he is from. We haven't even started on who he is or why we should be paying attention to him.

Give em Nico Young all day long.

Hicks is an an American. He grew up in America. But he roots for the UK and wants to be British.

I wish him luck but give me the kid from California, who has NOT renounced his country, all day long.

Just a quick reply that both Hillary Clinton and Al Gore conceded publicly and graciously. You can find this information easily with a quick search on the internet.

In 2018, Stacey Abrams allowed that Kemp was the governor of Georgia without conceding that he had won the race, for the simple reason that as both Secretary of State who oversaw a massive voter purge in the months before the race, and as a gubernatorial candidate who stood to benefit materially and significantly from this purge, he was clearly in an inappropriate position of influence in his own election. You wouldn't concede defeat to a football team whose quarterback was also the head referee--you probably wouldn't even play such a crooked game to begin with.

Meanwhile, Trump has yet to provide a single example of voter "fraud"--and we know from testimony that nearly every single one of his advisors confirmed that his accusations of such were baseless. Trump is intentionally living in a fantasy land, and your false equivalencies make you look like you've taken up at least seasonal residency there yourself.

He's a dual citizen.

It has everything to do with his nationality. If Young had won there'd be a load of threads about it. It's not surprising, this is mainly a site for US sub-elite running, that's what drives most traffic.

As a Brit, I'm looking forward to seeing what Hicks can do. He should make the World's and Olympic teams in the 10k. The only competition is Scott. Patrick Dever isn't progressing, Atkin is a bottle job waiting to happen, and Cairess looks to be going all-in on the marathon since he's now coached by Canova. The 5k team is a bit more competitive but not much, just the addition of Butchart. So, as you can see, Hicks' path to World's and the Olympics is substantially easier representing GB rather than the US and any loss in marketability he loses from not choosing the US he will make up for by actually getting to run in major events consistently

You clearly never lived abroad. I did. My kids did. You grow up in an American household with American parents abroad, vacation back in the US, etc, and you "feel" American. Especially when you leave at still a relatively young age. Charles holds both passports. He clearly has affection for the UK, but this is not some immigrant story. His parents are super wealthy -- a "prominently" wealthy and "old money" Jacksonville family -- and they were never going to stay in the UK forever. I think it's odd that he runs for the UK, but it's his choice to make. There's nothing British about him other than that he happened to live there for a while as a kid.

This gender debate is getting out of control. I've heard about biological males dominating the women's events, but now we've got CHicks winning the men's.

I've been waiting patiently for a thread to post this rubbish joke on, and this is the best I could find. So thank you, OP.

Exactly. Also: when counting the years lived in each place, the 0-5 years shouldn’t count because people remember almost nothing about their lives before they were 5. If we look at just the memorable years, he spent 7 years in the UK and 9 years and counting in the US. Estelle knows who he is:

Whether he feels he american or brittish what's definite is that he's lived one hell of a life so far! Attended the most prestigious primary school in UK, Thomas Battersea school in London (where the Royal Family go) and then aged 12 swapped the rain and wind of England for the tropical humidity of Florida. The fact he also changed climate completely from one extreme to another makes his athletics achievements all the more impressive as running in Florida heat can't be easy, especially having previously lived in England. Seemingly he attended Bolles HS (Private school) and will soon have a degree from Stanford. Aside from his absolutely insane running ability, which hopefully he'll fulfill his future potential in, his education is also one of the best in the western world. From his interviews seems like a great guy too. Looking forward to watch him at Euro XC in a few weeks.

The Australian Patrick Tiernan got a lot of attention on LetsRun for his collegiate running.

Were you under the impression that people on LR got to decide and not him?

He’s a modern day Sam Parsons.

It’s only Pappasing if you do it to boost your resume for your post-elite-running career, which begins almost immediately after the Games you run in for your pretend country.

Kai Robinson is not an American citizen.

No, not at all. See the last line of the post immediately before that one. The poster said “Charles' decision to compete for England is his to make.”

It was a statement of the obvious, to which I responded.

Lol what?? He just beat Nico Young and I think we can all agree Nico Young can make a US Olympic team. Plus the third 10K spot behind Joe and Grant is basically up for grabs.

Seems like he made this decision well before he was such a high-caliber runner. At the time it was an opportunity to complete internationally at all, not to dodge US standards. Seeing how far he's come, it can now be seen as such.