This is sad news for any 9:00-9:15 high schoolers in New Mexico who were hoping to run for UNM. Another state university spot taken away from a local kid for a foreigner.
New Mexico’s top American signing for 2025 just placed 7th at footlocker. Show me the last 100% American roster to win a national title. Providence’s entire top 7 for their 3rd place team weren’t American yet we never hear any crying about it. I wonder what makes Providence’s team different from New Mexico…
Uh, BYU. This year. 4 of the top 5 and 5 of the top 7 from Utah.
He is very good but I also remember racing (does it count as a race if you are 35 seconds behind?) Lawi Lalang after he ran 13:03 in Europe.
Or racing Sam Chelanga after he broke 27:00
good get for them. Honestly I think it is kinda of cool, the NCAA is becoming far and away the best track organization globally.
SIGN GOUT GOUT
Lawi’s 13:03 is highly underrated, in my opinion. That was before the super shoes/spikes era. Of course, he also took a massive nosedive not long after that, so there’s always a possibility that something strange was going on. Would be interesting to know the backstory.
Well “something strange” could have been going on, but of course he had a brother who ran 1:42.95, so there was immense running talent in the family. Just as Robert Cheseret ran 13:13 in 2005, and he happened to have a brother who was likely the most talented distance runner to ever run for the US.
Question for the boards: Does this mean he has to surrender his prize money? Does he understand he can’t accept prize money for the near future? He can keep the sponsorship money, but the race warnings have to go, correct?
Slow, racist, and scared runners will not stop bullying. Juniors don't get paid; they only have their expenses covered. He just graduated from school in November and had planned to go to college since last year. Obviously, he knows prize money doesn't exist. Again, people are just mad that he is Kenyan and Black. I thought the issue was also about older kids, but it seems there is too much anger here.
I hate to say it but with Strand and Wolfe going 7:30 as well as a slew of others sub 7:40, this 13:05 / 7:38 guy isn’t that impressive. I mean yeah he’ll be a great low stick in addition to Samuel but def-o not the TITAN to take all records as claimed
Yeah this is how I was feeling after XC when OK State fumbled and Samuel came 2nd, and even moreso when American college kids ran 7:30/7:30/7:36/12:59 at one meet after their peak race. For all the hullaballoo they've caused in the last year, non-Americans combined for 1 XC team win and 1 NCAA 10k win that the best guys sat out of (not to denigrate sub-27 guy Habtom Samuel). Americans hold NCAA records from mile-10k, and college kids run faster than the 1500 record every summer. At BYU they win with a roster of guys almost all from Utah. At UW, they've won the last 5 1500/mile titles all with guys who grew up within an hour of campus.
I used to say this more often, but I think the talent has always been here, and it just hasn't been training right. Now that the NCAA is essentially a professional league, with some of the best coaches in the world, inarguably some of the best training and rehab facilities in the world, and the athletes are getting paid (with an education, and now with money from multibillion-dollar brands) to run, and now that they're treating it as such, we're seeing professional level results.
Honestly from a political/economic standpoint, I don't like that we're so deeply tying a professional sports league directly to our upper education system. It's a huge unnecessary cost to most schools, but students still choose to go there, so oh well. Still, from an athletic standpoint, it's gonna be great for the development of our athletes. And it's pretty cool that our country is so prosperous that we're literally importing world junior champions to run for our school track teams.
UW definitely recruits foreign talent. A few years ago when they had 8 guys sub 4, at least 4-5 were from Europe / Australia and 24/25 years old.
Question for the boards: Does this mean he has to surrender his prize money? Does he understand he can’t accept prize money for the near future? He can keep the sponsorship money, but the race warnings have to go, correct?
My understanding is he (or anyone) can accept prizemoney up to the equivalent of "actual and necessary expenses".
Question for the boards: Does this mean he has to surrender his prize money? Does he understand he can’t accept prize money for the near future? He can keep the sponsorship money, but the race warnings have to go, correct?
Imagine caring about this when it comes to a kid coming from a country with nearly 2/3 of the population below the international poverty line. He probably couldn’t but hopefully Kipkurui was able to help his family “illegally” if that were the case.
Slow, racist, and scared runners will not stop bullying. Juniors don't get paid; they only have their expenses covered. He just graduated from school in November and had planned to go to college since last year. Obviously, he knows prize money doesn't exist. Again, people are just mad that he is Kenyan and Black. I thought the issue was also about older kids, but it seems there is too much anger here.
You have no argument so you resort to calling people ‘raycis’. You Myrons are so predictable.
Back on topic, a New Mexico 1-2 of Kipkurui/Samuel has potential to go 1-2 in XC and the 5K/10K. Both have plenty of eligibility and I’m not sure either will be that incentivized to go pro until after the ‘26 season maybe.
This post was edited 31 seconds after it was posted.