Team USA World Marathon Team

Don't know about foreigners not helping American races... I saw Deriba Merga sweep into Houston, not speaking a lick of English, and single-hadedly transformed the Houston Marathon to a World Class event. Never has race coverage been greater, never has there been more attention for Houston than this year when Merga dropped a 2:07 on the streets of the Bayou City.

There is no need for these guys to learn English, just like there is no need for Hall/Ritz/Sell to learn French or German.

It is sport. Not linguistics.

Your perspective is invalid. It's about golf's comparative popularity with and without Woods. If you believe that golf would still be as popular in the US sans Woods and with non-English speakers winning then you don't have a clue. Think about it this way, if you can, what if all NASCAR winners suddenly were French speakers? As for the other sports, correlation is not causation. You can't know that the sport wouldn't be MORE popular with athletes who can all interact easily with the press. It isn't even about the native tongues of runners, it's about the sport's organization (or lack thereof) failing to provide translators to better facilitate athlete interaction with US media.

What's more problematic than guys who don't speak English is races that don't have a translator on call. At Boston, they had to find Merga's coach to translate for him at the finish line, because apparently no one thought there's be someone who spoke Amharic in the race (except, you know, all those Ethiopians the race paid to come).

It's also not so much language as demeanor. You could market Usuan Bolt if he spole Martian. That guy's poses didn't need to be translated. The article on the front page the other day from the Kenyan paper made a similar point.

Idiot! wrote:

Your perspective is invalid. It's about golf's comparative popularity with and without Woods. If you believe that golf would still be as popular in the US sans Woods and with non-English speakers winning then you don't have a clue. Think about it this way, if you can, what if all NASCAR winners suddenly were French speakers?

As for the other sports, correlation is not causation. You can't know that the sport wouldn't be MORE popular with athletes who can all interact easily with the press. It isn't even about the native tongues of runners, it's about the sport's organization (or lack thereof) failing to provide translators to better facilitate athlete interaction with US media.

First of all, the Tiger example is a bad one -- once Tiger leaves the tour, golf is going to take a hit regardless of what the rest of the players speak. A better example is baseball -- that sport has become more and more non-English speaking each year, and attendance is at an all-time high. Do you really think that people care that there is only a sprinking of white Americans among the top 10 or 20 baseball players? The media loves interviewing the guys that can barely speak English in baseball!

What you don't understand is that these road races can only work with the media that actually shows up to the event. You can't just demand that the media show up and cover your event. When Tiger leaves the tour, or when hockey becomes almost 100% non-American, there will still be 20 times more media members covering those events. Why? Because Americans like those sports!

Here's the hard truth: If NASCAR had only a few Americans among the top 20 in the world, and the rest spoke broken English, you would still have 100,000+ show up at Daytona. Of course, many of them would be there to taunt the foreigners, but the interest level would still be extremely high.

All this begs the question: how do we make road running more popular in America? That one is easy -- we need Americans to start winning big races. Once we are competitive on a world level, we'll have plenty more media show up to see if the Americans will compete with these non-English speakers...

MPR wrote:

A couple of points I'd like to make:

4) Back to an earlier point - what does everyone think of the following scenario for the IAAF:

a. eliminate the marathon as an event from the World Athletics Championships

b. replace it with a half marathon or 20k road event

c. Change the annual half marathon/road championship into a WC Marathon Championship - its own seperate event held in different locations each year - similar to the World XC Championship. Hold this every year except the Olympic year.

5) If the number 4 scenario happens I'd suggest the World Marathon Majors adapt by adding this championship as a point event each year. I'd also like to see them (WMM) add Tokoyo or another major Asian marathon to the ranks.

Not that my vote counts or anything, but I'm on board with replacing the marathon at the WC with a half or 20K road race. Too hot, not enough interest, not attracting the top athletes. The marathon is a total different sport than the 10K on the track and needs to be handled differently.

Also, I'd suggest not creating a separate marathon later in the year to serve as the WC, just bestow the WC title on one of the five marathon majors for the year. Rotate between them.

You missed the point. I write for a small New England Newspaper. I was lucky enought to be in attendance at the John Hancock Press Conference on Friday before Boston Marathon this year. Kara Goucher and Ryan Hall both had 15-20 reporters deep for the entire hour and half. The third most difficult person to talk to was not Dire Tune or Robert Cheryuot it was Brian Sell. So a guy that was not going to finish in the top 5 was more of a story than the defending champs.

Both Ryan and Kara were important because they had a chance to win, Brian was important because he is an American.

The reason sprinters and track distance guys can do worlds more easily than marathoners is they can, within reason, race as often as they want. Say a marathon makes an average of $100K a year running three marathons per year. Asking him skip one of his higher-paying marathons for Worlds where he has basically no guaranteed pay is asking him to risk about 25% of his yearly income, only to be recouped if he runs well, and even then he might still be down 10% (obviously the specific percentages depend on his sponsorship contract). Sure there are some runners who are financially secure enough to take that risk but for the majority of guys running is their only source of income and they have to think about paying the bills and saving for life after running.

I had thought of that as well and agree that it may be a good solution if it could be worked out with Majors.

My concern would in that scenario would be figuring out what athelets can get in a which can't and who gets appearance fees and who doesn't.

Do you see it more as a run the majors as you do know and just designate one as a the WC each year without any changes to the way they attract or set their elite field, or as using the criteria used in the current WC meet or the one used in the World Half Marathon Championships.

This would definately take some work as well and the Majors may or may not be willing to play ball depdning on what the championships would required.

This has already been mentioned by others, but I don't think you get it. A runner in Lehmk/Rohat class is taking a BIG financial hit by running the WC marathon. Shoe companies provide a small bonus for making these secondary international teams, but it's tiny compared to the kind of appearance fee/bonuses a major marathon might pay. Additionally, if you think Saucony really wants Lehmk to run WC's (an event with no domestic coverage, where he's wearing a Nike kit) instead of New York or Chicago, you're kidding yourself. Just going by the statistics, marathoners have less than 10 good races in a career. Running for your country is important, but Berlin in August will be hot and recognition for doing comparably well in the conditions will be hard to come by. Put yourself in these guys shoes. Lehmk/Rohat likely don't have the stuff to medal at the WC's. Maybe they run a great race, placing 7th-15th in 2:14-2:16 in hot conditions. Maybe a comparable performance is running 2:11:30 at New York on a good day or 2:10 at Chicago. What do you think does more for their careers, and more for American distance running? I understand your take on the seemingly small importance Americans have put on some international racing opportunities. It's valid. However, I think the marathon is really a separate entity. Most believe that winning Boston, London, Chicago or New York is more prestigous than the WC marathon. If we were talking about a couple of 5,000 or 10,000 meter runners who passed on WC's to run some American road races for some extra cash, then your ire would more appropriate.

Maliki wrote:

And another factor that is being overlooked is many of these athletes, such as Lemk, Rohat, Abdi, etc. have written in their contract a bonus for making a world team. Now, of course, I don't know for sure if these specific athletes have this bonus incentive, but it is likely they do.

Therefore it's very possible that many of the runners who have turned down this spot also turned down a pay incentive from their sponsor...It's highly unlikely that they would lose too much money by choosing World champs over NYC or Chicago...

Press Credentials wrote:

You missed the point. I write for a small New England Newspaper. I was lucky enought to be in attendance at the John Hancock Press Conference on Friday before Boston Marathon this year. Kara Goucher and Ryan Hall both had 15-20 reporters deep for the entire hour and half. The third most difficult person to talk to was not Dire Tune or Robert Cheryuot it was Brian Sell. So a guy that was not going to finish in the top 5 was more of a story than the defending champs.

Both Ryan and Kara were important because they had a chance to win, Brian was important because he is an American.

No, you are missing the point. No one is saying that the American runners aren't going to be the most popular runners in the field. That is a given. The point is that if you exclude all of the runners who don't speak English (or speak it well), then you're not advancing the sport.

Let me ask you this: if Ryan Hall, Kara Goucher and Brian Sell showed up to run some random American marathon, would the reporters even be 15 deep? I can tell you that when Ryan Hall showed up to run Gasparilla in Tampa, there were three people there.

Here's the point: once (or if) Hall, Goucher or the next generation makes a big splash on the world stage, and running becomes a popular sport, the reporters will treat it like any other popular sport (100+ reporters) and no one is going to complain when some west African who can't speak English wins. No one in golf is complaining about Angel Cabrera winning the Masters, because people want to watch the best in the world play a popular sport.

Only unpopular sports talk about having the competitors "interact with the media". The Boston Red Sox could fly into any American city, never speak to the media or show up in public, and they'd sell out the stadium.

The Olympic Marathon is also almost always hot, yet top US athletes still run that one...and not the Worlds?

In '91 Steve Spence, one of our top marathoners at the time, won the bronze. Then again, the other two who ran weren't exactly top billing.

Rod DeHaven ran in '99.

The best US marathoners have NEVER run in the WC Marathon. In fact the best in the WORLD have typically skipped out on the WC Marathon to chase cash. This isn't just a USATF problem, it's an IAAF problem.

Alan

One- You are a racist.

Two- You can't even spell the word *Marathon*(note the 't').

Three- Do you think that the fellows you speak of all had superb English-language educations?

Leaving your name and email address below is not going to give you any more respect after you say such filth. You should be ashamed. Also, please repeat this to Duncan Kibet. Looks like he did a perfect job in communicating to the reporter in the URL below(his English is actually better than the Dutchman). I doubt he'll be running Detroit anytime soon.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMLywkkSknY

Yes, and can/did their athletes speak Japanese there? 話せないだろうが！

same old same old wrote:

One- You are a racist.

Also, please repeat this to Duncan Kibet. Looks like he did a perfect job in communicating to the reporter in the URL below(his English is actually better than the Dutchman).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMLywkkSknY

Why play the race card? Kevin never said anything about race. He also never said anything about well spoken east africans. He also never said anything negative about 2:07 foreign athletes.

Work on your comprehension. Here is what he said

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The group of athletes that bring NOTHING to an event in the US, is a foreigner that runs 2:07 and can't communicate with the American media. It is almost painful to watch an interview with one of these athletes. It provides a complete disconnect from the average American. You can not market our sport with athletes that don't speak the language. They are excellent athletes and have every right to participate in any race that they want, but they hurt our sport.

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Maybe I was too quick to respond. What I should have said is this: Kevin, you and the rest of this Letsrun crowd lives in a very small bubble called the U.S. When the bubble bursts and the economy is in ruins, please go to Japan to race and they will say the same about you.

same old same old wrote:

Leaving your name and email address below is not going to give you any more respect after you say such filth. You should be ashamed.

I believe that the reason Mr. Hanson left his name and email was because he realized that this was a hot topic and that if someone wants to call him out they can send him an email man to man. He probably also realized that the cowards that want to anonymously name call will show their true colors by their posts. You my friend have exposed yourself.

As have you.

MPR wrote:

I had thought of that as well and agree that it may be a good solution if it could be worked out with Majors.

My concern would in that scenario would be figuring out what athelets can get in a which can't and who gets appearance fees and who doesn't.

Do you see it more as a run the majors as you do know and just designate one as a the WC each year without any changes to the way they attract or set their elite field, or as using the criteria used in the current WC meet or the one used in the World Half Marathon Championships.

This would definately take some work as well and the Majors may or may not be willing to play ball depdning on what the championships would required.

More of just sticking the WC label on one of the 5 majors each year. Anyone can show up and try to win. They can do a team thing using XC scoring, or not.

Maybe IAAF can give the marathon some extra money for the winners. And maybe some bonus points for the World Marathon Majors standings. So, if you win the World Championship Major, you get 35 points for the win, 25 for 2nd, etc. More money and more points would help the major get the best marathoners who are racing that fall. All the majors rotate, so they all benefit during their year. The appearance fee aspect is the trickiest part.

Lance Dopestrong wrote:

Maybe IAAF can give the marathon some extra money for the winners.

IAAF does not give events money. Events give IAAF money to use their name. Same thing with USATF.

Governing bodies collect money and free trips to these events for the use of their name.

It currently costs about $3.5 million to put on the World Half Marathon for just this reason. I seriously doubt that any of the World Majors are willing to absorb these costs.