What was the last performance by a US born distance runner better than Ritz's 5k?

Shorter won in 1972

o.O wrote:

Shorter won in 1972

AMERICAN BORN

Craig Virgin's World XC Wins---no doubt!

oscar moore was the the best afercan american to run distance perioiod i did studies on the runner

OK, I know that Frank Shorter was born in Germany, but why is it that people are jumping on anyone who mentions Shorter but are not responding to the Lagat posts?

Is it just that it's obvious that Lagat is Kenyan-born, while not everyone is aware that Shorter isn't American-born?

Anyway, it's all a technicality, like the arguments over whether 800m counts as a distance race. I'm ecstatic that Lagat is an American citizen now, and he's certainly not pulling a Brunei deal where he just wants to avoid the huge competition in Kenya. He belongs here. But that's not what the question was asking.

Technicalities wrote:

OK, I know that Frank Shorter was born in Germany, but why is it that people are jumping on anyone who mentions Shorter but are not responding to the Lagat posts?

Is it just that it's obvious that Lagat is Kenyan-born, while not everyone is aware that Shorter isn't American-born?

Anyway, it's all a technicality, like the arguments over whether 800m counts as a distance race. I'm ecstatic that Lagat is an American citizen now, and he's certainly not pulling a Brunei deal where he just wants to avoid the huge competition in Kenya. He belongs here. But that's not what the question was asking.

I just skipped to the 3rd page so I didn't see any Lagat posts.

great post. Chapa was amazing !

Shorter Than Frank wrote:

not the last greatest performance, but one that is mentionable as a great american distance performance is rudy chapa's ar of 7:37 (1979)...i remember reading about it as a junior in high school when a buddy of mine brought to school a 1" x 2" clipping from the back page of the l.a. times (the day in results)...i believe chapa was just a junior at oregon at the time and wasn't far off of rono's wr of 7:32. what was he, all of 20-21 years of age? this guy's career was cut way too short due to his foot problems...heck, his 28:32 in h.s. was pretty impressive, too. just an amazing talent and such promise with those great early marks!! still one of my favorite all-time runners.

best Cuban.

fail wrote:

I just skipped to the 3rd page so I didn't see any Lagat posts.

F**k you.