Lol . That's just my opinion buddy ,no need to get rilled up.
Anyway, my point was that Chelimo is perhaps one of the better sprinters that would be there in the last 400 who could easily outkick all those guys you have mentioned. The world champs 5000 is usually slow run in the first 4000m or so due to no pace setters and everyone watching each other.The kicker more often than not wins it.My money is on Chelimo if he is in the last 400m with 90%fitness.
But it isn't racist to say that here in the USA we have an American culture as well as an American citizenship, some people have one or the other, or both. The USA does have a culture (for good and bad) just like other nations.
Chelimo is welcome here and I am a fan. He is an American citizen. But he hasn't lived and grown up in our culture of high school sports, food, television, video games, cars, or mixed-phenotype melting-pot ancestry, etc.
The things that make it hard (or easy) to be an American runner were not the same for him as they were for millions of American kids on various HS track and cross-country teams.
That is why he doesn't feel American despite having the paperwork and dedication to become an American. Respect to him for that, by the way. But he is not going to eclipse Shorter, Prefontaine, Ryan Hall, Galen Rupp, or Bob Kennedy as our best long distance guy.
p.s I have a good friend from Senegal who is legally, and thus technically, French. He would be shocked if you called him French. That is, to him, obviously nuts. He has French citizenship but is Senegalese, obviously.
O great gatekeeper of "The quintessential American", do enlighten us on what it takes to "be" American?
You know it when you see it. I am not the gatekeeper.
But a black, queer girl in Seattle who listens to punk music and eats a ton of Korean BBQ and junk food and is majoring in Physics at UW is more "American" than a person from just moved here from Sweden. Even if Sven has citizenship.
O great gatekeeper of "The quintessential American", do enlighten us on what it takes to "be" American?
When immigrants talk -- for good or bad --- about American schools, American foods American-style capitalism, American opportunities, American attitudes, they know exactly what they are referring to. In real life, people aren't stupid. They know the difference between Swedish, Russian, Somali, and American culture.
Chelimo, who I respect and like as a fan, is 100% an American citizen. That doesn't make him the product of American culture. That isn't racist, that is just an actual fact. When we talk about American foods, American music, American actors, American athletes we are referring to the products of this society.
If Nicola Jokić gets his US citizenship will he become the best American NBA center of the modern era? What do you say to my Senegalese friend who has French Citizenship? He would laugh at the idea of "somehow becoming French" by just moving there and getting citizenship.
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