Washington Post article - Kenyan NCAA imports

. . wrote:

Link:www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/09/2...

The runners came from across Kenya, lured by the top prize in the 3,000 meters: the chance to move to the United States and compete for a leading American college. Organizers advertised the race as “The Golden Ticket.”
On loudspeakers at the edge of the dirt track, announcers listed the schools that were looking for Kenyans.
“The University of Alabama, the University of Arizona, the University of New Mexico …” echoed over jangly Kenyan pop music.

News of the time trial swept through this capital of long-distance running. Even as academic scholarships and student visas have come under attack by the Trump administration, college running was one path to the United States that had expanded.

The recruiting drive in East Africa is changing the face of college athletics. Last season, Kenyan women took the top three places in the NCAA cross-country championships. And Texas Tech recruited 28-year-old Solomon Kipchoge, another Kenyan whose half-marathon time was faster than the American record when he enrolled as a freshman.

...

Some of the men in their heats had been running semiprofessionally for years. Some were teenagers in borrowed spikes. Some were suspected of taking performance-enhancing drugs, according to coaches and athletes, a growing threat to the integrity of the trials as they became bitterly competitive.

Recruit from a doping hotbed, get doped athletes.