What would happen if a truly elite East African junior ran for an American high school?

Futsum, Kelati (sort of), King Ches, Meb, Lomong. That’s off the top of my head. Btw, there is no Kipchoge type runner. There’s one Kipchoge and no one came close to him for 6ish years. Slaney, Budd, Athing, Cain and Kim Gallagher also say you don’t need to be a African to be an elite junior.

Disko Eric wrote:

Futsum, Kelati (sort of), King Ches, Meb, Lomong. That’s off the top of my head. Btw, there is no Kipchoge type runner. There’s one Kipchoge and no one came close to him for 6ish years. Slaney, Budd, Athing, Cain and Kim Gallagher also say you don’t need to be a African to be an elite junior.

I guess my point was more about what would happen if a world junior champion or world junior record holder caliber runner ran for an American high school. I mentioned Ches and obviously know of the others but they were not that caliber of runner, though great in their own right. Some of the women you mentioned were at that level so I guess that is more of the answer I was looking for.

Disko Eric wrote:

Futsum, Kelati (sort of), King Ches, Meb, Lomong. That’s off the top of my head. Btw, there is no Kipchoge type runner. There’s one Kipchoge and no one came close to him for 6ish years. Slaney, Budd, Athing, Cain and Kim Gallagher also say you don’t need to be a African to be an elite junior.

All second tier.:) Seriously not a single one. of those guys broke 13:45 much yet 13:10 in high school. Abreham Cherkos showing up in 12:54 shape at footlocker would be funny. He would crush the field by like 50+s.....

Solomon Haile ran in a Maryland high school, but wait, he wasn't a Junior, he was a 23 year-old grown man!

https://md.milesplit.com/athletes/pro/148986/stats

Dathan Ritzenselassie was 3rd in the jr world XC championships. Is that a world class junior?

coach wrote:

Dathan Ritzenselassie was 3rd in the jr world XC championships. Is that a world class junior?

Yeah but Galenisa Ruppele was more successful.

So the answer is that they would only run 13:45. Some of the top guys end up here but don't run as fast as Afican peers.

crisscrosscountry wrote:

Just out of curiosity, how fast do you all think some of the top East African juniors would run if they went to an American program and trained in the high school system? I know guys like Cheserek have essentially lived this idea out but I was wondering about a Hagos Gebrhiwet or young Kipchoge type runner, who were running world class times as juniors. I'd also love to speculate what course records for the likes of Mt SAC, Van Cortlandt park, or even the FLCC course at Balboa Park would be if one of these juniors took a serious run at them.

Simply picking up a runner then transplanting him/her in the US would yield interesting results. you would not want them spending too much time in the US though. This has been seen in the college ranks where a runner comes in as a freshman and wins NCAA's, then barely scrapes to "all-american" finishes the rest of his /her career as they become "Americanized".

Even cheserek was somewhat of a no-name in Africa before coming here. That's part of why they come here, the junior scene in Africa is just too much for them to handle. If a Gebrhiwet/Barega/Kipchoge/Ingebrigtsen/Kiplimo talen came to the US, it would be a bloodbath. Cain is the closest thing to them America has had, easily. 1:59/4:04 are strong PRs and she was a true racer. She made a WC final in high school, and won world juniors in the 3k. There's a reason she turned pro. As much as it was criticized in hindsight, she frankly had no competition on the track. Efraimson was too young and never became as good of a racer as Cain was. Even with other greats like Murphy, Aragon, Tuohy, Cain would've stomped. People made a big deal of Brynn Brown running 9:39 this spring, and it was indeed a big deal. Cain ran a tactical 8:58 3k to beat girls who could run 8:30. This is the level of dominance we would see from the top men's juniors. Not only unbeatable, but so far beyond other high schoolers it wasn't even worth racing them.

Give an African an American diet, school bus rides, cell phone, Tik Tok, and way too much homework and they’d run just as fast as any American HS student. Africans aren’t super heroes. Product of their environment.

Disko Eric wrote:

Give an African an American diet, school bus rides, cell phone, Tik Tok, and way too much homework and they’d run just as fast as any American HS student. Africans aren’t super heroes. Product of their environment.

This^ With that being said, they do also have better bone structure

The only difference is systemic doping. Anyone who has followed sports knows exactky what doping looks like. Especially epo such as in cycling in the 1990s.

Yared Nuguse of Notre Dame is an East African runner who went to school in the US (as it happens, it was at my daughter's HS). He did well, but Coach Holman really limited his miles. He improved pretty quickly in college.

astro wrote:

The only difference is systemic doping. Anyone who has followed sports knows exactky what doping looks like. Especially epo such as in cycling in the 1990s.

^sadly, this is probably the true fact of East African success in running

coach wrote:

Dathan Ritzenselassie was 3rd in the jr world XC championships. Is that a world class junior?

Didn’t he lose by a minute to Kenny b in that race?

So the question is like asking what would happen if Kenny b showed up (or barega) to run for an American HS as teenagers. It’s a simple answer, they’d win by 45-60s, the same as they do on the track. Not sure why this is a thread.

Of course it is. We know exactly what doping looks like. We have seen exactly how it can dominate a sport even where there is supposed to be better testing. We have seen clusters of athletes from certain nations all the sudden become dominate, such the Spanish riders in cycling. We knew Indurain was doping. We knew Armstrong was doping. We knew Flojo and Kersey were doping.

We are just not supposed to say it because it is allegedly chauvanism or jingoism or racism. I recall when the East German swim team showed up looking like a science experiment gone haywire and it was again supposed to be that they worked harder or lived cleaner and if you complained about it it was whining.

As much as the athletes are cheats the idiotic fans who always enable it and delude themselves are just as bad.

Uhhh, that person would win everything. thank u, next.

crisscrosscountry wrote:

Just out of curiosity, how fast do you all think some of the top East African juniors would run if they went to an American program and trained in the high school system? I know guys like Cheserek have essentially lived this idea out but I was wondering about a Hagos Gebrhiwet or young Kipchoge type runner, who were running world class times as juniors. I'd also love to speculate what course records for the likes of Mt SAC, Van Cortlandt park, or even the FLCC course at Balboa Park would be if one of these juniors took a serious run at them.

unpopular answer?

they would not do as well.

kenyans aged 16-19, aka IAAF youth/junior aged, are 1) training in groups where elite adults -unlikely super elite, but good enough elite- share workouts with them and possibly compete against them already; 2) likely practicing many, many more hours a day than a HS kid, a number that would probably make those "additional workout sessions" any coach would first need to consult with parents/teachers/doctors/etc here in the US laughable; and last but not least 3) kenyan runners from a very early age are aware that when it comes to running, you either make it quickly, or you dont. multiply that by the hundreds of kenyans every year. those kids, age 16-19, will do (and are already doing) ANYTHING and EVERYTHING it will take to stay on top. american kids on the other hand better not bomb those SATs if they want a shot at running in college.

so in a nutshell, young kenyans are immersed in an adult-like, somewhat professional, track and field environment as early as late middle school. so then, they would come to the US to find out that no one on their HS team can keep up with them at practice, the competition is not guaranteed to not suck at every meet, and they dont get to train with older teammates probably dealing with national team/sponsorship/legal (or illegal) performance enhancing issues of their own. the very environment they're in would decrease their performance.

don't forget about this wrote:

Yared Nuguse of Notre Dame is an East African runner who went to school in the US (as it happens, it was at my daughter's HS). He did well, but Coach Holman really limited his miles. He improved pretty quickly in college.

He was born in the USA and didn't run until freshman year of HS. Not really what the OP is looking for.

To answer the question honestly, of course they would dominate. Say you brought Rhonex Kipruto to the USA. At age 17, he ran 27:13 for a road 10K and then 7:48 in an early season meet at 18. He would run 8:2x in the 2 mile on pure strength and dominate in XC. He'd break the 5K HS record obviously with a very fast 5,000.