USATF XC Champ - Men's Finish by Birth Country

The point is valid

100% of the U20 qualifiers were born in the USA

Our country pays foreign athletes to run in our college system. This has been going on for decades but now our country pays to develop these foreign athletes post collegiately and help them gain citizenship. If we spent those same dollars developing Americans our system would be better off.

The best Americans all want to go to the same 50 schools. This puts a need for mid major colleges to seek talent abroad. Good American won’t take the full scholarship to mid major goes to power5 for little to no scholarship. Mid major gets the Equal/BETTER foreign Athlete with same scholarship and develops them which could have been the American kid’s opportunity.

so it all starts with the American distance runners changing their perspective and culture on where they need to be to develop as runners.

We are a nation of immigrants.

What is your point?

Should runners not pursue citizenship?

Alan

Statistically, 4 of top 6 being born in Kenya seems high. How many Kenyan immigrants does the US have? Doesn’t the US have immigrants from other countries?

is 66% of US population Kenyan immigrants?

This is awesome! Now our East Africans can go to World XC and compete against all the European East Africans and Asian East Africans and all the East Africans from East Africa! That’s what I call a World Championship!

Nah, it’s an ignorant talking point for jingoistic simpletons.

Cheers to our Kenyan born runners who are eager to represent their country at a World Championships while our top American born runners stay home and run 10k time trials with their teammates.

Untrue. I coach HS track and cross country. My kids reach out to all schools where they would fit. Amazingly, coaches haven't been responding even though my athletes are better than most of the current runners. The athletes go where they get the best deal. Ad of late, several hung up their spikes due to not getting a roster spot anywhere.

Untrue. I coach HS track and cross country. My kids reach out to all schools where they would fit. Amazingly, coaches haven't been responding even though my athletes are better than most of the current runners. The athletes go where they get the best deal. Ad of late, several hung up their spikes due to not getting a roster spot anywhere.

For sure.

US born runners are simply inferior to Kenyan born runners. This was statistically proven this weekend.

The US is however what is making Bor (and others) great.

.. and this is why you are a high school coach. Man, do you not have relationships with college coaches? I've never had an issue getting my kids a roster sport or an athletic scholarship if they deserve it.

66% of the US population is actually fat AF. We do have a lot of E African descendants born on US soil, there are pockets in Denver, Houston, Minneapolis, LA, etc. They just grow up lazy and fat too often because of the stupid, counter-productive culture in this country. Hell, let's actually credit those who wanted to compete for team spots rather than decry them. They apparently are interested in representing their country, even if it's their adopted country, when there are about 20 people born in the US who could have been on the team but were indifferent and instead would prefer to stay home to chase times on the track that ultimately won't get most of them anywhere. This is the other side of rojo's goofy "pull their pro card" hyperbole, but he'd rather just be a snob about it than actually credit those in the arena putting themselves out there simply because they were born in a place outside the imaginary lines that are acceptable to his closed mind.

Alternative take, Kenyan-born US runners have the grit and urge to represent their country while unpatriotic Americans don't even bother

Sure you do. 99% of high school coaches have no relationship with D1 college coaches.

I lived in MD until I went to college a year ago. There are a lot of east Africans in the DMV in general, especially in certain areas of PG / MoCo / NoVa.

Most are too young to be elite - their parents likely immigrated in the late 1990s / early 2000s, and they wouldn't have been born until the early 2000s. Cynically, keep in mind that they're an actual 18 or however many years old, not a Kenyan "18" that actually means 25.

It is also why World Cross Champs was eliminated to every other year.

Our Kenyan xc reps were recruited to run here. They come from a country with a deep, deep well of high quality distance runners, and are usually not even among their best. They usually also are older than American collegians, except perhaps from BYU, so they have a shot at a pro contract (Army usually) with performances at their peak ages. But they aren't actually always the best runners we have (Chelimo and Lagat in the past have been). They are just among the best who compete. BTC and ON this year didn't send anyone (?) to USA XC. So, blame BTC and ON and others, not our patriotic Kenyan-American runners.

I believe Weini Kelati went to high school in Virginia.

Want more "American-born" runners representing the US at World XC? Get them to show up (e.g., the Bowerman guys) or just be better at running?

At my alma mater, people complained about too many Chinese students in the engineering school, and I was like, well, maybe your kids should be smarter.

I'm pretty sure they'd be complaining about internationals.