1nut wrote:
Mostly that is all you see anyway. Diababa running a solo WR attempt. This because the agents are running the the IAAF. Rather than limit the number of Africans in a field we will allow them to switch allegiance and run for every country. Only the IAAf can stop this by making a rule that you can only represent the country of your Birth. This would limit the number of mercenary africans that dominate every world final. Europeans had a chance at one time, but now most of Belgium is Morrocan, France is Algerian, Holland, Denmark and the US are Kenyan. Then bring in Quatar, Uganda, and Emerits. The agents love it because their african athletes are overwhelming. A white guy cant even get a slot.
I'm going to go through and pick your post apart:
1) Is it Dibaba's fault that she's that much better than everyone else?
2) Which agents are pumping fields full of Africans? Agents and meet promoters have an interest in making their products popular. There are disagreements on how to do this, but they understand the need to generate interest in a fanbase and develop it. The NYRR do a good job of this by having a balanced field where the Americans will be competitive. Other races, not so much.
3) There are so many exceptions to your idea of limiting national representation to the country of your birth. Meb was born in Ethiopia, but his portion of Ethiopia is now a different country. Marina Muncan and Blanka Vlasic were born in a country that no longer exists. Lopez Lomong fled war torn Sudan, but you'd basically force him out of ever winning an Olympic medal because he was born in a war zone. And then there are people like Lagat and Kipketer that fall in love with a new homeland. It happens. We all agree that what Qatar and Bahrain are doing isn't good, but a single sweeping act like that isn't the solution. If you limit changes of allegiance by requiring a three year prohibition on international representation, regardless of the last time the individual represented their previous country, then you will significantly limit the number of Kenyans defecting to Gulf states, but still allows those who make legitimate naturalizations (and allow for exceptions to made in special circumstances, such as with Lomong).
4) List all the Kenyan-born Americans currently competing for the US. I count one. That may go to two by the time the Trials arrive.
5) Please detail the agents who love the aforementioned situation.
6) Dominance by itself is not suffocating. I read little on this board about how American sprinters are killing the sprints in Europe. Of course, America has more to put into the sport than the whole of Africa.
7) This is about white guys? I thought that this was about Americans/Europeans. But I guess that guys like Krummenacker, Motchebon fit into your ideas of "American", huh?
The problems with track in a nuteshell:
-For westerners, it's not a very lucrative sport. There are many other sports where a talented athlete can make a lot more money. In Kenya, Ethiopia, etc, there is no more lucrative sport.
-The US doesn't give one shit about international competition. The most popular sports are intranational pro leagues (made up of increasingly foreign players). Is Big Papí any less popular in Boston because he's from the DR and not Dorcester? He's just seen as Boston. What makes those sports popular in the US is the local rivalry mentality (Boston vs. NY, LA vs. Boston, Dallas vs. Houston, etc). To the average American, very little that happens outside of the US matters. The US loses the World Baseball Classic to Cuba, and loses the World Basketball Champs to Spain, but there's no national outrage that America is failing to win at sports that were made popular in the US. Because it doesn't matter to them. The US could drop some bombs on any of those "loser" countries. No USSR = no real rivals on the international stage. I doubt Americans are looking forward to Allyson Felix taking it to some Iraqi or Afghan sprinter. Outside the US, this is less true. Every country would go nuts if they won the World Cup, or in other cases, their national sport (Sweden or Canada in hockey, for ex.) on an international stage. They care about being the best. Not the US.
-People have a hard time relating to performances in track (I'd say that this is less true in Europe, but it's getting there). Fat Americans can still toss a ball around and have some appreciation for Kobe or Tom Brady. But you need to run (and likely race) to really appreciate a 3:45 mile. Past participation isn't a must (I never jumped, but I can appreciate 18.29m because I'm a fan and student of the sport), but the high level of media exposure in other sports (football, basketball, baseball in the US and soccer everywhere else) ingrain that appreciation in the culture. This is why Jamaicans (by and large) love track. They've always had good sprinters, and it's an area in which they perform well.