is DAN BROWNE really the best we can do?

I don't know whether Hall is ever going to win a "big money marathon," but I agree with your basic sentiment. I'm fairly confident, based on many choices that I have made in life, that I would choose to run the world championships, even if it didn't offer any money and even if it jeopardized a big paycheck elsewhere. I don't know if that would be the smart choice for me or anyone else, but I'm confident that it's what I'd do. I don't think it's what most American runners would do, however.

What most people seem to miss in this whole argument is that running is a job for these guys. Sure they make a little money from their shoe deals, but they ain't getting rich from those (people on this board seem to talk like these shoe deals are worth millions a year - there's no Manny Ramirez money in a running shoe deal). They make their money from appearance fees and race winnings (even if they don't "win a big-money marathon" a top 5 finish picks up a decent check). If you run the WC you get jack. If you're concerned about patriotism, let's say you go to work on Monday and your boss says, "I'd like to to put everything you've got into this job for the next 6 months and not take a paycheck in that time. It will help the country by stimulating the economy in this time of recession." If you say "sorry I can't do that because I have a family, a mortgage, bills, groceries, car payment, student loan payment, etc that I have to pay.", do you all of the sudden not care about patriotism. NO! You deserve to be paid for your work. So do American marathoners.

Then you have to factor in the brevity of the running career, even for Hall or Ritz you've got maybe 8 years, 10 if you stretch it well. The fact of the matter is you have to make the money while you can. I have no doubt that these guys will have no trouble making money after they're done running, but you never know. They're the best in the country at what they do right now. I don't see how you can blame them for wanting to reap the benefits of that while they can.

i think the individual world champion in the marathon gets 60k, and the winning team gets 80k, iif our runners are going for money they should run the dubai marathon which dwarfs any other marathon in money.

i dont think that the world championship marathon is in the same category, but if one of our top marathoner skipped the olympics because a fall marathon has offered them a lot more money, it would do major damage to that athletes marketability and would be a major mistake moneywise in the long run.

douglas burke wrote:

i dont think that the world championship marathon is in the same category, but if one of our top marathoner skipped the olympics because a fall marathon has offered them a lot more money, it would do major damage to that athletes marketability and would be a major mistake moneywise in the long run.

What great marathoners have ever skipped the Olympics for a payday other than Geb? It would be absolutely shocking to me if any top American skipped the Olympics, and you are right that it probably would be a financial mistake. But it's also not going to happen.

They can skip the WC because its only real running fans that even pay the closets attention to it (unless there is a man in a woman's race, at which point it is international headline news).

Except that Hall would indeed be drawing a paycheck from Asics and his other sponsors if he ran the WC. In fact he would get paid sponsor bonuses for going and for how he performs there. If anything, it's the guys and gals (other than Goucher) who DID go to Berlin who might wind up seeing financial hardship as a result. Runners on their level have much smaller sponsorship contracts than Hall does.