Are we the 3rd best distance running country in the world?

Yeah, I see what you're saying. It's the other guy's post that I couldn't make much sense of.

I think that terms like "best" and "3rd best" are a bit ambiguous. Are we talking about who would beat who in a dual track meet? A dual XC meet? Are we talking about what country has the most guys winning championship races? Winning any medal?

The Rocket's analysis might be on by his definition, but obviously not by others.

Not at all wrote:

Conjecture and imagination costs nothing. You could be right or you could be wrong. W/O the medals from Bernard, Kara, Shalane, we'd have nothing in an almost empty USATF distance medal cabinet.

with the exception of ritz after his recent breakthrough (ok you can omit conjecture about rupp if your really dont believe hes worth more than a 27:30 if you want) i didnt use much conjecture...simply posted actual accomplishments

you realize without bekele and defar ethiopia wouldnt have won any medals in berline either...

you dont think usas third, whos better and why? (actually list some runners and some depth this time)

As far as distance races go world cross seems like a great measure of depth and quality.

If we can medal in that then I think we have a right to say we're in the top three in the world, for distance. World cross is a better indicator than track becuase it is a team competition and guys actually compete for spots other than the top 3 because the team is very important. Each team runs six and scores 4 and every place counts, on the track the medallist are the only ones that really count.

So lets get some incentive for our best guys to run, since they don't currently, and see if we can really contend for the podium as a whole.

Middle distance is a whole other can of worms, with no measuring stick like cross.

No.

you realize without bekele and defar ethiopia wouldnt have won any medals in berline either... (quote)

what about wude ayalaw yimer's bronze in the womens 10k?

meselesh melkakamu silver in womens 10k?

deresse mekkonen in the mens 1500?

merga aselfech bronze in the womens marathon?

tesgaye kebede bronze in mens marathon?

Here are the number of male athletes for each country on the world list:

800m

USA 24

KEN 15

GBR 8

ESP 6

RSA 6

MAR 5

GER 5

1500m

KEN 26

USA 21

ESP 9

RSA 9

FRA 8

MAR 7

GBR 7

ALG 6

ETH 6

Steeple

KEN 29

USA 16

MAR 9

ESP 8

FRA 8

ETH 7

RUS 7

JPN 5

5000

KEN 56

USA 22

ETH 20

ESP 7

GBR 7

MAR 5

ERI 5

QAT 5

AUS 4

JPN 4

10000

KEN 34

ETH 10

JPN 10

USA 9

ESP 4

RUS 4

Marathon

KEN 223

ETH 64

JPN 44

MAR 14

KOR 12

RUS 9

UKR 9

ESP 7

FRA 7

MEX 7

RSA 7

USA 7

Not so great in the marathon but distance events on the track USA is at least #3 maybe #2.

On a good day maybe, but I don't know if consistantly the US is in the top 5. I'm sure that countries like Russia, Russia, Spain, Japan, Bahrain, ect.Have more WC/Olympic medals than the US, but the US has seen better results this year, who knows what the future will bring

As far as medal count it is tough because there aren't too many medals to go around after Kenya and Ethipia get theirs.

The US has produced maybe the third most volume of elite distance runners but few have made it to the podium.

OK now someone go count distance medals for countries over the last three years.