African Mountain Running Dominance?

Why would you go to the trouble to fly all the way to Nigeria, and take a car to the middle of nowhere.... to contend with 50 money-hungry Africans and possibly come away with nothing? Sounds like too much of a gamble to me. Heck, Anna Pichrtova almost lost her life in the drive down from the mountain a few years ago (back when fewer Africans knew about the race). If mountain running (and ultra running) ever gets more money, that will be the end of non-African domination in these sports. The African race for money, and nothing else.

belainesh gebre got 4th in this race and she is looking to become american, she wants citizenship before the 2012 marathon trials, but she thinks it will take a few years.

Actually American mountain runners have done this one. ... Simon Guiterez, Chris Lundy, Eric Blake but they didn't win. There was also a bad accident one year. I'll just do pikes peak each year.

Was that 26:30 Abebe Dinkesa that won? Anybody see how fast he ran?

anonymous coward wrote:

The article from the front page on the mountain race in Nigeria claims that the superior African runners "scared" all Europeans out of the competition. In fact, only one non-African competed this year. But is this really a story at all? How many non-Africans competed last year? Were there other major mountain races going on at the time? Or is it just that no Westerners want to race in some god awful country? I'm not saying that the article's claims are false. African runners would probably dominate most European mountain runners. But the article had an extremely obvious bias and did not show any evidence for their claims. It seems that instead of real journalism, this article was just pro-African propaganda.

I lol'd when I got to "pro-African propaganda." It's just the opposite of what you would expect.

Chairman Wow wrote:

Was that 26:30 Abebe Dinkesa that won? Anybody see how fast he ran?

yes same one.