"That was a great race for both runners"--Montsho and Felix
That is what I said. But Montsho showed adaptability and instant desire...and she won because of it.
"There's excuses from everyone else, too."
I never said excuses were exclusively American, but they ARE American, for sure. Plus, are there really excuses from everyone? Kenya? Russia?
"The NCAA ranks have always been full of international talent."
As full as they have been lately? I'm not arguing, I'm actually curious...evidence?
"This is not the American mentality and will never happen. Nobody remembers who finishes second except the guy or gal who finishes second."
The fact that it is not the American mentality is one of the problems. And you are completely wrong about not remembering who finishes second--completely.
"What about European and African athletes. A lot of them over-race, too. This isn't an American exception"
Read the post. Euros race on their own soil. Africans race in their own time zone, or near it, and often remain based in Europe for a long time.
"We are way more competitive in the middle and long distance events on the whole than any European country."
I never divided things up by particular nationality that way. I never compared the USA to any European country, but to regions within Europe instead. And is the USA really way more competitive in the mid- and long-distance events than Russia and the former Soviet satellites?
And on your final points, athletes from all over the world are now drawn into pro sports, not just in the USA. You think that potentially great Croatian jumpers aren't in basketball? Potentially great English sprinters not in soccer? Potentially great central European decathletes not in ETH? Potentially great Dominican throwers not in baseball?
And $$$ and caring have become essentially synonymous, so on that we can basically agree.
Not that my points are great, but I was trying to be rational and contribute to the discussion.
You want the REAL reason? It's because Americans are a bunch of fat, lazy, entitled pieces of crap.
It's not football or basketball taking things away, it is television and internet porn.
Those few who are not fat, lazy, or entitled actually succeed.
And believe it or not, you can be BOTH athletically very talented AND a fat, lazy, entitled piece of crap.
That might get you on a national team where you're competing against similar athletes, but when you come up against a real athlete, you will get killed.
And I don't mean to disparage all the hard-working athletes with whom everyone is familiar, and who reliably achieve some success--just Americans in general.
I know THAT is going to win me lots of friends.
With few exceptions, I still think it all comes down to caring and $$$, which control selection and training--but I think the caring drives the $$$, not the other way around, because the money offered in marathons, for instance, is offered equally to Kenyans, Japanese, and Americans, yet the Kenyans and the Japanese massively outperform Americans, in search of the same money.
There is nothing like being immersed in a culture. A lone wolf will never be able to challenge a decent member of a culture, unless they are essentially the best of all-time.
And essentially nobody in America cares. The sad truth.