Stockholm Marathon will not give price money to an east african if they win the race.

There are no sports anymore where anyone is barred from anything because of their race, so partly no. There are many sports which place limits on foreign participation. The Japanese, Korean, and Taiwanese baseball leagues limit the number of foreign players (read American players) on each team's roster. Professional basketball leagues outside the US pretty much all have limits on how many foreign players each team can have on their rosters. The Canadian Football League does the same.

It's always done because the leagues think that a roster of foreigners, who in nearly all these cases would be Americans, would diminish fan interest and because professional leagues filled with foreigners would prevent development of domestic talent. Of course we'd consider all of these to be "minor leagues." But the same is probably true of the Stockholm Marathon

Again the Stockolm marathon has reversed course and abandoned its xenophobic idea.

If you want only Nordic runners then call it the Nordic championships and premise participation only on being a citizien of one of the Nordic countries. Do not call it the Stockholm marathon then pay only runners from the Nordics. That is xenophobia and an insult to the progressive people of Stockholm who have revolted against such an idea.

HRE wrote:

There are no sports anymore where anyone is barred from anything because of their race, so partly no. There are many sports which place limits on foreign participation. The Japanese, Korean, and Taiwanese baseball leagues limit the number of foreign players (read American players) on each team's roster. Professional basketball leagues outside the US pretty much all have limits on how many foreign players each team can have on their rosters. The Canadian Football League does the same.

It's always done because the leagues think that a roster of foreigners, who in nearly all these cases would be Americans, would diminish fan interest and because professional leagues filled with foreigners would prevent development of domestic talent. Of course we'd consider all of these to be "minor leagues." But the same is probably true of the Stockholm Marathon

It is indeed true that some leagues limit foreigners. But what they do not do is discriminate by paying foreigners less or not paying them at all.

That used to happen in the 1970s to African footballers in Europe. When Camerounian legend Roger Milla went to play in France in 1976, he was the best player on his team yet the team payed him about half of what everyone was paid. They told him that as an African he wa lucky to be even allowed to play in France. Looks like some people here are trying to take Sweden back into the stone age.

I say let the market decide. If City marathons start losing audiences and sponsors because of East Africans, they will stop inviting them.

However it turns out that there has been a city marathon boom in the last 10 years which co-incides with the emergence of East Africans as a marathon power.

back in the 1980s, Kenya had very few decent marathon runners and only 1 or 2 ever won a city marathon. When Kenyans started to dominate, the number of high profile city marathons exploded and prize money increased exponentially.

So clearly the dominance of East Africans has not hurt city marathons.

A bunch of African drones aren't driving the rise of marathon participation. It's the waddlers, we on LRC despise so much, who are doing that.

"However it turns out that there has been a city marathon boom in the last 10 years which co-incides with the emergence of East Africans as a marathon power"

Every now and again, usually around the time of the NCAA cross country championship, there will be threads here in which people want foreign runners, which nearly always means Kenyans, banned or limited from collegiate competition. I always disagree believing that you don't get to be the best athlete you can by ducking tough competition.

No, East Africans don't seem to have hurt big city marathons. The throngs who enter those races generally give less than a fraction of a crap about who wins and places. They focus on their own running and the crowds watching are probably more out to watch a sort of festival/parade than a sporting event.

What we have seen in the era of the East African runner, is the near complete disappearance of high level European distance running. Maybe that would have happened anyway but it's not unreasonable to think the two things could be related. If they are related, you could argue that while the African Era hasn't hurt big city marathons it has hurt European performance running. IF you think that might be true and you want to do something about it, a reasonable approach might be to try something along the lines of what the European basketball leagues do and limit foreign competition. If you think that might be true and you maintain the same system that's been in place for a couple decades there is no reason to think high level running will resurrect itself.

I don't know if limiting foreigners is a good solution or not and evidently the Stockholm Marathon is backing away from it. But I thought it was an interesting idea and would have been interesting to see how it played out. I also don't quite get why this sort of thing has gone on in the US for many years with little in the line of complaints but when it's tried in Europe people get worked up if it happens in running but not if it happens in basketball.

I was just about to mention basketball and how tesms limit foreign plsyers and that is not seen as a big deal.

Hre mskes some good points in the thread as do others. Good discussion.

After reading it, i am surprised more races do not split prize money so there is either US or state residents prize money and open prize money to attract more local runners that would get more press and interest from the locals. I would not be surprised if say the LA Marathon did that more people would be more interested in the minor league type of competition than the open competition. Could a cut back in appearance fees fund the minor league?

The European runner has not disappeared because of East Africans. He has disappeared for a number of reasons including:

1. European lifestyle is more sedentary now with video games, facebook etc

2. More stringent dope testing means the Finns are not blood doping and neither are the Italians. And we all know what the East Germans did.

And most city marathons already limit the number of Kenyans they invite. If they did not you would see upwards of 50 Kenyans in the New York marathon for example. You could literally end up with some city marathons where East Africans claim all the top 25 positions.

Again, maybe. Those reasons are speculative as are any others. But it may be more than just coincidence that the US does have races where only US runners can win money and the US is really the most successful developed country now at distance running.

Too bad half of Africa is already in Sweden and claiming asylum. Immigrants are responsible for most of the rapes and murders and Sweden just welcomes more criminals! They are so generous to the point of cultural suicide. Gotta love paying paying mroe taxes to support immigrants on welfare.

Burt hurt that Euros can't compete with Africans ?

Burt hurt that Euros can't compete with Africans ?

jjjjj wrote:

First, the Europeans give up competing in world xc, because they aren't any good, and they aren't any good because they don't think they can ever compete with East Africans.

Now, they (the race organizers) decide they'll give their inferior runners the only prize money, regardless of whether they win.

Yeah and Chris Derrick is shinning light of American distance running.

HRE wrote:

Again, maybe. Those reasons are speculative as are any others. But it may be more than just coincidence that the US does have races where only US runners can win money and the US is really the most successful developed country now at distance running.

Thats not the reason Americans are doing well. How do you explain the likes of Brenda Martinez and Ajee Wilson, Shannon Rowbury, Jenniffer Simpson. Clearly something else is at play.

Maybe the presence of numerous Africans are collegiate level sharpens them. Or maybe its L-Carnitine. I dont know. But prize money for only Americans is clearly not the issue that is creating their success.

Once again, maybe. It's a reasonable opinion but you're passing off opinions as facts. Just saying that American only prizes is not an issue is meaningless without some sort of elaboration or explanation as to why it's not. It's not necessarily the only factor but it's reasonable to think that it is a factor.

There's a lot that's different in US running than there is in Europe. Our college system is one of them. Races with prize money that's only for US runners is another. The only way to know what effect those sorts of things are having would be to change them.

If I were in charge of improving the performances of marathon runners in a European country I think I'd believe that something major needs to change and one place I might look to is at the basketball leagues which seem to believe that the sport is healthier when there are restrictions placed on the number of better foreign players in each team. I'd think that if we just kept doing the same things we've done for a decade or two as our performances erode we're not likely to see performances improve.

HRE wrote:

If I were in charge of improving the performances of marathon runners in a European country I think I'd believe that something major needs to change and one place I might look to is at the basketball leagues which seem to believe that the sport is healthier when there are restrictions placed on the number of better foreign players in each team. I'd think that if we just kept doing the same things we've done for a decade or two as our performances erode we're not likely to see performances improve.

Sweden simply does not have any pedigree when it comes to distance running. Local only prize money will likely not change that.

My experience has been that mediocrity does not force improvement even if it comes with prize money attached. Runners generally improve when there are other strong runners pushing them.

Although I do not think local only prize money will make a difference. I am fine with local only prize money if you call it the Swedish championships not the Stockholm marathon.

If I were a Swede, I would want my city marathon to have an element of international prestige not xenophobia.

Barakus Obama wrote:

I often find following college races more interesting than some international races, with a bunch of runners with no personality, more interesting even though the time is slower.

If they aren't white and don't speak English, then they don't have personalities. Got it.

Arne Andersson? Gunder Hagg? Anders Garderud? Tommy Persson? Kjell-Erik Stahl? No pedigree?

Anyway, different people want different thing. If I were a Swede I'd be interested in seeing what happens if something different was tried for a while.

HRE wrote:

Arne Andersson? Gunder Hagg? Anders Garderud? Tommy Persson? Kjell-Erik Stahl? No pedigree?

Anyway, different people want different thing. If I were a Swede I'd be interested in seeing what happens if something different was tried for a while.

You just mentioned a bunch of dudes who were born around 1917. During this period, most African countries did not even exist as a separate entity. This explains why Europeans dominated back then. There was scarcely any African competition.

For pete's sake Arne Andersson set the 1500m record in 1943 at 3:45 which is almost a full 20 seconds slower than El Guerrouj. I am sure he would not be dominating anything if he ran today.

As I mentioned before, Kenyans did not really get into the marathon until the late 1980s.

Tell Jim Ryun, Ron Clarke, and everyone in the Olympic marathons from 1956 to 1972 and anyone who raced Henry Rono there was scarcely any African competition before the late 1980s.