I'm back, I had to travel yesterday...
A few things I've been noticing... one, obviously i realize that rules are rules. lagat will be the american record holder. that doesn't mean that i have to like it. i can't believe how many people have said with a straight face that it doesn't bother them that scott's 23 year old records, one of our nation's proudest t&f records IMO, will be erased by a guy who switched countries. i know that he's lived and trained here since he went to wsu blah, blah, blah. i don't care.
second, i see nothing wrong with a waiting period for which new residents have to live in the US before a record is ratified. whats so wrong with demanding commitment to their citizenship from these runners? The 51% rule sounds silly at first, but when you think about it, why not? If they are a citizen for over half their life, hell yeah they should hold the record. it wouldn't be hard to prove.... you're a citizen for half your life, you prove it. it's not rocket science.
my arguments before for one year of hs and livign here since 18... i was trying to establish some basis for extended citizenship for runners who immigrate here and automatically grab the record. I understand the holes in those arguments, that someone could be a citizen but born abroad, blah blah blah. I realize all that; I was merely trying to argue for some kind of standard of extended citizenship. a piece of paper showing citizenship means nothing to me regarding the AR unless the guy has lived here for a while and therefore demonstrated some measurable commitment to being an american citizenship. it's like those companies who set up in the bahamas to avoid high taxes; do they care about what it means to be bahaman? of course not. now, i don't know lagat's real reasons for coming here. if he did it out of love for the US, which grew from living here since WSU, then i respect that. prove it to me by living here or holding citizenship for a while. if he did it so he could make more money or just to escape kenya's qualifying process or training camps, screw him, i don't want him holding our country's records.
maybe i'm advocating two separate records, one for american citizens in general and one for american citizens who have lived here a substantial part of their lives. but in a way that's just stupid, because we're talking about the AR here... not that important. this whole argument isn't that important... it is an AR, after all, not an oly gold, or a world record, or anything like that.
regardless, steve scott will always be the AR holder to me, not bernard lagat. some of you will say that it's because lagat is black... go f*** yourself. get an understanding of the argument. will i cheer for lagat this summer if he can run? you bet. will i cheer this weekend when he runs 3:46 and get excited over a new AR? hell no. interpret that how you want.
P.S.-- to the guy who keeps saying "more like 2/5th's" (i think your name is "No Offense," which is funny)... even though you backed off on it before, you're insinuating racism in this argument. it's feeble-minded and it shows that you don't understand the argument at all. please don't post again until you can get your head around what this argument is really about.