holterskolter2
Not surprised wrote:
padres wrote:
Elite is a term loosely thrown around in the running world.
If you parent will foot your living expenses as an adult then every runner is elite
Now that's kind of a dumb post. Elite means you're one of the best. At what point is someone not elite at what they do? It's only about money? Fauble and Smith are both ranked around 200th in the world in marathon running. If they were 200th in the world at golf they'd be millionaires, and such a small portion of the world every tries to golf. Is a millionaire golfer not elite because they're only 200th? And NAZ actually has good funding, one of the few groups that actually gets good money. Fauble is getting tens of thousands of dollars from the team, and probably made $20k or more from Boston just to run the race. Some people you've probably never heard of are getting thousands of dollars.
Not a perfect analogy. For that analogy to make sense, they would need to be around 200th in the marathon, half marathon, 10k, 5k, and road mile. Because those golfers are 200th their sport, not just a single event.
Anyway, I agree with your basic point, that somebody running sub 2:10 is probably a reasonable definition of elite.