The American marketing nightmare that is the Boston Marathon is not going away, but at least two American-born athletes have now offered us a glimmer of hope that we might at sometime in the 21st Century win the race that we own.
Two world-class African athletes-a male Ethiopian and a female Kenyan-again swept the titles at the 2009 Boston Marathon on Monday (4-20-09). Their names-Deriba Merga (male) and Salina Kosgei-and their ethnicity do not help their popularity or marketability in America despite their world-class performances.
It is difficult, if not impossible, to achieve market potential with world-class foreign athletes on American soil. It does not matter how much they win or how many records they set. Nobody in America seems to care.
Imagine a Nike ad that says, "Just Do It. Like Kebede, Cheruiyot, Asfaw, Kiogora and Cherigat." Not exactly household names recognizable by millions of Americans. Now say, "Just Do It, like Bill Rodgers and Frank Shorter". A world of difference, and that is the point.
Bill Rodgers and Frank Shorter literally jump-started the running boom in America in the early 1970s. Shorter won the marathon at the 1972 Munich Olympics and was runner-up at the 1976 Montreal Olympics. Bill Rodgers won both the Boston Marathon and the New York Marathon 4 times each between 1975 and 1980. Joan Benoit Samuelson won the marathon at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics.
The marketability of Rodgers and Benoit fueled America's running boom and generated billions in revenue while creating new markets and products along the way. Rodgers was born in Connecticut, Benoit in Maine.
The demise of American distance runners that can win signature world events has been horrific in recent years. You would not even know that we took a distance running team to the 2008 Beijing Olympics. We had only 1 athlete-Shalane Flanagan-who thought she could win and came home with a Bronze Medal. America won exactly 1 of 32 possible medals in events from the 800-meter run to the marathon.
The rise of the African dominance in the Boston Marathon has been nothing short of meteoric, especially among the men. Kenyans have won the Boston Marathon 16 times in last 19 years; throw in 2 Ethiopian winners and Africans have won the Boston Marathon 18 times in the last 19 years. And the other lone, non-African winner in the last 19 years? He was South Korean.
If you do not think this is a sorry mess for America, you know nothing about running or the history of running in America. It would seem that the great running boom in America was slowed down by too much success and money, in other words, we have gone soft.
We once dominated the Boston Marathon. From its inception in 1897 to 1945, American-born runners won the race 34 of 49 times (69%). During that stretch, Clarence DeMar won 7 times while breaking the course record 4 times, and Americans won 10 years straight from 1916 to 1925.
The African runners who came to America to run road races in the last two decades were poverty-stricken and hungry. They returned home as heroes and "millionaires". They still appear hungry and show no signs of slowing down, which means American runners had better click it up or spend every race looking at their rear ends. There is a reason why every Husky in the Iditarod dog sled race wants to be the lead dog in the pack.
And now, American-born runners Kara Goucher and Ryan Hall have finally begun to believe that they can win the Boston Marathon. We know this because Goucher finished 3rd among women in this year's 113th Boston Marathon, clocking 2:32.25, a scant 9 seconds behind the winner. If she could have found 10 seconds more during 26+ miles, she would have won this year's Boston Marathon.
Goucher ran 5:09 in her 24th mile and had led the race for a half-hour, but was just nipped at the end of a great dream. It was only her second marathon. She has arrived; and now she must train harder and finish stronger at Boston to win. Goucher is coached by Alberto Salazar, who won the 1982 Boston Marathon in a course-record 2:08.52. God bless Kara Goucher, we are not making many winners in America recently.
Hall also finished 3rd in his race. He clocked 2:09.40, almost a minute (58 seconds) behind the winner, but keeps improving and definitely stuck around long enough to be worrisome to some other runners.
Kenyan Robert Cheruiyot (say something close to Cherry-ott), who had won the race the last 3 years, finished 5th behind Hall, so there is some hope for the Americans.
Perhaps 3 Boston victories and pockets stuffed with money affected Cheruiyot, who would be considered beyond wealthy in Kenya. There may be a lot more Kenyans with more money than Cheruiyot, but not many could match his fame and popularity.
In a footnote, 45-year-old masters runner Colleen De Reuck finished 8th among the women. It was an incredible run for De Reuck. The bad news is that her world-class competitors were young enough to be her daughters; the good news is that they were not young enough to be her granddaughters. A salute from the heart to Colleen De Reuck.
While things are looking up in Boston for American-born runners, we will not arrive until Americans again win both races. The last American-man or woman-to win the Boston Marathon was Lisa Larsen Weidenbach in 1985, and it was her debut run at Boston. I believe it was in 1991 that the prize money started. This year's winner took home a check for 150,000 American dollars.
The last Boston Marathon that saw Americans win both races was 1983, when Greg Meyer won in 2:09.00 and Joan Benoit (sound familiar) won in 2:22.43, setting not only a course record but a world marathon record. It was Benoit's 2nd Boston victory after first winning in 1979.
As they say in Africa's Sahara, which covers 3.5 million square miles and ranks as the world's largest desert, it is a long time across the desert and it has been a long time between rains.
Copyright © 2009 Ed Bagley
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