How can Americans beat the East Africans? (An unawaited follow-up)

Over six years ago, inspired by roughly two decades of banal chatter about the best Americans being unable to beat the best East Africans in the marathon, I wrote an article for Running Times that said, in so many words, "Look, striving for excellence is noble and all, but this isn't a winnable battle, any more than Indonesia aiming to rule the world in basketball would be."

In fact, the lede was "buried" in the title, "The Myth of Obligatory Success." I wrote that America being rich and powerful and free and full of opportunities and so on in no way guaranteed that its athletes could be the best at everything through sheer effort backed by technological savvy and ruthless financing.

I offered some numbers to make a case anyone could have easily made:

Ryan Hall, whose 2:06:17 two years ago makes him by far the fastest U.S.-born man in history, ranks on the all-time list behind a Japanese, a Brazilian, three Moroccan-born runners (one of whom is American record-holder Khalid Khannouchi) and two dozen athletes from either Kenya or Ethiopia. No human being besides Hall who has drawn his first breath on the technologically and materially wealthy North American continent has run under 2:08, but there are Kenyan men no one has ever heard of who have done so. The story on the women’s side is more varied but, from the American standpoint, even more dismal. Of the two U.S. women inside the 100 fastest ever, one is long retired from elite competition and the other probably finished with fast marathons. Besides Joan Samuelson and Deena Kastor, only Kara Goucher has broken 2:26 in an era in which the world record is over 10 minutes faster and 2:20–2:23 is typically required to win a top-tier annual 26.2-miler.

So what's happened since November 2010?

First, Hall (now retired) has slipped from 30th on the all-time men's list to 85th -- his 2:04:58 at a windy, downhill Boston in 2011 doesn't count -- but he is no longer the only North American-born man to break 2:08:00, as Dathan Ritzenhein joined him with a 2:07:47 in 2012 in Chicago. The 44 fastest men of all time hail from either Kenya or Ethiopia, with Morocco's Jaouad Gharib (2:05:27) being -- as he was in 2010, but at a higher rank -- the first non-East African to crash the party. Of the 55 men who have surpassed Hall's 2:06:17 for the first time since my article was published, 54 are from either Kenya or Ethiopia and one is from Turkey. That means that of the 100 fastest male marathoners ever as of this writing, 93 hail from either Kenyan or Ethiopia, three were born in Morocco, and Brazil, Japan, Turkey and the United States contribute one apiece.

Looking at the women, Deena Kastor's 2:19:36 has slipped from making her the fifth-fastest ever at the end of 2010 to the tenth-fastest today. Shalane Flanagan, with her 2:21:14 in Berlin in September 2014, is now well within the top 100 at 35th, with Samuelson one place and seven seconds behind Flanagan. Goucher (252nd place, 2:25:56) is next, with Desi Linden (256th, 2:25:58) now also part of the sub-2:26:00 club. (Jordan Hasay seems capable of running 2:23-2:24 at Boston in her debut in three months, but any performance she ekes out there won't be eligible for IAAF lists.) Of the fastest 100 overall, "only" 59 are either Ethiopian or Kenyan by heritage (with, in contrast to the men, an Ethiopian preponderance).

This isn't meant to pain a bleak picture of American distance running -- the medals won by Matt Centrowitz (gold, 1,500m), Galen Rupp (gold bronze, marathon), Evan Jager (silver, 3,000m SC), Emma Coburn (bronze, 3,000m SC) and Jenny Simpson (bronze, 1,500m) in Rio de Janeiro last summer are hardly isolated events, and represent the most recent culmination of a significant resurgence on the track for the U.S. And proclaiming "We're probably going to be waiting a long time for a homegrown American to run under 2:04:00" is not suggesting that U.S. athletes give up. It's worth remembering that races are races, not time trials (except when they are in fact time trials) and that Americans have proven very adept at rising to the occasion in a lot of those races lately.

But if you're into watching WR marathon attempts on runway-style courses, don't hold your breath for the pack to be dotted with American faces, especially now that the U.S. President seems intent on shutting down immigration from every location in the universe save for the interior of his own ass.

(Sources: IAAF men's and women's all-time marathon lists,)