I am with you RE the 600+ running. It was cool. Someone said they actually wanted it to be an open race and have 25K participants. I am not for that thanks to yahoos like Derek Yorek, but I really liked that this was a true race.

The course and conditions made the race too "hard" if we are trying to find the best 3 to run the flat easy course in Sapporo. Of course this is because they changed the venue at the Olympics last minute.

I love the current standards for OTQing. I like having a bigger field -- because it plays so much better on TV. And I also think it played a role, particularly on the men's side, on making that race REALLY interesting. Puskedra taking a flyer. Shrader just going for it. And Rupp/Abdi/Korir and co. timing their surge perfectly to leave a whole lot of people out of the ball game.

I also think the depth of field on the women's side led to that slow whittling of the field versus the fireworks of the men's race -- tactically, it made the most sense to wait. And it almost became a move of "too soon" for Kipyego -- that downhill into the finish saved her.

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Editor-in-Chief, Slowtwitch.com | Twitter

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Dave Jewell
Free Run Speed

I think you need to ratchet down the rhetoric here. Where she went to college and how she did in college is completely irrelevant. She competed for Kenya at the 2015 World Championships and competed at the Kenyan Olympic Trials in 2016 as a Kenyan. She competed for Kenya from 2000 to 2016 and obtained a US citizenship (I don't know if she kept her Kenyan one too) in 2017 when it was clear she never would represent Kenya again at the world level. Yes, she appears to have complied with the complicated and ever-changing rules but to take the position that there's nothing to look at here and just move on either is quite disingenuous or naive. This isn't the case like someone like Abdi, who moved to the US as a kid, become a citizen 20 years ago and who always has competed for the US.

I'm all for people becoming US citizens for whatever reason they want to (and being able to make an Olympic team is a legitimate one to me) because that's what the US is about but to act indignant when people question the rules that allow people to hopscotch around countries in athletics is ridiculous.

From FloTrack's story shortly after her citizenship ceremony:


That and not shortly after gaining citizenship here, she became a mom (which she talked about in her post-race interview).

Anyways. I really find it hard to believe she went forum-shopping to make a team.

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Editor-in-Chief, Slowtwitch.com | Twitter

booyah! (breaking bad Tuco voice)

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https://www.strava.com/...tes/zachary_mckinney

Totally agree with you. Lagat could have made the team and it would be the same problem. Kenya is no Syria when it comes to refugees, so these athletes are country hopping their way in

Jesus people. She’s a fucking American Citizen. Guarantee there wouldn’t be an outrage if she came from Germany or Italy or England.

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The Hoka behind is certainly the Rocket X

But the Brooks are NOT standard Hyperion Elite. Old prototypes or the H.E. or prototype of another shoe ?

The rumor (and take it with a whole container of Morton's) is that it is v2 of the HE.

Something got very lost in translation between the prototypes and that first retail release.

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Editor-in-Chief, Slowtwitch.com | Twitter

Nice hollow guarantee there and way to show how insecure you are by injecting profanity into your loser argument. I can assure you that if someone competed for the UK for 16 years, failed to make the UK Olympic team (while being the reigning silver medalist), then obtained a US citizen, and then made a US Olympic team shortly thereafter, people would be questioning how someone could spend a whole career competing for the UK and then all of a sudden be representing the US. You are the clown who claimed, despite her competing for Kenya for 16 years, she is no different than all of the other athletes who only have competed for the USA. She is different and discussing if that should be allowed is a legitimate discussion no matter how much whining and swearing you do on here (and for the record, I'm kind of indifferent to the whole thing and think it's fine that she made the US team if she followed whatever rules applied).

Did she follow the rules? Yes! So people should be more outragedo by the rules than her following them. And I’d bet a lot of money it wouldn’t be as big of an issue if she wasn’t from Kenya.

You also realize this happens all the time in soccer right? Someone plays for their youth national team but can’t crack the men’s side so they get citizenship elsewhere where they can play on the men’s team. Might now be “fair” but if they’re playing within the rules then the issue is with those rules and not the athlete.

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This isn't youth soccer. She competed for Kenya for 16 years and won a silver medal for Kenya at the 2012 London Olympics. Come back on here when Ronaldo or Messi switches countries.

Given the confusion on here over what the rules are, I think it's safe to conclude that most people don't know what the rules are but think that it's odd that someone can represent a country her entire career and then switch at the very end to a new country (it's debatable if US is even less competitive given how strong the US women have been in the marathon). US is clearly less corrupt than Kenya so maybe she didn't want to pay the bribes to make the marathon team in 2020.

She competed for Kenya before she became a US citizen (and therefore could NOT compete for the US). She's lived in the US for 12 years, even while competing for Kenya (if I understand the timeline correctly). She is now, finally, a US citizen and is able to represent the country that she actually lives in.

How is this a problem, exactly?

There are certain countries that have, in the past, fast-tracked citizenship for foreign-born athletes, basically getting a ringer for the Olympics or WCs, sometimes without the athlete in question even living in the country. This does not sound like one of those cases.

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Finally, a voice of reason. And you understand the timeline correctly, outside of getting her citizenship in January of 2017.

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Editor-in-Chief, Slowtwitch.com | Twitter

I am not talking about YOUTH soccer. I am talking about International soccer. Like the handful of US National Team players who are not from the US and played friendlies with another country but now play for the US. They can play friendlies or any non FIFA competition and then switch countries after a citizenship process.

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Major difference is that in soccer, once you play a competitive game with the senior team, you're tied. No 3 or 4 year waiting periods allowed. Lots of similar discussion when Klinsmann was scouring for German or Mexican born dual citizens to play for the national team, some of whom had never stepped foot in the US.

You were talking about YOUTH soccer (great, you don't even know what you are writing now). You said guys play youth soccer for one country, can't make their senior team and then switch over to another country.

Again, we aren't talking about YOUTH track -- we are talking about a former Olympic silver medalist who continued competing for that country for 5 more years and then quietly obtained US citizenship, got pregnant, and then makes an Olympic team for the new country. Each sport is different (triathlon is most ridiculous in that it allows people from one country to compete for another country at age group worlds even if they have zero citizenship or passport from the second country). Regardless, if she followed the rules and the rules allowed her to compete for the US in 2018 (the year after she obtained her US citizenship), then it is what it is. I think her past association with OTC should be a much bigger issue than it currently is. Was Alsal giving her any extra "vitamins" too?

What are you on about? the IOC rules govern who is allowed to compete for each country at the Olympics, not individual sports. Different sports festivals have different requirements. For example, we had to navigate this quite frequently when I swam in Bermuda, as some international competitions were open to Bermuda citizens only, but others were only open to Bermuda residents (regardless of citizenship).

Some countries have a somewhat unethical approach to recruitment, as it were. But that's a different matter. In general, the US does not fast-track citizenship in order to allow athletes from different countries to represent the US.

https://www.theatlantic.com/...home-country/494648/

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I was talking about how each sport allows country switching (i didn't bring up the soccer analogy, which was brought up as an example of easy switching, which as you noted, is irrelevant at the Olympics).

Fast-track or no fast-track, you have to wait 3 years after switching countries to compete in the Olympics for a new country, which she did (assuming she obtained her US citizenship in the first half of 2017). Again, I don't see someone switching to a USA citizenship to try and game the system to get to Tokyo. USA women were 6, 7 and 9 in Rio, which made our top 3 the best top 3 so it would be an odd strategy to think you were getting a backdoor entry into Tokyo by switching to compete for the best country in the marathon.

I'm gonna need you to cite an actual regulation from the IOC that allows people to switch allegiances. The IOC is made up of Country OCs...but also the individual sport federations.

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Washed up footy player turned Triathlete.

This isn't youth soccer. She competed for Kenya for 16 years and won a silver medal for Kenya at the 2012 London Olympics. Come back on here when Ronaldo or Messi switches countries.

You do know that Kenya is a 3rd World Country with one of the lowest median incomes in the world!

If people want to leave, and they can, they do!

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Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

Doesn’t she live and train in Kenya?

Genuinely curious...

My opinion? I hold two or three ideas in my head simultaneously... she’s 100% American just like anyone else, she’s totally allowed to compete, and she totally raced for Kenya last Olympic cycle.

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Eric Reid AeroFit | Instagram Portfolio
Aerodynamic Retul Bike Fitting

“You are experiencing the criminal coverup of a foreign backed fascist hostile takeover of a mafia shakedown of an authoritarian religious slow motion coup. Persuade people to vote for Democracy.”

Rule 41 here, from the link in the article I quoted.

https://stillmed.olympic.org/...-Olympic-Charter.pdf

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Aplogies, I mistakenly thought that you were making the argument that she shouldn’t be able to represent the USA.

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