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Wednesday, April 22, 1998 By Tony Norman
The woman on the other end of the line sounded out of breath, as if she'd inhaled more of the world's outrage than was healthful for her.
"Has anything run in your paper about how they're trying to keep the Africans from winning marathons?" she wanted to know. She'd heard something on the radio that morning about America's newfound fear of Kenyan long distance runners.
She asked if it was true that the Pittsburgh Marathon subscribed to a policy that excludes Kenyan runners. At first blush, it sounded too goofy to be on the level, but I wasn't going to say it wasn't possible until I checked it out.
"They're doing it because Africans can't be beat any other way," she said. It was all a prelude to a two-tiered system of competitive athletics according to her: African and non-African, paid and unpaid, separate and unequal.
After she hung up, I pulled that day's New York Times out of my bag to see what kernel of truth, if any, her suspicions were based on.
Imagine my surprise when the following headline jumped out from the front page just above the fold: "Kenyan Runners in the U.S. Find Bitter Taste of Success. In a lengthy piece about the panic that has descended on the sponsors and organizers of distance racing in America, reporter Marc Cooper detailed the various schemes enacted in the last year by hosts as varied as Boulder, Colo., Red Bank, N.J., and Jacksonville, Fla., to prop up American dignity (and competitiveness) in the face of Kenyan dominance.
That dominance was evident at yesterday's Boston Marathon where Moses Tanui won, edging out fellow Kenyan Joseph Chebet. It's the eighth straight year a Kenyan has won the race.
According to Cooper, the Kenyans have won six of eight races so far on the 1997-98 Professional Road Racing Circuit, which has 13 events and awards a total of $379,000 in men's prize money. Cooper writes: "Kenyans own the top 7 places and 12 of the top 14 in overall standing. No American is in the top 25. Cooper reports that many regional races have begun a practice of offering prize money only to Americans, regardless how far back in the pack they finish behind the Ken-yans. According to Cooper, the U.S. 10,000 meter champion, Mike Mykytok, earned $4,000 at Cape Cod last summer despite placing 11th, a gesture the Africans insist rewards mediocrity at their expense.
Being pragmatic as well as fast, the Kenyans usually skip competitions that won't allow them an equal shot at the top money. In the case of Boulder, Kenyans and other foreigners are limited to three runners each, while Americans are allowed unlimited shots at a top 10 finish and $32,000 in prize money.
"It's our country, our event, our money," Cooper quotes a director of the Boulder race as saying in defense of the policy. "American sponsors want American winners, or at least Americans among the top finishers. Larry Grollman, the race director of the UPMC Health System/City of Pittsburgh Marathon, was irritated that Pittsburgh had been lumped in with races that exclude Kenyans, a mistake he believes Cooper lifted from a Boston Globe piece that also got it wrong.
"To say we're exclusionary really isn't fair," Grollman says. "Our men's field has been designated the U.S. men's national marathon championship for the second year in a row, so our prize structure is for U.S. males only, but the race is open. The Pittsburgh marathon's women's field will dole out prize money to winners regardless of nationality, as will the over-40 masters' field run by veterans of all nationalities and both sexes.
A Kenyan won last year's Richard S. Caliguiri Great Race 10K, so they're still very competitive here.
Pittsburgh may be off the hook, but you have to wonder what's going on in the racing world. It wasn't that long ago that blacks were excluded from full participation in many areas of American life for "not being good enough. Now Africans are being encouraged to stay home because they're "too good."
So crowds lining the sides of the roads on May 3rd to cheer on the runners will search in vain for John Kagwe, the Kenyan who set a course record here in '95.
Knowing he'll never grace the cover of a box of Wheaties, Kagwe has opted to embrace an American catch phrase, "Show me the money," before he runs. It's only rational when glory is in such short supply.
And if Mike Mykytok or any other American runner ever makes it to a box of Wheaties, it probably won't amount to anything more than a Pyrrhic victory at best.
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