As he kicked toward the finish line, the man who was about to win Sunday's New York marathon pointed to the U.S.A. emblazoned across his chest as if it meant something significant. After he broke the tape in Central Park, he made the sign of the cross and kissed the ground. Then he paraded an American flag before draping it over his shoulders.
The slight 34-year-old man from Mammoth Lakes, Calif., had just become the first American man since 1982 to win the New York marathon. Twenty-four of the previous 26 races had been won by Africans. (A Brazilian won the other two.)
The victor cried. People cheered. Newspapers saluted his historic victory.
"Definitely today wearing that U.S.A. jersey got the crowd going," he said. "Definitely wore it with big honor and pride."
Then, Monday, came this: "Unfortunately, it's not as good as it sounds," wrote Darren Rovell, CNBC's sports business reporter. The winner "is technically an American by virtue of him becoming a citizen in 1998, but the fact that he's not American-born takes away from the magnitude of the achievement."
The winner's name is Mebrahtom Keflezighi (Kah-FLEZ-ghee), and he was born in what is now Eritrea, a small country in East Africa. So Rovell argued that "he's like a ringer who you hire to work a couple hours at your office so that you can win the executive softball league."
Rovell wasn't the only knee-jerk nationalist out there.
"I suppose if you can't beat 'em, naturalize them," wrote Sean Keeley, an assistant editor for SBNation.com, a conglomeration of more than 200 sports blogs.
Apparently Keflezighi should have stitched his biography onto his singlet, too.
What Rovell and Keeley neglected to mention was that Keflezighi had come to the United States at age 12 — more than 20 years ago — after his family fled a war in which young boys were routinely forced to join the fighting. He has lived all of his teen and adult years in America. He is married to a woman who shares his East African heritage but whose family lives outside Tampa.
On Tuesday, Rovell and Keeley sprinted to append apologies to their original comments after readers pointed out that Keflezighi has raced and trained in this country his entire career — from his first 5:20 mile as a seventh-grader, to his American record in the 10,000 meters (a mark he set in 2001 that still stands), to the silver medal he gutted out in the soupy heat of the 2004 Athens marathon. That medal, by the way, was the first by an American marathoner since Frank Shorter won silver in 1976.
But there were just enough comments supporting Keeley and Rovell's initial reaction to underscore that in the age-old argument about what makes an American, years of dedicated service and a solemn oath will not overcome the simple fact that you were born somewhere else. And that prejudice is all the more difficult to surmount when the part of the world where you were born happens to be the very place that has produced the runners who supplanted American icons nearly 30 years ago.
Keflezighi has fought this perception that he isn't "American enough" virtually his entire career. Yes, Keflezighi has an endorsement deal with Nike, and yes, he has appeared on his share of running magazine covers, but it's not hard to find stories that breathlessly await the arrival of the next great American marathoner. As if that runner weren't already here.
Before the Beijing Olympics — Keflezighi didn't qualify because of a serious hip injury — stories focused on Ryan Hall, the 25-year-old "golden boy" whose "deep Christian faith" and "wholesome looks and lifestyle may help him become as popular as Shorter." In that same Los Angeles magazine article Hall was predicted to spark a renaissance in U.S. marathoning if he managed to medal in Beijing. He didn't. And he still hasn't won a marathon against an elite international field, though he finished fourth in New York Sunday.
But anyone who follows the sport knows that the renaissance of American distance running was already under way — in large part thanks to Keflezighi, who with Deena Kastor (the bronze medal winner in Athens) helped establish Team Running U.S.A. in Mammoth Lakes. This is where Ryan Hall also trains.
Keflezighi "looks similar to East African runners more than he looks like somebody's opinion of what and American runner should look like," says Tim Layden, a senior writer at Sports Illustrated who has covered track and field for years.
But Keflezighi, also a Christian, and Hall "are a lot more alike than they are different," Layden says, "and Meb was there first."
"He's a great asset to distance runners and he shouldn't be put down because of his race or his country of origin," says Bob Larsen, who recruited Keflezighi to UCLA and still coaches him. "Let's give Meb his due for leading the way for all these guys."
So why does one of the world's best athletes, who is hailed by his fellow competitors as a genuinely warm, classy guy, not excite unmitigated national pride?
Amby Burfoot, who won the Boston marathon in 1968 and is now editor at large for Runner's World magazine, is an astute observer of the running scene.
Keflezighi's win Sunday, he says, was "tremendously meaningful and inspirational for all of us — not just runners" because of his ability to battle back from an injury that sidelined him for 2008.
But there are marketing forces and nostalgic urges, Burfoot says, that will always work against Keflezighi. In a sport that appeals to a demographic that is almost exclusively white with plenty of disposable income, he says, a Ryan Hall — tall, blond and devout — is going to be an easy choice to sell shoes or magazines.
And then there's the lingering frustration at the tidal shift in distance running supremacy, he says. Prize money appeared in the early '80s and with those higher purses came competition from dozens and then hundreds of elite runners from East Africa. American runners all but disappeared from international podiums.
Still, the results of Sunday's race prove that American runners have regained substantial ground. Six of the top 10 male finishers are U.S. citizens. Here are their names: Ryan Hall (4th), Jorge Torres (7th), Nick Arciniaga (8th), Abdi Abdirahman (9th) and Jason Lehmkuhle (10th). If anything, that list shows how difficult, and ultimately pointless, it becomes to fixate on ethnic heritage or birthplace.
Here's another thing to keep in mind: The good old days weren't always clear-cut. "The last guy who won in New York wasn't born in America either," Larsen says. Alberto Salazar, who dominated American distance running in the late '70s and early '80s, was born in Cuba.
National editor Bill Duryea can be reached at duryea@sptimes.com.
News
