We just published this week's weekly recap. In it, we note that African runners don't seem to be dominating the US road scene as much as they used to as it seems as if there are fewer good ones coming over as compared to the past.
Why are there fewer elite Africans coming over? We aren’t entirely sure. As we saw at Worlds this year, getting a visa to the US isn’t the easiest thing to do as there is a big backlog after Covid but this phenomenon predates Covid. It may be that it’s just not as lucrative as it used to be as some road races have dropped elite prize money and the competition for the dollars is tougher as North Americans racing on the roads are running better than 15 years ago so it’s less of a guarantee that an African will win big if they do come over to the US. If you have a theory, post it here.
Ben Flanagan’s win at Falmouth was his third in the last four editions (the 2020 race was cancelled) and made him fifth the man to win three or more Falmouths, joining Bill Rodgers (3), John Korir (3), Gilbert Okari (3), and Stephen Sambu (4).
It’s a somewhat surprising run of success. When Flanagan won his first Falmouth in 2018, it brought an end to 27 straight years of African champions on the men’s side (22 of them Kenyan). Since then, the men’s winners have hailed from Canada, USA (Leonard Korir, though he was born in Kenya), Canada, and Canada.
So what’s happening?
It’s not that hard to see. Flanagan’s winning time of 32:25 for the 7-mile course on Sunday was the slowest at Falmouth since 2001. In fact, if you look at the last 20 editions, Flanagan’s winning times of 32:25, 32:21, and 32:16 rank as the slowest, second-slowest, and fourth-slowest of that span, which is crazy as he’s running in super shoes. Compare that to the 2012 race, when Kumatai Kiplimo ran 32:21 – and finished 4th. Kenyans swept the top six places that year.
There was only one Kenyan in the top 10 in 2018 and none in 2021, but it’s not as if Falmouth has stopped inviting them (though more of the invited athletes are US-based these days). Kenyans went 2-3-5 in 2019 and 3-5-9 on Sunday (and in 2021, due to COVID, it was way harder for an international athlete to get into the US than it is now). Rather, it’s that the men’s fields in general just aren’t as strong as they were a decade ago.