What They Didn't Tell You: March 31st

World Cross. No 3-athlete limits for the Africans. No short course. Nowhere for the Mazungo to hide. And, set in Scotland - self-described as wild and sexy (note: Scotland, you will be hearing from my lawyers) - you just knew there would be plenty of excitement. So, everything they didn't tell you from this weekend, after the jump...

Kenenisa Bekele lost his shoe yet still threw down king-of-the-mountain-style to win what is essentially running's Royal Rumble. And his wife almost passed out in the excitement. The normally reserved Bekele, though, was overheard commenting to an acquaintance after the race: "Eh, it's really a pretty common sequence in our household. I lose an article of clothing, she almost faints in excitement, but then she rallies, I move to the front and I end up... winning. Oh [deep voice] YEAH."

Jorge Torres took 19th which was a pretty darn solid showing for a guy that generally would squeak into a World-Level track final. This coming after a stretch of less-than-his-best showings, naturally, got pessimists speculating. But rest your minds, as the actual explanation is much simpler than drugs: Torres placed in the top 20 because he is 1/20th East African.

The US Senior team, as a whole, didn't quite have the world-beating showing we all would have liked to see. But, it turns out, that was due in large part because James Carney kept tugging on his teammates singlets and asking them to look in the crowd to verify that his eyes weren't playing tricks, and that he had, in fact, seen DuckTales' Flintheart Goldgrom. (pictured @ R)

Carney had also started his morning with a bottle of Scotch.

The above photo of Bekele has been floating around with the explanation that he celebrated his World Cross long-course victory by "dressing up like an old Scottish dude." Wholly inaccurate. An old Scottish dude had actually dressed up like Kenny Bekele for the race. Which he won. Impressive.

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Familiar Faces in Fedinburgh

Ever since the Marathon Trials, Ben has been saying Out-With-The-Old. Naturally, I tried to remind him how strong someone like Adam Goucher looked as recently as Outdoor Nationals in 2007. You see, I believe that select old farts may still have a trick or two up their collective sleeves. I'm just hoping that trick is not one of my grandpa's personal favorites: namely an old fart, itself... released only after beckoning me over as if he had a juicy secret to tell and had a firm grip on my arm so I couldn't run away from the stink.

Now, my counterpart will gladly say that in any contemporary race, he'd take an Andrew Carlson over an Alan Culpepper... a James Carney over a Dan Browne... a Ryan Bak over a re-animated Glenn Cunningham. I would point out that he also takes no-reach-around over a reach-around as proof that his judgment is often less than sound... but no matter. The bottom line is that the US squad traveling to Edinburgh this weekend is the team that could ultimately show whether there's any weight to the much-trumpeted US distance running resurgence.

This year's group is essentially a team of our Tier 2 guys, at least in terms of track PRs. Consider their lack of world-level accomplishments and I think we can safely call it Tier 2b. The successes Hall and Webb have had the past 12 months will be remembered as nothing but singular talents heating up, unless this new era of ballyhooed depth eventually puts up and shows that the US, as a whole, is in a better place than it was over the past two decades. And thus, Edinburgh is proving grounds #1 as a pair of domestically-brewed NCAA Cross champs with limited international cachet lead a troupe of athletes that the Euros and East Africans could easily mistake for a bunch of guys who bought US kits on Ebay and snuck onto the starting line.

Come Sunday, in addition to seeing whether 2008 is, indeed, Year Zero in American Distance Running Post African Dominance... when you're scanning the results this weekend, here are some other familiar names to look for after the cadre of East Africans up front:

• Craig Mottram - AUS (Maybe you've heard of him)
• Andrew Letherby - AUS - (fixture on US scene)
• Andrew Ledwith - Rep of Ire (cum Iona)
• Alistair Cragg - Rep of Ire (Arkansas)
• Keith Kelly - Rep of Ire (Providence)
• Vinny Mulvey - Rep of Ire (Iona)
• Marilson dos Santos - BRA (2006 NYC Champ)
• Dylan Wykes - CAN (Providence)
• Tom Lancashire - Mediocre Britain (FSU)
• Andrew Lemoncello - Mediocre Britain (FSU)
• Cleveland Ford - Guyana (Just 'cause)

Will the US guys be distracted by this Guyanese runner who I'm absolutely certain must look exactly like the same-named character from Family Guy? We shall see. Ultimately, Edinburgh is the perfect chance for us 'Mericans to lose the bally and just start hooing.

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Bekele d. Ritz, some other guys

Bekele squeaked out a win in Edinburgh over defending World Cross champ Tadesse, and Eliud Kipchoge. Ritz was 5th, having gone out with the lead pack, fallen off and then worked his way back into contact before the final bit of racing. Solid result for him: a little over 10 seconds back in a 9300m race... but hardly the kind of race that makes one think he can hang at World Cross when there are full squads from Ethiopia, Kenya, Eritrea, Tanzania, etc, etc. etc. I would love to see him crack the Top 10 on the senior level some day, but more and more I wonder if it will happen, regardless of whether he can stay healthy.

As an aside, Bekele's facade of cross country invincibility has taken a serious blow, of late - even this defeat of top foes lacks the effortless dominance he used to display. Last year he was tops in the same trio here, with a 10-second gap on 2nd place... and Tadesse still took home the serious hardware in March...

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