Commentary: Do you know Liu Xiang? Perhaps you should.

I think it is fascinating that many marathon runners – and maybe runners in general – have only a passing knowledge of the runners who are at the top of our sport.

I saw a good example of this at the Rock N Roll Marathon last year, where a sponsor was doing a trivia game about the sport of marathon. You could win a prize if could answer three questions about the sport marathon. Almost no one got the questions right– and these questions were not that hard. But they required some knowledge of the key players in the sport of running and that knowledge just wasn’t there in most people who walked up to the keyboards to take the quiz.

Sure, running is a participant sport and to be a marathon runner doesn’t really require you to follow what’s happening up in the pack ahead of you. You can have an amazing marathon experience, while someone goes out and sets a new course record without it really impacting what you’re doing there that day.

Yet there’s something sort of unusual about this phenomenon. Let’s look at some other truly participant sports, like cycling or golf. Is there any golfer who doesn’t know who Tiger Woods is? Is there any cyclist who doesn’t know who Lance Armstrong is?

But with runners, in this US in particular, most probably would not be able to name to the current world record holder in the marathon (Haile Gebrselassie), the half-marathon world record holder (Sammy Wanjiru), the men’s Olympic Champion (Stefano Baldini), or the men’s and women’s 2007 marathon world champions (Luke Kibet and Catherine N’dereba).

Part of the problem may be cultural. Names like N’derba, Prokopcuka or Grigoryeva don’t exactly roll off the American tongue. I can attest to this as a marathon writer, I spend a lot of time spell checking names. But marathoning is an international sport and the top runners come from a lot of different countries around the world. So that’s just part and parcel of being in a globally popular sport.

Newsweek magazine had a special double-issue about the role of China in the world this past week. In it, they profile Liu Xiang, the Olympic Gold Medalist in the 110M high-hurdles, who is also the world record holder and world champion. Writer Mark Starr points out that, “Today Liu is arguably the most popular man in China and indisputably the most visible. His face is everywhere—on magazine covers, billboards and milk cartons. He cavorts on music videos with the hottest female stars and boasts an A-list of international sponsors, including Nike and Visa.”

That’s a fairly significant statement. A runner is said to be the most popular man in China, the most populous nation on earth, and I wonder how many of us would be able to identify that name.

Take Haile Gebrselassie as another example. He may be the most famous person in Ethiopia, employing hundreds in his personal businesses. And he’s arguably the greatest runner of all time. Yet, would most American marathon runners pick him out of a crowd? I’m not so sure.

Paula Radcliffe, on the other hand, is recognizable. People know Paula. We call her by her first name. But then, it’s an easy name to say, isn’t it.

I find this whole topic fascinating. It’s one of the reasons that I write so much about the racing aspect of marathon running. I think it is important for us to have a connection to the elite side of the sport. It isn’t everything that the sport is about, but it is a wonderful and vibrant part of the sport that I think more people could enjoy.

I’d love to hear what you think about this. Please feel free to comment.

Coach Joe English, Portland Oregon, USA
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