Mixed emotions

The Boston Marathon is underway, and it's hard to say who to pull for.  There's Ryan Hall, a white guy like me.  And, yes, it is nice to see people of your ethnicity do well in sports, there's no getting around it.  When I was young, with Sebastian Coe, Steve Ovett, Bill Rogers, Frank Shorter, Steve Scott, Alberto Salazar etc, there were lots of white American and British middle- and long-distance runners to make kids like me feel like we too could be great.

And then there's Meb Keflezighi, the immigrant who personifies the Horatio Alger story, the idea of America, the things Obama speaks about so movingly and which are most important in the end.  So, at the end of the day, I'd like to see Keflezighi and Hall pushing for the tape at the end, and for Keflezighi to win it.

Postscript:   Alas and alack, once more it is not America's year as Hall takes 4th, Keflezighi 5th.  Could have been a lot worse, though.