It seemed the height of ignorance that so many people expressed amazement of Meb Keflezighi’s age as he became the first American in 31 years to win the famous Boston Marathon earlier this year.
It reminds me of baseball commentators lamenting over a 30 something ballplayer’s aging legs having something to do with a less than stellar performance. Meb at 38 is just a youngster. News reporters in general tend to be clueless. If you remember the Rosie Ruiz incident at the Boston Marathon several years ago whom people saw cross the finish line as the first woman to win the event and got her face plastered across newspapers and on TV at the time. There was not a runner alive who didn’t know she was a fraud from the get-go. The media still was convinced Rosie won even after several notable runners reported the obvious truth. Even slim people have a “fleshiness” that real runners don’t have—turned out that Rosie jumped in a mile from the finish.