2025â€s GRAND TRACK SEASON is just behind us and this High School Annual issue now in your hot little hands or up on the screen of your device will hopefully provide welcome perspective on what was a momentous prep campaign. (This column appeared in the November 2025 issue ofT&FN)
The December Where They Are Going issue and January Annual Edition — with our 78th set of World Rankings — will be here before you know it.
So, as we gear up for more track & field in â€26, what topics are crying out for me to fill the windbag in my sails?
Cross country topics, of course.
The autumn crescendo has arrived. T&FNâ€s HS Girls AOY, Jane Hedengren, has already laid down markers that sheâ€s ready to run with the best collegiate harriers, Alabamaâ€s Doris Lemngole and New Mexicoâ€s Pamela Kosgei. However, the individual picture, both for men and women, is far from filled in.
Team-wise, weâ€re looking at Oklahoma State, Iowa State, New Mexico and Virginia for the menâ€s nationals. Among womenâ€s squads, BYU, NC State, Florida and new player Oregon are in the mix.
Check out our home page to read our online Conference XC Digest. Print subscribers will see it next month.
Also on my mind, though, is a question. What in tarnation is up with this foreign athlete explosion in cross country?!
Have you noticed? The sense I get from my small friends-circle of feedback loopers is itâ€s snuck up on many of us. A Last Lap item in the October issue called it out:
“Cowboy Stampede: 20 of the top 30 men foreign, 16 of 30 women; Gans Creek 22 of 50 men, 24 of 50 women. Thatâ€s 51.3%.
“But although itâ€s largely the Kenyan influence, itâ€s not just runners from that East African powerhouse. Gans Creek also had representation from Canada, France, Germany, Great Britain, Ireland, Israel, Kenya, Morocco, New Zealand, South Africa & Switzerland. In addition to many of those, Cowboy added Ecuador, Mexico, Portugal, Spain, Uganda & United Arab Emirates.â€
Now conference competition has offered up fresh numbers. The meets and their depths we publish in our eTrack results newsletter are chosen to focus on the prospective players, team and individual, come nationals time. That means high end without a strict formula beyond consulting the USTFCCCA coaches polls and our own weeks-old pre-season XC Preview. With that caveat, the data set is striking.
Among menâ€s conference results we tabulated for publication and/or our in-house database, 126 of 375 conference performers hail from nations other than the U.S. Thatâ€s 33.6%, a full third.
On the womenâ€s side the figures are 135 foreigners among 375 conference harriers — 36%.
When we look at top-15 finishers at conferences (we tallied a small number of conferences to a depth less than 15th place), the percentages are higher:
89 of 225 top-15 male placers were foreigners, 39.6%. The womenâ€s figure: 91 of 225, 40.4%.
Foreign recruiting numbers are up — in the distance ranks, for sure.
Bear in mind that the aggregate figures, those first cited, a set of 375 for each sex, are far larger than the likely NCAA Champs field sizes. Last fall 31 teams qualified in each race and 255 individuals started in both the menâ€s and womenâ€s title tilts hosted by Wisconsin.
A sizable number of the athletes who make up the conference data set wonâ€t even make it through the regionals to race on Missouriâ€s Gans Creek nationals course this season.
I raise this topic with no animosity toward immigrants — whether permanent or temporary as part of the collegiate corps in our sports. Quite the opposite. My mom was an immigrant, my paternal grandfather was an immigrant, my wife is an immigrant.
Something is driving global recruiting, however. Methinks itâ€s the pressures brought to bear by NCAA pay-for-play as mandated primarily for football and basketball. This came to collegiate sport via the court system. A mix of scholarship and NIL money has flooded even track & field and cross country — in the power conferences, anyway.
In a budget balancing response, team sizes have shrunk. Many track programs — whether voluntarily or per conference rules — have instituted 35-athlete roster limits.
Coaches, eager to win, eager to prove their programs†worthiness, feel they must recruit athletes whoâ€ll perform from day 1.
Of the 84 foreign male top-15 conference finishers referenced above, 37 are Kenyan frosh or sophs (44%). Of the 91 women, 38 are Kenyan frosh or sophs (41.7%).
Perhaps thatâ€s all we need to know? ◻︎
Sieg Lindstrom is Track & Field News‘s Editor. He fell in love with the sport as a high school distance runner, and has covered 9 editions of the Olympics and 16 outdoor World Championships. In a feverish effort to brush up his résumé before he was hired, he also attended the â€84 Olympics and â€87 Worlds as a fan.
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