Cowboys and Indians. Walt Disney. Burger and fries. Michael Jordan. Sneakers. Michael Jackson. Jay-z and Kanye West. Taylor Swift. Hollywood. We are so back. Brat. Demure. Ok, this was pop culture.
Now let’s try trail running. JFK 50 Mile. Scott Jurek. Anton Krupicka. Western States. Freetrail. Single Track. iRunFar. Zach Miller. The Coconino Cowboys. Jim Walmsley. Aravaipa. Cocodona. UROY. Courtney Dauwalter. The buckle.
The US moves the world. Nothing exists outside of the US. Isn’t Europe just one big country anyway? We are the best country in the world. Our teams are world champions, not American champions. American culture influences the world. We grew up consuming American content on the TV. We work and communicate using American devices. We emulate trends born in New York or Los Angeles. We dream of having a buckle on our waist after running 100 miles pretending to be in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado. Trail running, like most European cultural fields, is vastly influenced by American culture.
As European fans of trail running, the more we follow the sport the more we question what we listen and read every week about athletes, races, brands and fans. We are part of that generation born in the 90s that grew up in front of the TV consuming every sort of content produced on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, the one that could recognize every episode of the first 20 seasons of The Simpsons in less than 5 seconds - true story. We are not new to this. But why do we gravitate towards American trail running so much? Why do we want to imitate them? Why do we always look at American races first? Why do we need to award a buckle in a race in Italy? Why do always look at them before us? How the sport is narrated is the answer.
Trail running is relatively young, it only started in the second part of the past century between Europe and the US. Its evolution was influenced by the geography of the territory, cultural attitudes and environmental regulations. These factors created two interpretations of the sport, with differences that persists still today especially at amateur level - while pro athletes have a more uniform approach to racing. What separates the two regions is not just elevation gains or course tracking, but how the sport is told.
Americans are by far the best people when it comes to storytelling and entertainment. This skill made them dominate the contents we consume on any media in the Western world. They don’t need a story to create a show. If you ever watched American television you would notice how many sports channels are there, both local and national. Commentators don’t need games to watch and comment. They only need a microphone and a stage to talk and fill the time till the next game or race. All major American sports have a flourishing ecosystem of media building narratives. Trail running, or running in general, hasn’t got its TV channel yet, but media are on the rise.
This natural talent to turn everything into entertainment fostered the American influence on trail running. As once quoted in an episode of Long Run Archives “Americans are just good at talking about sports all day”. Analyzing, commenting, interviewing and debating are the foundations of sports content. Naturally, every fan understanding English would bump into those media at some point and stick to it because of the high quality. Even though everyone can become a good narrator, there are other factors that influence the current status quo: a big local market and being English native speakers.
These two factors alone create a more favorable condition compared to Europe, where the continental market is divided in 30 countries speaking different languages. This fragmentation makes it harder to build a wider reach and a cohesive narrative during the season. In addition, the way the sport itself developed in the past 30 years generated a wider variety of race formats in Europe: mountain running, sky running, trail running. Each one has its own circuit with athletes spread across them. On the contrary, Americans keep things simple. Running on a trail is just trail running. And, trail running will save the world!
Enthusiasm is the other element where Americans are undisputed. The next race is always the most exciting. The newest runner is always on the path to become the best. A small local event can become the subject of hours of conversation and thousands of words. New stories are built weekly. The past can be iconic, but the present is what matters and excites. The future? Don’t even make them start on it. It will be unbelievable. As Europeans, we miss this feeling towards the present and the future. Athletes and races are becoming better day by day. The sport is in a better place than ever, but we can’t perceive the excitement on this side of the ocean.
This impossibility of the European media to tell sport results in an underestimation of athletes as well. As fans always look at the other side of the Ocean and be inspired by American performances, they often forget how European athletes are more competitive than ever. We regularly see Europeans winning the most competitive races in the US, despite participating very rarely. On the other side, Americans had years of struggling to figure out how to crack the most competitive European races. If an American win at Leadville 100 can skyrocket you at the top of the sport, why does a European podium at Sierre Zinal often go unnoticed? We, as media and fans, should celebrate more what happens in our own garden.
If you follow this sport and are able to consume content in English most of this is no news. The problem of how to narrate European trail running is unsolved. Many pointed out the need of a pan-European trail running media covering what goes on around the continent daily. Emerging from the media multitude is a real feat. The language complexity makes it hard to attract audiences rapidly and scale it. For the same reason, it is harder to negotiate with potential partners that might be focused on one single market. But not impossible. It might take more time to scale and reach a financial viability, but the audience will keep growing as the sport becomes younger, looking for fresher content and more fluent in English.
Right now trail running is still a sport made and for older generations. If you've ever been to a race you know what we are talking about. There needs to be a new generation of actors in the sport that comes with a fresher approach to the sport willing to do things differently. As new media rise in the US and even acquire older ones, we are yet to experience the same dynamic in Europe. Like younger runners enter the field and win races every week, new European media and storytellers will emerge and reach the critical mass to build the story, influence and show off European trail running for how good it is.
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