GET A LOAD of these numbers. Kenya believe ’em? Absolutely. Numbers tell the story — an ongoing tale of our sport in the current wide-open money era.
A year ago, in a December ’25 issue analysis, A Foreign Wave Rises High In The NCAA, Managing Editor Jeff Hollobaugh opened with this:
“The NCAA scene has changed dramatically in recent years, as old-school athletics and modern-day money have battled in the courts, and earthshaking verdicts have given us a college landscape that would be nearly unrecognizable to a time traveler from a generation ago. Now there’s big-time NIL money, super conferences, recruiting services, and, you just may have noticed, more foreign athletes than ever.
“It doesn’t take much digging to see how much the picture has changed in just the last 10 years.”
Guess what? That change rolls on, make of it what you will.
Today we processed top 50 individual results for each of the 9 NCAA cross country regionals. Those results can be found in our women’s regionals digest here, and the men’s digest coming shortly.
A top-line number worth mentioning is that 38% of the 900 top 50 finishers in the 18 regionals races (9 each for men & women) are affiliated with nations other than the U.S. A breakdown by gender shows 160 foreign top-50 men out of 450, or 36%. The women’s number is 178, or 40%.
Scan the results and you’ll notice one foreign nation dominates: Kenya with 169 top-50 finishers out of 900, or 19%. On the men’s side that’s 80 of 450, or 18%. For the women, the figure is 89 of 450, or 20%.
The percentage of Kenyan top-50 non-U.S. finishers is 50%, for men, 50% for women and 50% for both genders combined.
At the level of top-10 and top-25 regionals finishers, the numbers are even more striking. We all know this. Thirteen of the 18 individual regional champs were Kenyan, 72%. Just 3 were America. Of the top 3s, 70% were Kenyan, 38 of 54.
The six tables below provide an at-a-glance view.
| COMBINED MEN’S & WOMEN’S TOP 10s | ||
| 123 non-U.S. of 180 | 68% | |
| Kenyans | 93 | 52% |
| Kenyan frosh | 19 | 11% |
| U.S. frosh | 2 | 1.1% |
| Kenyans as share of non-U.S. | 76% | |
| MEN TOP 10 FINISHERS | ||
| 57 non-U.S. of 90 | 63% | |
| Kenyans | 40 | 44% |
| Kenyan frosh | 8 | 9% |
| U.S. frosh | 2 | 2.2% |
| Kenyans as share of non-U.S. | 70% | |
| WOMEN TOP 10 FINISHERS | ||
| 66 non-U.S. of 90 | 73% | |
| Kenyans | 53 | 59% |
| Kenyan frosh | 11 | 12% |
| U.S. frosh | 0 | 0% |
| Kenyans as share of non-U.S. | 80% | |
| COMBINED MEN’S & WOMEN’S TOP 25s | ||
| 220 non-U.S. of 450 | 49% | |
| Kenyans | 132 | 34% |
| Kenyan frosh | 34 | 8% |
| U.S frosh | 28 | 6.2% |
| Kenyans as share of non-U.S. | 60% | |
| MEN TOP 25 FINISHERS | ||
| 101 non-U.S. of 225 | 45% | |
| Kenyans | 56 | 25% |
| Kenyan frosh | 13 | 6% |
| U.S. frosh | 16 | 7.1% |
| Kenyans as share of non-U.S. | 55% | |
| WOMEN TOP 25 FINISHERS | ||
| 119 non-U.S. of 225 | 53% | |
| Kenyans | 76 | 34% |
| Kenyan frosh | 21 | 9% |
| U.S. frosh | 12 | 5.3% |
| Kenyans as share of non-U.S. | 64% | |
