Basically, the Dutch are not competitive in the marathons they host so someone decided to have a two tier system for prize money that discriminates against non-Dutch (likely with East Africans in mind) hoping to stimulate Dutch athletes?
That makes little sense, unless someone has a program to change Dutch genes to absorb more oxygen efficiently and send them to a very high altitude place (not sea level) to train.
I don't think the prize money is going to make Dutch folks run any faster, maybe it is just to discourage East Africans from coming to the Netherlands and embarrassing Dutch runners. | Quote: |  | |
| 23 Kenyans and 1 Ethiopian have won 24 out of the 25 Dutch marathon events held in the past five years. I should add that just last weekend, Kenyans won the Rotterdam Marathon in the Netherlands. Enter the newly rigged setup: a foreign (translation: black African) winner of the Utrecht Marathon on April 25 -- which, I should note is billed as an international event -- only gets 100€ in prize money vs. 10,000€ (US$14,400) for a Dutch winner. On top of that, they only invited Dutch marathoners to the event (which they've renamed the "Dutch Battle"). The goal is to heavily discourage black Africans from running (and therefore winning) Dutch marathon events: " | |
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http://www.bookerrising.net/2011/04/...-marathon.html 
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