What are American marathoners getting wrong?

It’s been stated many times on these boards, plus many examples - we want runners to go to NCAAs, but that’s not the best path to being a marathoner. So potential marathoners tool around for 4-5 years when they could be starting their marathon journey sooner.

The mistake is thinking 5/10k and the marathon are the same sport. They’re not.

You make it sound like Americans are entitled to the medals. They're not. I for one think it's fantastic that there are so many countries winning medals this year. This morning, one of the commentators said that *25* countries have won at least 1 medal and we're only on day 4!

Why hasn’t China won any marathon medals???! You think with a 1+ billion people someone there would be good at marathons. Same for India.

So the Italian bronze Medalist Iliass Aouani was born in Morocco and was actually an alumni of Syracuse, where he was a 2 time ACC champion. In many ways not dissimilar to America's Zouhair Talbi.

gas tank, there is a real problem there

and the best africans have gone to the roads for cash

and until now, full of peds

all said, us runners should be 204 205 half a dozen guys

It is still a championship and many solid runners run it. But it isn't wrong to say that the best runners are not there. The fall now has 4 marathon majors plus Valencia.

Did nothing at the NCAA level tho.
He’s lived in Italy since age of 2 btw, am not sure why where he was born matters.

Clayton Young finished 1 minute off the winning time. The top US female finished 4th. Stop whining.

That’s a DEI type of thinking. Different people are good at different things. If success is measured by population, ants should’ve dominated the marathons.

You just read that he was a 2x ACC champion so to follow that up with "did nothing" is a bit silly.

It has to do with his shared heritage with Zouhair Talbi, who did not represent the US today but will be in the future.

Not during the summer. You can do blocks of heat acclimatization, but you can’t properly do an entire marathon buildup in Florida during the summer. It just beats you down to the point you can’t recover in time for the next workout.

Not taking enough bicarb

We have no depth in the marathon. Realistically we have 10ish men/ women really training at a world class level for the marathon.

Why is that? We have the best university running system in the world! But it is expensive. College Loan dept, cost of living, and HEALTH INSURANCE. You can’t semi pro run in the US anymore, so no depth!!!! Look on the women’s side, we have a school teacher and a formerly retired non profit organizer as our top two here.

At 26 years old, you need to clear at least 30k and need health insurance. That’s hard to get while still marathon training.

Italy- Free health care

Germany- free health care

France, UK, Scandinavia, Australia, NZ, Netherlands, Spain, Belgium, they all have free health care!!!

Just to add, go through some TFRRS lists and look up who ran well and if they are still running. Chances are no, even for the top programs.

It is too expensive to keep training. Along with having that degree in your back pocket knowing you can make more money doing something else.

Hopefully with the Covid super seniors we can have some people make the jump like the guy from Montana State or the OSU guys running for Puma.

Why is the same never asked about the American women's marathoners? Sullivan was 4th but just in general the men perform at the same level as them.

Underrated point. He also beat a lot of 2:02-2:04 guys. It's a shame he tripped over his own feet and took a hard spill. The work it took to rebound, reattach, and hang with the leaders until 40km shows he probably was in shape to finish closer to the podium. If Mantz performs well in Chicago, I'd say some of the Americans are putting themselves back into the distance conversation

he did not beat "a lot" of them. but his performance today is worth about 206 high in my mind.

he turned 32 yesterday. we shouldnt be expecting him to make huge leaps.

a B day for him.

As a German who currently lives in Sweden ("Scandinavia"), I can assure you that health insurance is not "free" in either of the two countries.

Health insurance in Germany costs you between 300-600€ when you are employed; in Sweden, there is a yearly cap on your health care expenses.

Having lived in the UK, yes, basic health care (!) is "free", but excludes dental, for example, completely--but for most European countries, there is no such thing as "free health insurance".

The men are actually generally ahead of the women. That may change as Taylor Roe, Weini Kelati, Emily Venters, Aubrey Frenthaway, are transitioning from the track to the roads. But the women's field in this year's worlds was very top heavy. The top 2 women finished within 2 seconds of each other. The 3rd place woman was over 2.5 minutes behind them, and the 4th place woman finisher was over 3.5 minutes behind them.

The top 10 men all finished within one minute of each other. So while the women seem closer to finishing in terms of place, in terms of time they're actually very far off from the elite. Again, hopefully that changes, because there are a lot of really fast women who are probably going to debut or take big steps in the marathon in the next year, but just assessing the field as it is today.