Amby Burfoot says: do away with the Olympic Marathon Trials

Which method sends the stronger team, on average, to the Olympics:

A) Top three from the trials get to go, if they have the qualifying time.

OR

Top two from the trials get to go.

b) Third spot goes to:

The highest ranking American (who did not finish in the top two), using World Athletics rankings that include the trials

Who also,

Has a qualifying time

And,

Finished in the top fifteen in the trials (so someone who is ranked #1 can't skip the trials, and someone who is injured and can't run the trials won't get a spot either)

I bet in most years the B plan would yield someone more likely to medal (or finish relatively high, like top ten) than the A model.

Yeah I love this idea. Same as what the Japanese do, and I think it's an excellent system

FALSE. Amby ran a 2:14 in 1968, which was one second of the American record.

Your posting license is hereby SUSPENDED for 48 hours.

Disagree. That 'third spot' drama is one of the most exciting aspects of the trials. Any changes that make the trials lamer and less exciting would be negative. In fact any selection choice/'spot earned in advance' taking up a spot makes the trials less exciting and more lame. Keep it how it is: the team earns their spot on the day

In my view, the marathon trials are WAY better than a selection by committee, especially for a country like the United States. The Japanese system of 2+1 is not terrible, but I don't know that would necessarily help the US send a stronger team.

I don't think a dominant decathlete should be sent to the Olympics after a no-height in the Trials. The rules are the same in the Olympics, after all - if you no-height there, you aren't getting a medal.

A gray area is if someone get tripped from behind in an Olympic Trials final. That seems a little more out of the athlete's control... but then again, they wouldn't re-run an Olympic final due to a fall in the middle of the race.

A last, whimsical wishful thinking idea, in light of the US and Japanese Olympic Trials results from this cycle: too bad we can't get a Panning vs. Yuki Kawauchi one-on-one marathon with a bonus Olympic spot on the line!

If you really don't know you could have Google the name and not looked so stupid.

I generally like the current trials format.

However, I would try and hold the trials at a course and in conditions as close as possible to what the upcoming Olympics will be like.

For Paris...it will be warm, thus I liked the Orlando selection for the most part. But if Paris's marathon is held early in the morning why wouldn't USATF do the same for the trials rather than mid morning?

Also, isn't Paris' course supposed to be very hilly?

How hilly was Orlando? If Orlando was flat then we might not have picked the best team to run the course in Paris.

Just a thought...

Close but no cigar, huh? What else has he done? He must have a slew of thons between 2:14 - 2:22? Championships? What are his PRs? They must be great since he's a legend? Or not?

Is Google a banned website in your third world country ?

1) Something could be your favorite distance event and still be the stupidest, most misguided event one can imagine. For example, let us say there is a distance event where you run until you die. It could be your favorite distance event and still arguably the stupidest, most misguided event.

2) One should not be so quick to say who “our two best medal hopes are” based on the results of one race. This is presumptive and unproven.

3) I think the bigger problem is that the US is simply not particularly competitive in the marathon, no matter how we select the Team. So the Kenyans and Ethiopians could have a silly lottery system, for example, where they select 3 from their top 12 runners and still likely be vastly superior to the US.

The article is right that our trials system frequently costs us the best team, the team capable of competing with the world elite on the day in the Olympics. However, the idea that USATF is somehow independent of agents, coaches, and shoe companies is risible in this day and age, and thus, it is clear that favoritism would be involved if they selected the best. The marathon trials are also different from any other event because the athletes put months of training into the one race and their subsequent performances are affected for months by it. Sometimes you only get one high quality race. Runners also may do far better under the often hotter Trials conditions than other runners with more of a shot in good conditions. The bottom line, though, is that the U.S. isn't good enough for our trials' selection methodology to be that significant. We only medal by a process of attrition with the best marathoners seeing the writing on the wall and dropping to preserve themselves for more lucrative fall marathons.

Thanks for many good comments by thoughtful responders. I agree that the 2 + 1 system is quite smart. Apologies to Wejo for not including “launch a new website” among major goals of a Marathon Trials system. :)

The problem for the US is that - at least on paper - nobody in either category can be considered a medal contender. Of course, that doesn't mean they have absolutely no chance at medalling in Paris, but that chance will come down largely to luck, and is similar for any random selection from a rather large group, making the exercise of selecting the three best an arbitrary one.
What the trials do offer, however, is an exciting race in itself - from a purely US perspective arguably more interesting than the Olympic marathon itself. USATF would be foolish to squander that opportunity to hold a couple of race that pit the nation's finest against each other, even if they're at best mediocre by word world standards.

And Amby is quickly disproven by reality. No one watched that race and came away thinking Galen is top 3 or even top 5 in the US. O'Keefe who fee would have selected pre race is without a doubt one of the two best women marathoners if not the best. No one would have picked Seidel 4 years ago and she eneded up with a bronze. We've seen numerous instances of runners we thought were fit going into a trials and then learned they were injured and would not have represented the US as well as who actually got the spot.

If you're arguement is for a sport where you have a limited number of paydays, two per year, to dedicate one to the trials, that is am arguement I am sympathetic with. But then I'd say take away some of Max's useless dead weight salary and create a bigger purse and some appearance fees based on prior performance. No selection system is perfect but the US system works better than most.