No O'Keeffe in marathon?

There should be no alternates then. It she had been diagnosed w a stress fracture, and pulled for medical reasons, usatf would have been criticized for not having an alternate ready to go.

no win for them.

I don’t know if this has been posted yet?

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2024 Olympic Games Men's and Women's Marathon Athlete Selection

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The notion that an Olympic Team Spot is the athlete’s and they have sole discretion what do with it is not correct, at least that’s not how I read it.

Team members must abide by the rules in the manual, including reporting “fit to compete” as stated in Appendix A. USATF can also remove an injured athlete upon examination by a sanctioned doctor, or if the athlete refuses to be examined by a team doctor.

There are of course deadlines that govern these rules, but watching O’Keeffe hobble like she did, I’m skeptical that she and her team, and even USATF, didn’t know that her injury wasn’t going to allow her to compete until the morning of the race, especially since the alternate travelled all the way to Paris. And aside from that controversy, no one that injured should have been allowed to start the race in the first place, no matter when the injury appeared.

Might want to google "Keri Strug 1996 Olympics" and learn some history

You may "know people" but you don't know all the facts. If their truly is $100K on the table and a chance to call yourself "Olympian" for the rest of your life and the life changing perks that come with that (speaking engagements, TV time, book deal, coaching opportunities, etc.) who is realistically turning that down?

Thanks for the info, although I don't see anything regarding fit to compete in the appendix. There is mention in page #4 - section labeled "Removal of Athletes." That reinforces my suspicion that there was verification by a USATF approved physician before the replacement deadline that she was good to gut it out, probably doing strides at race pace or something in addition to the MRI, but it got catastrophically worse once past the point of no return. Like she said, if she could time travel and if she knew she'd feel the way she felt that morning, there's no question she'd have given her spot. Heck, I'll bet McClain encouraged O'Keeffe to do it. Very sad situation overall.

Des had a ton of success after London, so hopefully, Fiona can get past this and thrive in the future.

Page 8 of the manual. Attachment A, letter E., first sentence: “I will honor my commitment to train and report fit to compete.” It goes on about the athlete’s responsibility to report an injury, and how failing to do so hurts Team USA’s ability to compete and prevents other athletes from becoming a team member.

Take another look at the original MRI. A qualified doc WILL see bone changes that had been missed. If there is a false negative, it is reader dependent - doc mistake

Take another look at your original MRI. A qualified radiologist or sports doc will see bone changes that had been originally missed. if there is a false negative, it is reader dependent - doc mistake

Apples and oranges. Strug was injured mid-competition, long after an alternate could be subbed in.

Pushed to do a vault while seriously injured by an abusive coach for a score that the USA actually did not need to win gold, then carried off to Larry Nassar for medical treatment. Yea, let’s emulate that 🤮

Thanks - You had mentioned Appendix, and I skipped Attachment A due to the small font. That's incredibly helpful.

Des made the same poor decision in 2012, but at least she had the excuse of there not being a readily available substitute because #s 4 and 5 from the marathon trials that year were already on the US team in the 10000. Ironically, Des herself was #4 in the 2020 trials, which is one reason why nobody was slagging Aliphine for DNFing after starting hurt in Tokyo because nobody thought Des was deserving of the alternate spot because of what she'd done in 2012.

Who cares about facts that tally up people's knee-jerk reactions and ignorant feelings? Des was supposed to not reap the rewards of being called an Olympian forevermore so the 8th person at trials who was not even training could run a 2:40? 4th through 7th were either running the 10,000 or injured.

It's not the same situation as Fiona's, with Jessica right there in Paris, but Fiona says she did a workout the Friday before. Of course she's going to have hope it's some niggle that won't be present on the day. And when the day comes, it's too late to sub in someone.

She may get called an Olympian, or call herself an Olympian, but this is going to follow her. Maybe she comes back in 2028 and can erase it (but she will have to put together some healthy seasons). If she doesn't, whenever her name is mentioned, she will be the Olympian who knowingly ran injured, with an alternate onsite who flew at her own expense in time to compete, only to limp along and DNF at, what, 1 mile? I'm not sure this is worth endorsements and speaking engagements. But maybe I'll be proven wrong. Time will tell.

If nothing else, we can try to understand why she made this decision (self-interest, best interest of her coach/agent), while also recognizing the decision will hurt her credibility with fans and casual viewers, general credibility of the sport, and realizing we need a new system that doesn't incentivize severely injured athletes to line up knowing they will not finish, limp a couple meters, and quit.

Also, it will be interesting to see if marathon alternates ever take the risk to fly across the world again, knowing that coach/agent, athlete, Team USA docs, etc. would rather allow the original runner to limp a few steps, rather than let the healthy runner compete.

No such thing as "casual viewers" to a Marathon. When she is introduced to the regular public as an "Olympian" no one will know the back story. She can always talk about how she won the Olympic Trials and went on to compete at the 2024 Olympic Games.

To whatever extent "Olympian status" or contract bonuses played any role in this debacle, I think the reformers need to target those areas rather than ripping into athletes for playing the game as it has to be played at present.

I don't disagree with this. I think the only athlete I know of who didn't play the game is Nuguse. He got injured before his race in 2021, and didn't line up for the bonus, am I correct? We all had to listen to Kara say something about him *finally* getting to call himself an Olympian now. It rubbed me the wrong way.

Wasn't the rumor there that Sean Carlson had convinced Guse to save himself for NCAA XC? I have no idea of that was true or not, just what was said at the time.

Also, he was still a collegian, no NIL or professional contract.

This incident actually made me initially annoyed with Nuguse because it sounded like he knew he was injured prior to heading to Tokyo and could've notified Craig Engels to fill in. But he flew out to Tokyo and tried to make it work but ultimately pulled out without running. The official reason was to save himself for NCAA XC but he was way worse than he'd been the year before so it didn't really pan out. I remember thinking at the time that this was a bad move because if you're there at the Olympics you basically run unless you're physically incapable but this situation with Fiona has me reconsidering. Ultimately Nuguse more than redeemed himself this go around and I hope Fiona can too because it really was painful to watch that video where the entire motorcade goes by, then the Bhutanese athlete, then finally the US trials champion comes limping by.