Marathon Trials

They just fail to realize that there is zero possibility of it happening, ever. Lenny Korir had a sub-2:10 seed time and still had to get a favor from WA rankings score to get in.

Any ideas on what the half qualifying time will be?

Would be amazing if some random NCAA stud said, "You know what, I'm gonna try a fast half, get in the trials, then snag that 3rd spot. "

Someone like Rocky Hansen, or a Dylan Schubert, or a Carson Noecker, or a Liam Murphy, or a Casey Klinger, or a Drew Bosley.

What if we see a BYU sweep for LA 2028?

3-4 loops of a 10-15k course optimized for spectators. Maintain the same standards to encourage higher participation (people seem to be getting faster anyways) -- lapped runners are shafted in a small lane to make way for the race, and if you're lapped twice your race is over. The top 50 entrants get their travel/housing fully supported, 50-100 get a subsidy, and the rest have to pay themselves.

I do agree that a bigger field with lead to more publicity and in the long term pay off a lot more for the sport in general, even if it makes no sense from purely a qualifications perspective

I actually think we will see a BYU sweep in 2028.

But no one who is a current senior in college is going to debut marathon in 2028. It's February 2025 right now. So Schubert, Murphy, Clinger, Bosley, they're all going to decide roads or track very soon. And quite frankly, I think if any of them decides track at the outset and then tries to transition to the roads in late 2027 and only gets in one half before the trials, that guy will be in a poor position come the trials themselves.

Standards should be 2:14 and 2:30

Small field? Yes

THE POINT OF THE TRIALS IS TO HAVE THE BEST LINE UP, not for NBC to weave all these stupid stories about hobby joggers working full time jobs to run the trials. Go run Boston or win your local 5k, the trials are for our best not for annoying sub elites to say for 3 years “I’m training for the trials”.

Agree 100%. If it’s a trials race, everyone should be treated exactly the same. I can’t emphasize this enough. No A And B people treated differently. What happened in Atlanta was a joke and in no way the fault of the LOC. Atlanta begged people to not run if they didn’t think they were competitive. The athletes chose to ignore the plea. Was it a celebration? Yes! Fair to Atlanta? No! And turned off dozens of potential bidders. There are viable alternatives. Make it a part of a larger race with a staggered start or at least same weekend. Much tougher standards on WA acceptable course. Loop course, legal but fast to be sure that top 3 meet standard.

We don’t need to promote marathoning. Literally millions are already doing it. We need to showcase our best doing it! Raise the bar, the athletes will respond. Reward them for that response.

Well thank God you're not running anything for American athletes then. You don't seem to grasp the element of supporting access to the sport for young post-collegians. The pros like it. Get someone young to these trials, they get the experience, and then they can come back in four years and nail it. Or maybe they will pop that big time drop at the trials. Even if they go out hard and blow up, other guys will get pulled along to those required fast times and improve their rankings.

Because there aren't dozens of races annually where any of that can and does occur. The sole job of USATF with the OT is picking the team. People who have not developed into podium potential can "get the experience" at another place and time.

This is the way forward. Raise the bar, it has proven to work in the past.

They have raised the bar and increased the standards. They have also provided new marathoners with an opportunity to experience the trials (Clayton Young was `150-160th in 2020) and get ramped up and make the team in their next run. The marathon is different and requires a few years of dedication to score at that international level. Even a fast college kid is not going to develop as a marathoner overnight.

Clayton Young would have made the team for Paris regardless of how or even if he finished in 2020. That did not make a difference at all.

I mean Clayton Young himself said in this town hall that qualifying for and competing in the 2020 trials was such a massive help for his career and was a huge advantage for 2024 having it not be his first trials. So I’m inclined to believe his perspective and experience versus the quoted perspective…

Yaseen did pretty well at the Olympics.............................

Clayton presented a narrative you like. His other marathons played more of a role, whether you believe that truth or not.

So I think the main role of the olympic trials is to select the best team possible. I think the next most important role would be putting on entertaining event for fans. I don't see how having a relatively large field detracts from either of those goals? It's been interesting to hear that runners like Clayton and Molly are supportive of relatively large fields, if anyone would care I would think it would be people like them, and if they don't I'm struggling to understand why anyone else should.

At some point having a larger race is going to become logistically too difficult and expensive so you can't make this a race with 1,000+ people. But this isn't like a track race where space is limited, once you're shutting down roads why wouldn't you allow a decent number of people. I don't think the logistics of putting on an event with 50 people is that different from 350.

The race for the top 3 is the entertainment of the event. Everything and anything else is diminishing returns. You must not understand budgeting resources.

Would not trust anything from that guy, he is a noted shill for stryd on here for years. He's just being a shill for his business coaching jayvee hobby racers here. Of course Young's coach, training partners, and WMM experience played larger roles in his success than that one race four years prior. Anyway, our Paris medal count certainly would not have gone down without OT tourists in Orlando. The world level has shifted, any focus on anything other than the top 10 is dragging us back to 2000 levels. I am sure some people are quite satisfied with having one team spot per gender and zero medal prospects like in Sydney, so long as they get that OT participation trophy.

There’s only one each for the guys you listed, so no need for using “a” five times