Womens Oly Trials Marathon Standards

ray wrote:

There is absolutely no evidence to show that tighter standards and a higher bar get more people running faster. Without even checking the data, I'd venture a guess that we don't have as many men running as fast as they did from 78-88.

. . .

When the women start complaining the standard is too soft it'll change. When the men do it, it's just sour grapes,

I doubt that you've actually looked at the evidence. When standards rise, performances rise. In fact, the whole history of distance running, in which performances among international-class runners rise as the standards for success rise, is evidence of that. As for your comment about U.S. male marathoners, the trials standard for the 1984 trials was 2:19:05, and the standard for 1988 and 1992 was 2:20. After the standard was softened to 2:22, there were far fewer U.S. male marathoners running under 2:20. There were, however, many U.S. male marathoners who were suddenly focused on training to run sub-2:22 rather than sub-2:20. There will now be a number of men focused on running sub-2:19.

Your statement that "it's just sour grapes" when men complain about the women's standard is demonstrably false. I considered it too soft long before I ever qualified for the Olympic trials, and I still consider it too soft long after my days of competing at that level have passed. I understand that there are people who like the fact that the women's standard has allowed a wide range of qualifiers, from 16-year-old girls to 54-year-old women. I'm not one of them, and that has nothing to do with the parable of the "sour grapes."

If the standard is 2:46 (or somewhere around there.. was it 2:48 before) how did Joan Benoit run 2:50 this year at the Trials? Not bashing Joan Benoit because that's simply amazing that a 50 year old woman can do that and shows how fit she is still, but just wondering.

GTF wrote:

Face it, all 2:14+ men and all 2:32+ women are out of contention for a team spot, the majority of the field is there simply as fodder to fill out the field since USATF wants a certain field sizes for the OT marathons.

That's false. This year, Dathan Ritzenhein went into the trials with a best time of 2:14:01, and finished second. In 1988, Mark Conover went into the trials with a best time of 2:18:03, and won the whole thing. The 2:19 standard obviously allows participation by a number of runners with little chance of making the team, but it reasonably accommodates legitimate candidates who have run qualifying marathons under less-than-ideal circumstances.* By contrast, a 2:46 marathon is simply a long training run for legitimate contenders for the women's team.

*The recent addition of a fairly soft half-marathon alternative qualifying standard has diminished that rationale for having an accommodative marathon qualifying standard.

Joan ran 2:46 at Twin Cities in 2005 to qualify for the 2008 Trials.

My feeling is that our sport needs more high-profile events and the more positive publicity the better. I'd rather see a 2:45 women profiled in my newspaper than a charity runner. Guess what? I see way more charity runners.

The Boston and NYC trials were great for spectators and every runner I know or read about indicated high satisfaction with the experience. Just about every runner was profiled in some manner, ranging from their hometown paper to national media.

You can argue forever about the appropriate standard, I think you also have to take into consideration the "Event" factor and how this can help the sport. Having 25 people run a marathon because they have hit a higher standard really doesn't seem like an appealing event for anyone.

I hope the number stays around 150-200 for men and women and that future hosting sites run similarly successful events.

It was meant as a generalization that is essentially true. Also, if Ritzenhein had needed sub-2:14 or sub-2:13 to get into the OT then he would have run it and he is likely the only OT entrant for whom one could assume that likelihood.

Avocados Number wrote:

[quote]GTF wrote:

By contrast, a 2:46 marathon is simply a long training run for legitimate contenders for the women's team.

*The recent addition of a fairly soft half-marathon alternative qualifying standard has diminished that rationale for having an accommodative marathon qualifying standard.

Are you seriously calling 1:15 "soft"? Whoa, any credibility you had just flew out the door.

Not my words, just to be clear.

This is all interesting but which is cause and which is effect? Was the standard changed BECAUSE there were more fast people or vice versa?

a real woman wrote:

Are you seriously calling 1:15 "soft"? Whoa, any credibility you had just flew out the door.

Read my post more carefully. Note, in particular, where the asterisk is placed in the text. I was referring to the half-marathon alternative to the men's marathon qualifying standard, not to the women's half-marathon alternative standard, and the comment was in the context of setting qualifying standards that allow legitimate contenders who have not recorded fast qualifying marathon times into the trials.

But, since you raised the issue, a woman who cannot run a 1:15 half-marathon is extremely unlikely to be a legitimate contender for the U.S. Olympic team in the marathon. If the half-marathon alternative standard was established to permit legitimate contenders to get into the trials without having to record a solid marathon time, then 1:15 is a rather soft standard.

GTF wrote:

It was meant as a generalization that is essentially true.

Your statement was "Face it, all 2:14+ men and all 2:32+ women are out of contention for a team spot . . . ." That is not "essentially true." Rather, it is demonstrably false. Conover and Ritz are not the only counterexamples. I can think of many other legitimate contenders who have come into the trials with relatively slow qualifying times. (Trent Briney in 2004 is one example that is well-known to people on this board, but there have been a number of others.) The marathon, in this respect, is quite different from other events in track and field, in large part because of the relative infrequency of competition and the effects of variations in course and weather conditions. So a relatively accommodative standard is appropriate to "capture" the legitimate contenders for the marathon team, but the current standard for the women goes far beyond that.

Technically, certainly, but Ritzenhein's 2:14:01 was roundly considered a significantly subpar performance. Conover's qualifier seemingly was in that category, as well. If he had needed to get a 2:14 to be there, then he likely would have. For individuals such as him and Ritzenhein, the low standard that allowed them in did not require either to step up and put forth a performance more requisite to their ability. As with your point regarding the side-effect of setting a qualification standard to a certain level, Conover, Ritzenhein, Briney, Clark, Spangler, et alia, are further proof of the truth that it pushes a certain segment of the sport to perform up to that standard. I was and still am just fine with the US marathon team that went to Sydney, Clark and DeHaven were the only two who really proved themselves worthy. Of course there are variations, but they are allowed well over a year to get it for 2012 and they are also allowed to qualify via the half-marathon and 10,000m. Again, the basic intent is to "capture" a certain likely field size, not to allow possible contenders to get in with a performance that is well within their capability.

GTF wrote:

Technically, certainly, but Ritzenhein's 2:14:01 was roundly considered a significantly subpar performance. Conover's qualifier seemingly was in that category, as well. If he had needed to get a 2:14 to be there, then he likely would have. For individuals such as him and Ritzenhein, the low standard that allowed them in did not require either to step up and put forth a performance more requisite to their ability. . . . Again, the basic intent is to "capture" a certain likely field size, not to allow possible contenders to get in with a performance that is well within their capability.

Conover's qualifier was not "a significantly subpar performance." It was simply run in bad weather conditions (very strong headwinds at the California International Marathon that year). Even Ritz's qualifer wasn't necessarily "a significantly subpar performance." Rather, it was the result of an aggressive race strategy, which frequently produces significantly slower finish times in the marathon. A relatively accommodating qualifying standard allows a legitimate contender to achieve a qualifying time under a wide range of weather, course, and race circumstances.

As for the "basic intent" of the qualifying times, it is not merely to capture a certain likely field size. It is also to capture legitimate contenders who, for whatever reason, haven't run a particularly fast marathon (or, perhaps, any marathon at all) during the qualifying period. To a large extent, the recent addition of alternative qualifying standards achieved at shorter distances (10,000 meters and, for the 2012 trials, half-marathon) addresses that.

Does anyone know what the difference is between the A standard and the B standard? Do you automatically get in if you have the B? Is there a limit to the size of the field?

To me you are now parsing semantics. Sure, an accommodating qualifying standard allows all that, I just do not believe it is as necessary to do so as you do. When the men's standard for 2012 was announced last year, the rationale of a target field size of 60-80 was also made known. This is not the first time the OT qualifying standard was based roughly on performance lists from recent history.

womanfor2012 wrote:

Does anyone know what the difference is between the A standard and the B standard? Do you automatically get in if you have the B? Is there a limit to the size of the field?

Last year for the men, the difference between the A and B standard was just the perks. Everyone got in with both standards, but "B" people had to pay their whole way and got no support. "A" people got a free trip and all the freebies to go with it.

It's difficult for me to think of the underlying motive for all of those men out there who are complaining about how "exceptionally soft" the women's standards are, so I'll forget about motive and point out some flaws in logic and statistics instead.

If setting the B standard at 2:22 for the men and 2:47 for the women (as it stood for 2008) produced roughly the same amount of qualifiers in each race, then the 2:22 must have been as "soft" for the men as the 2:47 was "soft" for the women. Given that there are currently about the same numbers of men and women running marathons in this country, then having the same number of each gender qualify for their respective Trials represents the same percentage of runners qualifying.

Now it is the case that in 2012 there will be far fewer men in their Trials than women in our Trials, due to the decision by the men to go to a single standard of 2:19. I guess this makes you haters mad, for some reason. Why? Obviously the men's and women's committees have different objectives for their races. And why not? Men have been running competitive marathons since the beginning of the modern Olympic Games; women have been running competitive marathons in the Olympics since 1984. It makes sense for the women's race to be more inclusive until such a time that we have more runners who are capable of running within x minutes of the winner, or the American record, or the world record, or whatever standard you are using for comparison.

One final point: Avocado's Number was putting forth an angry, if somewhat logical, argument until he stated that a faster standard would make for faster times. This is arguable, but then he said that setting the standard at 2:40 would not only produce more sub-2:40 times, but also more sub-2:30 times. What? This is the opposite of what he was arguing prior to this statement. If that's the case, and women will actually run as fast as they are capable of running regardless of how fast they "have to" run in order to make the Trials, then whatever the B standard is set at will have no bearing on how fast the top women runners will run, and little bearing on how fast the "also-rans" will run.

A sub 2:19 marathoner for men has a shot to qualify for the Olympics (probably a small shot, but nevertheless a shot). A 2:46 marathoner for women has absolutely no shot in making the Olympic A standard or finishing in the top 10! The women's standard fills up the race for show, but the men's standard brings in only the people who actually have a shot at the Olympics.

The woman who finished FIFTH in the 2008 Trials qualified with a 2:46. She ran this at the super-hot 2007 Chicago Marathon, and was obviously prepared to run faster but ran into difficult conditions. Many others (several in the top 10-15) qualified either at that Chicago race or at the 2007 Boston race that was almost canceled because of the storm, so they had times that were slower than the A standard. Yes, these women could have entered another marathon and run fast enough to meet a tougher standard, but that additional effort might have compromised their Trials races. Women who failed to run the A standard can and do place very high in the Olympic Trials. Just sayin'.