As others have noted, there is no expectation that many athletes will actually achieve these marks.
By ensuring that ranking is the more likely method of qualification, it forces the athletes to compete in more of the Diamond League and World Challenge meetings. It’s done to benefit those meetings and save them on costs by making more athletes reliant on them as the path to qualification.
Will Sydney McLaughlin actually go to any diamond leagues or will she just retire?
As others have noted, there is no expectation that many athletes will actually achieve these marks.
By ensuring that ranking is the more likely method of qualification, it forces the athletes to compete in more of the Diamond League and World Challenge meetings. It’s done to benefit those meetings and save them on costs by making more athletes reliant on them as the path to qualification.
Will Sydney McLaughlin actually go to any diamond leagues or will she just retire?
She'll run the standard wherever she wants and defend her title.
If they are going to use world rankings, then they should just not limit the numbers from each country. Kenya has 27 men in the top 65. They should be able to send them all.
There won't be much of a problem for a top athlete but it's people not quite at the top but hoping to get there who'll have the problem.
Let's say you've got a best 10,000 of 27:50 or so and you're in the US .
Your scenario isn't a realistic one.
The standard is 27:00. How many times in history has an American man had a 27:50 PR and then ran sub 27 in their very next race?
I was just grabbing a number. Give the guy a 27:30 best. But what's gone is the ability to set up an event like those Stanford 10,000s and get your time.
This mostly hurts the injury prone who are not the best of the best but would have met previous Olympic standards from one or two performances.
I don't know. Maybe it will cut down on dopers qualifying because they have to perform consistently over multiple races, and they will be drug tested more. Only the best dopers-combo-with-talent can make the standards (along with the best not doping).
If they are going to use world rankings, then they should just not limit the numbers from each country. Kenya has 27 men in the top 65. They should be able to send them all.
What do you think TV ratings would be for an Olympic 10,000 where 23 of 24 competitors are from East Africa?
Let's crack down on doping by ensuring everyone who qualifies is on the juice.
Exactly. For 2020 the standards were ridiculously hard and everyone thought the fields would be filled by the next best marks. Well guess what, that was not required as everybody simply ran faster to meet the standards, including Americans and Europeans in the distances. I guess they all started believing they could run that fast, and at the perfect time.
The IOC and World Athletics want the best of the best at the Olympics. No more Eddie the Eagle, no oiled up Tonga guy, and no more aristocratic hobby joggers getting entry because Daddy is the Minister of Sport.
So actually this won't impact that at all. Because WA/IOC still have the "developing nation" avenue open which allows some select countries to send unqualified athletes for participation purposes. Now it used to be 1 male and 1 female for a track event - not sure if that has been dialed back to just one athlete in general - but this is why you will see some let's say "less than stellar" results particularly in those 100m "qualifying" rounds which thankfully they stopped making necessary for the main contenders who would have to waste energy coming out for a morning session to run a pointless 10.3.
Honestly I don't mind this too much because I like that fields get ultimately filled based on world rankings. It now rewards consistent athletes that may not be lucky enough to find themselves in big races that drag them to just one fast time a season and is not really indicative of their level.
If the Marathon Trials were tomorrow WE WOULD SEND 3 MEN.
1. We currently have 3 men ranked in the top 65. Rupp, Mantz, Kibet
2. We could replace any of those men with another athlete that has run sub 2:11:30.
3. So all men entering the Trials with a sub 2:11:30 that finish in the top 3 could go to the Olympics. It doesn’t matter where they are ranked.
I don’t mean to scare an American men who plan to run Boston and then the OT but this could be a problem.
Let’s say you run 2:08 at Boston and finish 11th. Then you win the OT in 2:11:40 on a hot day in Orlando. YOU WOULD NOT QUALIFY.
Times at Boston may be used for the OT but not for the OG.
Not sure, but assuming Boston is still a World Marathon Majors race, I believe that if you finish in the top 10, you get ranking points equivalent to a time qualifier. If I recall, several runners who finished outside the Olympic time standards in Chicago in 2019 were designated time qualifiers since they finished in a WMM race in the top 10.
Maybe someone can correct me or clarify what WA's position on this is for this Olympic cycle.
Top 5 finishers from Platinum Level Marathons which includes the World Majors are recognized as being qualified for the Olympic Marathon.
Runners are not able to get the time standard at the BAA Marathon because the course exceeds the allowable drop in elevation. BUT runners may get ranking points.
This mostly hurts the injury prone who are not the best of the best but would have met previous Olympic standards from one or two performances.
I don't know. Maybe it will cut down on dopers qualifying because they have to perform consistently over multiple races, and they will be drug tested more. Only the best dopers-combo-with-talent can make the standards (along with the best not doping).
You could see someone like Centrowitz in this scenario. Centrowitz is awful with jet lag and generally doesn’t just fly over and perform well straight off the flight. He’s on the back end of his career, however, you could picture a situation in which he’s top three at the American trials but is lacking this standard, in which case he has to earn points. Instead of picking and choosing a competition that will pay him, the 2016 Olympic gold medalist is then having to scrap together points to get back into the championships.
This mostly hurts the injury prone who are not the best of the best but would have met previous Olympic standards from one or two performances.
I don't know. Maybe it will cut down on dopers qualifying because they have to perform consistently over multiple races, and they will be drug tested more. Only the best dopers-combo-with-talent can make the standards (along with the best not doping).
You could see someone like Centrowitz in this scenario. Centrowitz is awful with jet lag and generally doesn’t just fly over and perform well straight off the flight. He’s on the back end of his career, however, you could picture a situation in which he’s top three at the American trials but is lacking this standard, in which case he has to earn points. Instead of picking and choosing a competition that will pay him, the 2016 Olympic gold medalist is then having to scrap together points to get back into the championships.
There's basically no year in his career (COVID weirdness excluded) where Centro wouldn't have had the standard or been high enough in the rankings to have to chase and scrap together points to get an entry.
This keeps coming up, but here it is again. The emphasis is now on WORLD RANKING. World Athletics doesn't want to post a time standard and take in anyone and their dog who hits it. So they made the time standards really hard, such that a lot of the field will be pulled in through the world rankings. And for the most part if you are someone who can hit the world standard, you more than likely have the world standard.
So really people should just stop looking at the world/olympic standards. The world ranking is generally how you qualify now. The world athletics site has a nice filter where you limit to 'top 3 per country' so you can see what type of world ranking score is good enough to qualify. Then you filter by country rankings, and anyone who has a ranking score higher than what you saw as 'the last guy in' at the world level can technically qualify.
Here is an example, let's say they will accept 24 athletes for the 10,000m on the track. Limiting to 3 per country, Jack Rayner of Australia is the 24th highest ranking score athlete with 1186 points. For reference Sean McGorty is the USA #3 guy at 1207 points. Right now USA only has 3 guys above the 1186 points that is the 24th spot right now, Grant Fisher, Joe Klecker, and Sean McGorty. Those three would go to the olympics right now since we have exactly three, even though only one of them has the 'standard' of sub 27. The standard doesn't really matter, it's about the world rankings now. Let's say Mantz runs a little better and moves up from a 1177 score to a 1190. Now USA has 4 guys who have a ranking score high enough to be in the top 24 when limiting to 3 per country. Now you have a race amongst those 4 guys at the US championships to pick the three guys we send. And it is possible that there is a 5th guy, who is right on the outside of being ranked high enough and if he could win and get the bonus points for winning USAs and have a fast 'enough' time such that it improves his ranking score above that 1186 then that person could now go.
So the standards don't really matter, it's largely about world ranking now. And bonus points are a large part of the ranking, so if you can run fast and WIN a big race, you're going to be rewarded with a good ranking.
Sure that is all true. It may only matter in the US, but it makes the trials more confusing.
Who knows, maybe it will help get people to race more often. But you have to get in to those races to have a chance to get points. Part of the purity of running, is that if you hit the time nobody can argue it. There is no subjectivity (or confusing point system).
Very few countries have “trials” which mean anything
Not true. Smaller countries will still be able to enter lousy athletes.
IOC still wants smaller countries to be represented so there will still be a few slow "how in the world did they get in" athletes from countries we've never heard of.
If the idea is to push runners to the world rankings, did they consider that this might be a good or bad idea depending on the distance for the race? Like, most of the people ranked for the marathon only have two races listed while the top steepler (for example) has five. You can recover pretty quickly from a Steeplechase and run another if something goes wrong, but that's not really practical for the marathon. So the concept of a "world ranking" for an event that almost no one does more than twice a year just doesn't make as much sense to me. Or am I off base here?