You’re forgetting everything that goes into getting to the starting line. The more runners there are, the more traffic there is getting to the start line, the more difficult it is for the top contenders to find a place to peacefully warm up and get mentally prepared, and just more hassle overall. Conner Mantz should not have to wait behind a 2:17 guy to use a porta potty before the Olympic Trials Marathon.
Why should Conner Mantz have to race at all? If the point is selecting the best team, just pick it by committee and be done with it. Waiting to use a porta-potty is nothing compared with having to train for an entire race when he's clearly the best marathoner in the country.
For better or for worse, in the US, that is not how we pick our teams.
Why should Conner Mantz have to race at all? If the point is selecting the best team, just pick it by committee and be done with it. Waiting to use a porta-potty is nothing compared with having to train for an entire race when he's clearly the best marathoner in the country.
For better or for worse, in the US, that is not how we pick our teams.
For what it's worth. I think Mantz, like Young, would much rather wait for a 2:17 guy who needs to use the porta potty if it meant that more people could participate.
You have to remember, some of their best friends and training partners will be directly affected by this change, they would much rather see their friends reach their dreams than have the race start 45 seconds earlier.
Its disappointing they are intentionally shrinking the fields this much - first last cycle with the massive cut for women, and now with a further cut for men. The Marathon OTQ remains pretty much only big achievable goal for a serious post-collegiate runner in the US, and the more you kill that dream you really hurt the entire amateur running scene. I'll never OTQ myself but have always been motivated by some of the guys/gals in my area who have. What happens when they give up?
As always, it mostly goes back to how much of a financial basketcase USATF is. What a mess
Lols if the guys who can't easily hit 2:16 at Houston or CIM are going to stomp their feet and quit because of this then great. The sport will suffer none.
since when is the usatf even mildly interested in athlete's needs?
And yet it isn't the women who have demonstrable difficulty hitting the OG standard, whether time or ranking. It's the men. Even though the OT standards are aimed to field sizes, the men need a tougher standard.
Why does participation need to be encouraged at the Olympic Trials? We already have mass participation marathons.
The Olympic Trials should be about selecting the team for the Olympics. It shouldn’t be a mass participation event. Having 200 people per sex is way too much. I’d cap it at the top 100 men and top 100 women. Even that’s being generous.
We need to get rid of the entitlement surrounding entry into the Olympic Trials. The 200th best quarterback in the country doesn’t get to try out for the NFL. The 200th best marathoner shouldn’t get to try out for the Olympics.
Again, I think the core of your argument is that the trial format (as it stands) doesn’t accomplish its goal very well. I would maybe agree with you.
But a 2:16 standard doesn’t really make it better, does it? Does a 2:15:59 guy have a shot at top three? If the answer is no, then 2:16 is just as pointless as 2:18.
What I am saying is that the entire event already exists to encourage people on the brink to keep going. It builds a healthy population of sub elite runners, which is good for USA distance running. Maybe one of those guys does develop and make things interesting the next cycle. Or maybe they quit because the gap between qualifying for Boston and an OTQ is an enormous empty void.
Maybe that enormous gap is really where my qualm lies. If there were something to fill it, I think the entire sport would benefit.
Or maybe I’m a salty 2:20 guy who sees the window closing in front of him. Either way, I can tell you there are many who feel the same way I do. I don’t see this decision helping to grow the sport from the middle out, which is what I think is the way to do it. Anyway
Yes, you are a salty guy who sees the window closing in front of him. It's life brother, full of surprises every second, not necessarily fair. You should get used to it by now.
Yes, you are a salty guy who sees the window closing in front of him. It's life brother, full of surprises every second, not necessarily fair. You should get used to it by now.
I get that being anonymous, negative, and toxic is not necessarily abnormal for this website. But I think you should consider for a second how deeply weird it is to spend your spare time this way brother
Again, I think the core of your argument is that the trial format (as it stands) doesn’t accomplish its goal very well. I would maybe agree with you.
But a 2:16 standard doesn’t really make it better, does it? Does a 2:15:59 guy have a shot at top three? If the answer is no, then 2:16 is just as pointless as 2:18.
What I am saying is that the entire event already exists to encourage people on the brink to keep going. It builds a healthy population of sub elite runners, which is good for USA distance running. Maybe one of those guys does develop and make things interesting the next cycle. Or maybe they quit because the gap between qualifying for Boston and an OTQ is an enormous empty void.
Maybe that enormous gap is really where my qualm lies. If there were something to fill it, I think the entire sport would benefit.
Or maybe I’m a salty 2:20 guy who sees the window closing in front of him. Either way, I can tell you there are many who feel the same way I do. I don’t see this decision helping to grow the sport from the middle out, which is what I think is the way to do it. Anyway
Yes, you are a salty guy who sees the window closing in front of him. It's life brother, full of surprises every second, not necessarily fair. You should get used to it by now.
You sound like someone who wasn't able to hit the last standard no matter what you did and now you want everyone to be as miserable as you. Reflect on that a bit.
Its disappointing they are intentionally shrinking the fields this much - first last cycle with the massive cut for women, and now with a further cut for men. The Marathon OTQ remains pretty much only big achievable goal for a serious post-collegiate runner in the US, and the more you kill that dream you really hurt the entire amateur running scene. I'll never OTQ myself but have always been motivated by some of the guys/gals in my area who have. What happens when they give up?
As always, it mostly goes back to how much of a financial basketcase USATF is. What a mess
Just to be clear, you don't think the field size of nearly 500 women in 2020 was too big? The committee has discussed this extensively. They want it closer to 200 which is still incredibly generous given most athletics events allow 20 something entrants most. 10 times the typical event seems extremely generous.
Just to be clear, you don't think the field size of nearly 500 women in 2020 was too big? The committee has discussed this extensively. They want it closer to 200 which is still incredibly generous given most athletics events allow 20 something entrants most. 10 times the typical event seems extremely generous.
I can’t speak for them, but my personal thought is that 2:16 won’t get 200 athletes
I'm a British 2.24 marathoner, who believes that I could do 2:19 marathon with a perfect block/perfect day.
I'm jealous of the OTQ and if I were American, that would be my North Star goal. With these times though, I'd feel deflated, it's too much of a jump. So I agree with people who think they're too harsh. Lots of field don't have a chance in hell at Olympics but I don't think that's all that matters.
Id be in the camp of extending it out to 500+ athletes. It being like 4 yearly version of London Marathon Biritsh Championship, not just Olympic qualification but something for sub elites, weekend warriors and master dad's of 3 to aspire too.
On a practical level, introduce a C standard. For men that would be roughly 2:16-2:20 and women 2:37-2:44 say. C standard has to pay race entry/contribution.
Good luck to those who feel they have more than 0.5% of a 2:16. Probably brings a bit of excitement having such a rigid goal to aim at.
You should know that an XC race is very different than the Olympic Trials in importance. Our best runners should not be inconvenienced by sub-elites when they are trying to make an Olympic team.
No offense, but the Olympic Trials aren’t meant for mediocre runners like you and me. They aren’t meant for 2:18 guys either. They are meant for determining who gets to go to the Olympics. Only runners who have a chance of qualifying for the Olympics should be on that starting line.
Any guy who can’t run 2:16 needs to find motivation to run from something else. I did.
If it were only that we could have only twenty people in each race. What a horrible event that would be. The 2020 Olympic Trials Marathon was the best event USA running has hosted for a long time, because it had huge fields caused by miscalculated standards in the era of super shoes. Families came out. An entire city was transformed by thousands of runners, families, and running fans. It was a festival for USA running. Full hotels everywhere. A sixty, eighty, or one hundred person field doesn't do that. It should be two hundred each at least, if not three hundred each, or four hundred each, like an NCAA cross country championship. What large fields mean is that you're likely to know someone from your local area in the race, and you have a reason to tune in and feel a part of it. That is invaluable for running as a whole, and honestly good for the Olympic movement and patriotism.
I think 500 was maybe slightly too many, but the main problem in 2020 was there were so many more women than men (~300?) 400 and 400 would be fine. The trials were great that year.
As someone who tried to qualify at Vermont City back in the day, the course isn't perfectly flat. It had prize money, that's probably why I ran there, but it makes more logical sense if your goal is the Trials to go to Chicago or Houston or a really flat course. Not sure what other options I had in the spring. But I think I figured I could take a crack at Chicago in the fall.
My (much faster) friend Ryan just won the race this year - he’s run ~2:18 there twice but something like 2:15 elsewhere, though it’s obviously not 1:1.
I’m pretty sure I placed a good bit further back at Grandma’s running a similar time to Chicago; that’s definitely become the preeminent spring/summer race. But Duluth is tricky! Even if you have money to spend, lodging fills up fast and it’s not super easy to get to. I would recommend it in spite of that, though.
I’ll also make note of Indy Monumental and Detroit, which both tend to attract at least “OTQ-level” guys (whether many will go under 2:16, I can’t say).
No way you can go from 5:23's to 5:11's You can hardly keep up with USA women so why wast your time. Better ROI of your time getting a MBA....ECT
No way you can go from 5:23's to 5:11's You can hardly keep up with USA women so why wast your time. Better ROI of your time getting a MBA....ECT
Everyone at the elite starts I’ve met has been supportive and kind. This is how you know the people who spend their spare time being terrible people online and think it’s okay simply because it’s anonymous are slow. Grow up dude
Why should Conner Mantz have to race at all? If the point is selecting the best team, just pick it by committee and be done with it. Waiting to use a porta-potty is nothing compared with having to train for an entire race when he's clearly the best marathoner in the country.
For better or for worse, in the US, that is not how we pick our teams.
It there wasn’t an open race, then the supposedly neutral and unbiased board would be selecting not mantz based on merit, but whoever a sponsors insists needs to be on the team, and the criteria to qualify would be adjusted as befits their flagship athlete, and runners and the public would be powerless.
an open race is imperfect, but it’s better than any alternative criteria.
For better or for worse, in the US, that is not how we pick our teams.
It there wasn’t an open race, then the supposedly neutral and unbiased board would be selecting not mantz based on merit, but whoever a sponsors insists needs to be on the team, and the criteria to qualify would be adjusted as befits their flagship athlete, and runners and the public would be powerless.
an open race is imperfect, but it’s better than any alternative criteria.
If no open race then rampant corruption is a wild leap.
Im a big proponent of the way the US does things, btw. The trials are great. The major downside is that someone like Mantz gets the flu the week of, and our best marathoner doesn’t make the team. That would be awful. Very much in the realm of possibility too! I think some combination of scoring from previous races and the trials would be better than the current system, but would be difficult to implement fairly.
Seems like the obvious thing to do would be to relax the standard but cap the field at the target size. 2:18 to be considered, but 200 fastest qualifiers is the cut off. Like Boston does it.
So 15 minutes off the WR vs 27 off the WR. How fair!
That's ridiculous. What about gender equity?
This is equity, since they're setting times to target the same/similar field sizes.
What you're angry about is a lack of "equality," i.e., treating the sexes exactly the same by time standard/percent (though you could argue that by targeting the same size fields, that's the equality). That's the wrong approach given differences between men and women's running.
This post was edited 3 minutes after it was posted.