But your asking for exactly special treatment.
He would be nearly 2 miles behind the winner,there's no point him bring there anyway.
Your fat country is too lazy to get men under the standard then tough,go home and cry.
Jonathan Gault and Rojo's story is now up on the matter. JG talked to coach Scott Simmons and he's not giving up hope:
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911
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Found an old article from when Jordan switched allegiance to Malta.
Most notably, Malta rarely qualifies a single athlete to any major championships. This grants them access to a wild card slot at their discretion. Gusman emphasises that he will never opt to take this option, instead preferring to qualify by right only.
Looks like he changed his mind on qualifying the right way!
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Have an elimination marathon. Start with 100 marathoners and eliminate the last place marathon each mile through mile 26. Then you will be guaranteed no more than 74 finishers and it will be more interesting to watch for the general public 😉
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c7runner7 wrote:
Uruguay has a long jumper ranked 21st (32 get in). Can some explain universality? We now have 2 countries taking up universality spots in Men’s Marathon that have Male athletes likely to qualify in Track & Field in other events.
Universality is for countries that don't have anyone who has hit the qualification standard in any event. Rankings don't count, only hitting the standard. Neither of the athletes you mention has hit the standard, so their countries are eligible for a universality place.
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there was I wrote:
c7runner7 wrote:
Uruguay has a long jumper ranked 21st (32 get in). Can some explain universality? We now have 2 countries taking up universality spots in Men’s Marathon that have Male athletes likely to qualify in Track & Field in other events.
Universality is for countries that don't have anyone who has hit the qualification standard in any event. Rankings don't count, only hitting the standard. Neither of the athletes you mention has hit the standard, so their countries are eligible for a universality place.
Qualification: an athlete can qualify in two ways: 1) time, 2) ranking
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usual crying yanks. wrote:
But your asking for exactly special treatment.
He would be nearly 2 miles behind the winner,there's no point him bring there anyway.
Your fat country is too lazy to get men under the standard then tough,go home and cry.
All these comments about the back of the field are way off the mark.
Everyone who has run under 2:10 at the Olympics has medaled. Ever.
The Olympic standard of 2:08:10 is faster than the gold medal time has been in every Olympics in history except 2008 and 2012.
People with PRs of 2:07-2:08 or slower contend to win medals every Olympics. The standard does not make sense from a competition standpoint.
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charlesyo1 wrote:
High hopes wrote:
exactly. Good on Phil, so was clearly ecstatic when he crossed the line with a huge PR and the implications from it. But I don't believe Phil is some crazy generational talent and that the Americans have nothing like him. I don't want to demean Phil at all, I'm incredibly happy for him, but I also think that Albertson or Panning could have possibly grabbed taht train and ridden it for as long as possible. But we'll never know, will we?
The $ to go is... miniscule. If this is your career, how many of us has invested $1500 in our home office? Or additional training? Or a new degree? Not even a question about it, totally worth it. But. I get it, if NYC offers you $20K to run NYC and Valencia won't offer you anything but a bib, its hard to pass up that $20K. Maybe impossible to pass up economically.
If the oly standard is going to go to 2:06 on the next cycle (and there is no f'ing reason for it to go that low IOC, not a single one), then sponsors are going to need to radically rethink their contracts for their sponsored runners or get used to them showing up in kit and doing press at the WMM without even the question of the olympics.
Just like World XC, the top end Kenya and Ethiopian talent is deforming the curve of the marathon so far that the rest of the world isn't exactly giving up but... yawning and moving to other sports. And when that happens, the sponsors will give up and move on. The IOC needs to think about this path, because that's what they're on.
It isn’t just money. How long does it take you to recover from a 12 hour plane ride across a half dozen time zones. Can it be done? Of course. but it isn’t as easy as flying to Chicago. I will not pretend to understand the living situation of these 2:10 guys but I expect most of them are in situations where expenses of like 3-4k are meaningful. And can you imagine doing all that and getting bad weather….
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Please read wrote:
there was I wrote:
Universality is for countries that don't have anyone who has hit the qualification standard in any event. Rankings don't count, only hitting the standard. Neither of the athletes you mention has hit the standard, so their countries are eligible for a universality place.
Qualification: an athlete can qualify in two ways: 1) time, 2) ranking
countries that sent fewer than an average of eight athletes in individual sports to the previous two Olympics are given a small number of spots in several sports, even if the athletes haven’t met the sport’s Olympic qualifying criteria. These are universality runners. In track and field, World Athletics allocates those spots in the 100 meters, 800 meters, and marathon.
According to World Athletics’ timeline, the final marathon fields will be published on May 12. Although the marathon fields for the 2021 Olympics were supposed to be capped at 80, 110 men and 103 women were granted a spot in the race.
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Sitznotover wrote:
forgot username wrote:
Exactly true - Americans run the Boston/NY double and don't go for a fast time except for at Chicago. Our C level runners will chase a fake times at Grandmas or CIM, with a scant few at Houston. Korir, to his credit went to Paris and Rotterdam. And a few others like Biya went to Europe. But no America goes to a plethora of fast races in Europe or Asia. So, you reap what you sow.
Also, our Trials in February prevent alot of the fast marathon courses. Even if Korir had forgone the Trials to run 2:07 (which he debut with) he would not get that quota spot earned by time. It would have been denied at this late date to ever had finished 3rd
Erm, maybe. But looking at the available fast marathons since November 2022 when the qualifying period opened: that's Valencia (x2), Seville, Chicago, London (x2), Berlin. Sesemann went to London 2023 (ran 2:10), Valencia 2023 (ran 2:08.50), then came back three months later to go to Seville this year (got the standard, 2:08.04). How many top Americans were in those races? I get the payday argument for Boston and New York, but also, won't your fees increase if you're an Olympian?
I think what has happened here is a classic collective action problem. Too many athletes were waiting and hoping others would do the hard work and unlock the Olympic places while they went and took the payday. I think if WA had made it clear that only athletes that ran the OQT themselves could qualify, you'd have seen more Americans hit the standard. I just refuse to believe that US male marathoners are so poor compared to the rest of the world. The fact that 71 athletes hit the standard after limiting to three per country is proof that the standard is not too hard.
The other possibility is that US marathon training is not up to standard and that shouldn't be overlooked.
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1. Above all I feel bad for Korir, he ran a great race at the trials and would be a deserving Olympian.
2. I'm not mad at the universality athletes— a marathon should be able to accommodate a bunch of 2:15-2:20 guys no problem, and I think it's good for the sport and the Olympics to have a bunch of smaller countries participate.
3. The incentives for US marathoners are all at odds with each other. A competent USATF would try to align these incentives (lobbying WA to emphasize racing, holding the trials on the fastest course possible, big cash bonuses for unlocking standard spots...). We do not have competent USATF leadership.
4. It's silly for the universality spots to bump athletes who've qualified by rankings. The marathon can accommodate 95 runners.
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xzcvxcvz wrote:
We need to rethink how we do this if even our Kenyan army athletes, who get citizenship through a loophole, being willing to serve and run, can't make the time qualifiers, despite our having roughly the 3rd or 4th best distance runners at 1500/5000/10000m of any country in the world. Start by having a marathon or at least a half marathon in D1.
Every year many of the top 10k DI athletes could really crush a good marathon time as a 22-23 year old. Give them 4 more years after that to focus soley on the marathon, no reason we can't have more meet the A- standard.
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Insightful wrote:
A quack wrote:
I agree with everyone that has said the bigger issue is we don't have three American men that can run under 2:08:10. That should really not be a high bar nowadays. I'm pretty sure Rojo has ranted before that the US should just be allowed 3 entries (correct me if I'm wrong), to me that seems wrong if we can't even hit that standard. Why should we get 3 free entries over any other country? Realistically, what place do we think Leonard Korir would have placed at the olympics? Not necessarily arguing for the universality athletes here but would he have had any more effect on the race than them?
Heartbreaking for Lenny given his 2020 trials but this just reaffirms to me that the US men need to step it up.
All of this talk about the US men should run under the 2:08:10 or they can't complain is really getting ridiculous. Think about it, the window was open for about a year and a half. At the elite/pro level, marathoners can really only race an all out marathon twice a year. If you were hoping to compete in the olympics for the US marathon team, you had to race the trials in February which ended up being a hot day. That takes out 1 of the possible 3 attempts you had. Then it comes down to the Spring last year and the Fall. If you raced our only domestic world major last Spring (Boston), you were greeted with a downpour and a headwind (even the world record holder was over a minute off of the stadard that day). That leaves the fall, well if you chose NYC good luck running fast there (only top 3 ran the standard last year with 4th place (Abdi Nageeye, 2:04:45 PR) being over 2 minuites off). So basically, if you stay domestic and you are a pro (whom typically race the world major marathons), it was Chicago or bust and that does happen to be where our 2 did run the standard. The point is, it is not track, these guys do not have nearly the number of attempts and the time is extremely dependent on the course and weather.
It seems that a thing called "airplane" exists: it allows you to go literally everywhere in the world to race whatever marathon you want whenever you want...
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The Olympic marathon traditionally had 120 to 150 athletes. In that context the universality spots make sense. with a field capped at 80, this is just insane. This sport is just so dumb.
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pa4 wrote:
Found an old article from when Jordan switched allegiance to Malta.
Most notably, Malta rarely qualifies a single athlete to any major championships. This grants them access to a wild card slot at their discretion. Gusman emphasises that he will never opt to take this option, instead preferring to qualify by right only.
Looks like he changed his mind on qualifying the right way!
WEll to be fair, they have decreased the standard by 11 minutes from Rio...3 minutes 25 from Toyko.
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osm wrote:
If the field is going to be artificially capped at a certain size, It is completely absurd for non-qualified runners to displace anyone. I have no problem with the universality program, but it needs to be in addition to the 80. I certainly don't think the US should be automatically entitled to three spots, but leaving Korir home for someone who's gonna run 2:30 is a joke.
The real joke is that a couple of dudes have times that are comparable to Korir's best time in the qualification window...so yeah a dozen of 2:12 marathoners are running taking the place of a dozen 2:10 marathoners...basically nobody other than that dozen people and their families and friends should really care, since this spots (even if awarded to a dozen Korirs) were still in place to fight avoiding being DFL.
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Hal1983 wrote:
1. Above all I feel bad for Korir, he ran a great race at the trials and would be a deserving Olympian.
2. I'm not mad at the universality athletes— a marathon should be able to accommodate a bunch of 2:15-2:20 guys no problem, and I think it's good for the sport and the Olympics to have a bunch of smaller countries participate.
3. The incentives for US marathoners are all at odds with each other. A competent USATF would try to align these incentives (lobbying WA to emphasize racing, holding the trials on the fastest course possible, big cash bonuses for unlocking standard spots...). We do not have competent USATF leadership.
4. It's silly for the universality spots to bump athletes who've qualified by rankings. The marathon can accommodate 95 runners.
I don't think you can put this on USATF. The fast races exist. Valencia, London, and Seville all had pacers for the OQT. Any American pro could get into those races, perhaps on their own coin, but they could get a bib. Other countries did it. Belgium.have three qualified athletes. Ok, Abdi is a top talent, but Koen Naert? The guy has PBs of 13:32, 28:32, and 61:34 but managed to run 2:06. Michael Somers has PBs of 13:29, 27:53 and 62:23 but managed to hit the standard. The NCAA churns out guys with better pedigrees than that. The question really needs to be is it failing to get into fast races that is inhibiting US male marathoners, or is it their training as well? Because it's clear that it's not a lack of talent.
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Ivet Lalova (BUL) is in the Athletes commision
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As a Brit, all I have to say is "ha-ha-ha-ha"!
If all you can produce are slow marathon runners from the population the size of the US, then don't go crying when the elites get together and have a race that doesn't include you because you're not quick enough.
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But more seriously; why limit the field to 80. It's hardly going to result in a stampede if they allow univesality places on top of auto-qualifies / world rankings etc?
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This board is ridiculous.
On May 12th they will announce the Olympic Marathon field.
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