Should the US Olympic Marathon Trials field size be reduced? Or Increased in size to the top 1000 athletes?

Why not? I kind of like the idea for a few reasons:

500 runners looks better on TV

Great marketing and story telling opportunities at both the national and local level. Who doesn't love a story about a local school teacher, high school coach, accountant, homemaker, or factory worker getting invited to the Trials? This is blue collar running and more motivational than a few dozen or so "elites" who consider twice daily runs and copious napping to be personality traits.

This would motivate some collegians and recent grads to try the marathon earlier - we might actually find some talent this way. Most US marathon elites are 30 somethings long past their prime and milking the event for a few more paychecks. We need more 23-25 year olds in their best speed years moving up rather than wasting time running 27:30 - 28:00 (M) and 31:30-32:00 (W) 10K clockings that are a minute or more behind the world's best.

USATF would actually be helping to expand grassroots running by giving local heroes some notice. As a teenager, my first running heroes were the fast local guys, not the Africans or Euros.

I think a similar setup to the Olympic standards makes sense.

Remake the rankings to include all the same races that used to work. Require two times, one marathon but the other can be a half. Invite the top X athletes. I'm not that concerned if it is 300 or 500.

Currently, under the WA rankings, here are the last couple men ranked:

297 John Binzak 2:26/2:27

298 Chip Ohara 2:21/2:32

299 Caleb Emberton 2:26/1:08

300 Justin Taylor 2:18/2:35

For the women:

297 Jonah Weeks 2:46/2:48

298 Erin Menefee 2:43/2:51

299 Savannah Berry 2:44/2:50

300 Chelsea Barr 2:46/2:48

For whatever reason, WA has deeper women rankings for the US, so other cutoff points:

400 Krystallanne Curwood 1:18/2:52

500 Carolyn Yang 2:56/2:56

I'd assume adding in more US race results and having a window without COVID would knock a decent chunk off those times, but that gives a decent ballpark.

Having a set number would definitely make planning logistics easier, and that is a factor that the runners tend to ignore. Going by rank instead of a time cutoff would lead to some gamemanship in race selection, but I am ok with that.

Precious Roy wrote:

If you want to make it more exciting, have the trials as part of a big marathon. If you meet the time standard, you get a guaranteed elite entry and elite athlete support. After that, entries are given based on marathon time until the race is full (next fastest runners get an entry). If there aren't enough people wanting to participate in the trials to fill out the full race field, the race can open the remaining entries to the general public.

I knew guys with no chance of making the team that trained hard to get the QT. Part of the value to them was to be able to say they ran in the Oylmpic Trials, but under your plan, anyone near the starting line wearing shorts and running shoes will be able to make the same claim.

In the actual race, only about 10-20 guys are capable of making the team on a good day and it doesn't matter if the race has 50 runners or a thousand. If you're watching on TV you'll will be only watching the front pack anyway.

Auto qualify who ever has run the fastest marathon in the preceding 2 years. Dumb to make them run another marathon and even dumber that they may have the flu that day or they twisted their ankle during their warmup. I am fine with then having 500 compete for 2 spots but have a conversion time from 5k-10k-10m-1/2. Gees, if there are 500 spots, why would you not want to allow a recent grad who has run 13:30 for 5k or 28:20 for 10k? Better that person than a random 28 year old who has a PR of 2:22. And lastly, they need to implement a time standard at several checkpoints so that we don't have injured people show up to walk it.

Still Like the Celtics better wrote:

rojo wrote:

I don't like their idea of getting rid of half marathon qualifiers. Why in the heck should someone like Molly Seidel be forced to run a 2:43 just to get in. Her making the team in her first marathon worked well from the PR front anyways.

How about Rupp in 2016? He qualified with a half-marathon time and went on to win the trials in his first ever marathon, later winning bronze in Rio. Hardly suggests that allowing half-marathon qualifiers in the race is a bad strategy for selecting the team.

They should keep the half (heck even. the 10k) but it should be a hard standard. Make it like a 62/63 min. time (or sub 28:00 10k). Guy who if they are marathoners they would have legit chances of making the team.

I think 500 would be a much better goal than 1000. But not having a time standard makes it rough for planning on the athletes part if you don't know if your in the race till shortly before hand.

At a high level the woman's time was just 2 mins too slow because of the shoes. Lower we will be. back to about a 200/200 field size.

Or lets go japanese style with 2:12/2:25:)

If you're in the top 500 in the most popular participation sport in the country, you're really, really good.

There are 832 full scholarship NCAA basketball players in the tournament.

There are 780 active MLB roster spots at any given time.

There are 713 NHL roster spots.

I say make it 1000 for each side.

Also, stick with a time cutoff-but key it to the times from the last cycle. So whatever the 500th or 1000th, or whatever time was from last cycle, that becomes the qualifying time. That way nobody is getting booted at the last minute, having booked travel and such.

I like the top 1,000 idea.

Use the 900th best time for American marathoners in the previous Olympic year and make that an auto-q for the trials, to make sure that an organizer doesn't get hammered by many more athletes than they budgeted for.

Fill up the last 100 spots with the best of the rest.

That would be a splendid post-collegiate goal and an easy event for the public to understand. The top 1,000 American marathoners duke it out.

Increasing the field size to 500 men and women just waters down the field and is just going to lead to Peter Bromka crying that the field should be increased to 1000 men and women for 2028 when he is the 501st ranked man in 2024

Make it sort of elite. 100 and 100, so probably about 2:17 and 2:39.

Hold a US championship on the off years with 500 and 500 or 1000 and 1000 getting their own start, and if it's a mass race everyone else goes off some 30 minutes later.

I agree with this. Keep the time qualifier but make it easier for men.

The sport is dead at pro level. The closer we take it to an amateur competition with interesting people and times we believe the better.

The only people who care are the friends and families of people at the races anyway. Have you ever been to a national champs for any running event not at Hayward? I've seen HS dual meets with more fans. And the TV feed is always useless. Not gonna get fans that way. Grow the sport.

Shoewearer wrote:

Not gonna get fans that way. Grow the sport.

OT trials aren't going to grow the sport in a meaningful way. A couple hundred more college kids training for 2 more years to run a slow marathon isn't going to change much.

The sport actually has been doing well with getting people to run. But few of those people have much interest in competitive running much less pro running. People have been putting out proposals for 40+ years but I am unsure that any have any chance.

If you want to promote the sport then you youd do whatever you can to increase participation and interest at the top level. There should be guaranteed time marks along with descending order lists. They should also invite a certain number of top (and recently graduated) collegiate athletes like anyone who earned AA in 1500 through 10k and XC in the past 4 years. People give up after college because they don't have anything to shoot for. Having 1000 or more people in the race is universally better than 100. There's no downside that can't be easily mitigated.

sunflower wrote:

If you want to promote the sport then you youd do whatever you can to increase participation and interest at the top level. There should be guaranteed time marks along with descending order lists. They should also invite a certain number of top (and recently graduated) collegiate athletes like anyone who earned AA in 1500 through 10k and XC in the past 4 years. People give up after college because they don't have anything to shoot for. Having 1000 or more people in the race is universally better than 100. There's no downside that can't be easily mitigated.

Exactly.

I think this would be a good thing for the sport. I want MORE good runners to stay with the sport, I want MORE opportunities for runners, I want MORE attention for the sport. This gives post collegiate runners something to consider.

Past trials did not expect such an impact with Nike bounce % shoes, and downhill courses like CIM that made the timecstandards too easy. Sadly the shoes wont go away. The races at least should start and finish at same point, since the Olympic marathon will never be point to point downhill. Instead of focus on times, focus on position, favoring big races more

If you make the field too large, it dilutes the achievement. There needs to be a balance of participants bringing attention to the sport, and selectiveness that making athletes proud to have made it.

In my mind a bigger issue that needs to be tackled first is the best effort requirement. There is no point in expanding the size of the field if many of those athletes are not there to race. Atlanta was a blood bath with the hills, and wind, but when you run in the trials you sign a document stating you are coming to compete and you will perform to the best of your ability. There were too many athletes who signed that document and did not fulfil their side of the agreement. They attended to just to be part of the party, and were not there to compete. I personally made the trials, and even though I knew I was not going to make the team, I had a goal of placing as high up as I

could and beating as many guys as possible.

Solving this would also help solve the HM or 10K qualifying concern. If an athlete qualifies with an even that is not the marathon, they need to consider if they are going to actually compete at the trials. For some a half is their upper distance limit. They could be really fast in the half, but have no business doubling that distance. The Marathon is its own event and should be respected as one.

One post after another - about a dozen total, but the thread is young - go on and on about growing the field, more qualifying methods (shorter events), and this and that.......just to attract post-collegians. While that's all well and good, I suppose, why are most of the posters here obsessed with the existence of some post-collegiate scene? Why is that the specific demographic all of you are frantically trying to get to the Trials?

One poster mentioned how old most of the Trials field is. It's true. So many are past their prime. You know why? Because Americans - and no one else - consider marathoning a post-college thing. This is not a problem in Kenya. 19 year olds in the Rift Valley are not waiting until their best years are past to try the 'thon. Why isn't everyone encouraging anyone under 24 from doing it? Do we all want to be ab afterthought on the roads of the world?

Making it part of a big city marathon would be problematic. Then you would get runners from other countries potentially interfering with the tactics of the race. In a trials race you really want only Americans. Also it gets difficult for the fans if there is an outside winner besides an American or other breaking up the top 3. The US for a while did the national champs in big races and its not great to have the US champ finish 3rd or lower. Also confusing for the viewer if say the qualifiers Finish 3rd 7th and 9th overall.

dur wrote:

Les is More wrote:

Or....all just had a bad day;). Everything is a gamble, you're betting the odds. Hasay is top 3, period.

Or...all just weren't trained to handle a course like that, either in Atlanta or Tokyo. I think Atlanta gives you better odd.

No, they are pros, pretty sure they were prepared;). Nice try though, lol!

Bad Wigins wrote:

Neither. Select the team with a panel that votes based on their performances in approved races during a set qualifying period of about a year, and other factors like injuries.

Your best chance to get a medal is to send Rupp and whoever else is near or better than 2:10. Stake it all on a mass-participation race and your 2:10 guys might lose to a 2:12 and a 2:13. Maybe they deserve it for having a bad day. Maybe Rupp will have a bad day too. But your 2:12 and 2:13 guys are not going to sniff a medal, especially after having to peak for a trials. Losing strategy.

Having to peak for the trials is bad? It's months before the Olympics. That's just silly.