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

highhoppingworm wrote:

How is Hasay top 3 period? You need to actually make a compelling argument to back up an authoritative statement like that.

I think a lot of people disagree with you which makes that period a little less definitive...

Yes, a lot of uninformed people like you would disagree with me, which is why I don't care as you know not what you speak of.

She opened up with a 2:23:00. Then she ran 2:20:57 in her second marathon, how many others are close to that and still in their prime? If you want to bring up injuries, well I'm obviously stating my claim with a healthy Jordan, just as you are with however you "think" would make it.

On an average day with all things being equal to the top threats to make the team, she makes it, period. Sounds like you've got serious personal issues with Jordan, better get that looked at.

I attended Atlanta and thought the large fields, and the spectators they brought, added a lot to the atmosphere. Have also seen a lot of comments from participants saying they appreciated the crowds. (That said, one downside nobody has mentioned was that at least two somewhat competitive runners fell and were trampled, which might have been less likely with smaller fields.) There was seeding at Atlanta, and I think that would be necessary so the glad-to-be-there types don't get in the way of the competitors.

For fairness's sake, I'd like to see time standards set so that a similar number of men & women could participate. I don't think that adding a couple of hundred men to the Atlanta field would've added many spectators though, as basically everyone I saw who was cheering a particular mid-packer or back-packer was there for a woman. There were lots of groups with matching "Go Emily" caps or T-shirts, and couples with stories like, "Megan babysat our kids when she was a teenager in Spokane before we moved to Atlanta, and since her parents couldn't make it here, we wanted to support her." I'm sure there were a few WAGs and parents/friends of the mid-pack men, but I didn't notice any of them.

I'd like to see a mixture of time qualifiers and auto-qualifiers, mostly time.

- Pick times that would qualify about 400 of each gender;

- Include relatively faster half times so a few people like Rupp in 2016 or Seidel in 2020 could get in that way.

- Then add as auto-qualifiers the top 5 or so Americans of each gender in 2022 and 2023 at the USATF full and half marathon championships and the 20 (or whatever number works) largest marathons. Most of these people probably would hit the time standard anyway, but this might help add interest to races with harder courses.

- You could also include every American who had hit a certain NCAA standard in XC or the 10K (maybe All-American twice) in the previous four years.

- Add any member of the previous U.S. Olympic marathon or 10K team. No need to make Jared Ward, the injured Amy Cragg, or even the retired Meb requalify for the Trials.

- Maybe even give USATF five extra entries to select for each race. This would lead to politicking, but it might also let in some deserving runners who didn't meet any of the other criteria (e.g., a recently naturalized citizen) for reasons we can't anticipate.

I don't like the idea of picking the top 1,000 or however many times, because it would lead to too much uncertainty for people who aren't sure whether to make plans to travel and disappointment for people who see their spots slip away when others do well as opposed because they didn't meet a standard they knew about beforehand. Just set standards carefully and let in whoever meets them. Probably best to ask USATF or the organizers just to pay for the top 50-100, though.

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.

Having 1000 people instead of 100 moves it from an elite event to a mass participation. I.e. You have diluted the value of the achievement. So instead. of those college kids who ran 14:30 training hard to run 2:18, they will hobby jog out some 2:25 and call it a day. That isn't making the sport better. And spending 100k so these added people can run also doesn't help the sport.

Sending an invite to XC and 10k AA might be interesting as it would give them a reason to run the event and in general we are talking about legit guys who can run sub 29. But I sort of expect that almost all of them give running a serious shot for a bit. But we are going to be talking like 50 people not 700.

Angelo Mysterioso wrote:

I have posted this before, and I still like this idea:

Limit the Olympic trials field to replicate the same size as the Olympic Marathon field, 100-200 runners. Set the qualifying standards accordingly.

Have the trials 12 months before the Olympic marathon, in a city with similar altitude and weather as the Olympic host city.

Design a course similar to the one being used in the Olympic Marathon.

This will never work as it is logical and therefore total nonsense to USATF :)

I like it though. I think it would push people to run faster rather than chase a time. I think 200-250 is the right number. I missed the standard in 2000 by < 1 min. Oh so close. But would have made it then with 250 getting invited.

Yikes... very odd response.

I have zero personal issues with any female marathoner. I don’t feel that strongly about any particular athlete. I am simply noting that it seems like her performances have fallen off considerably. Not saying she wouldn’t fall into that category but it certainly isn’t a “period”. Somebody like Hall seems to be a much better example of your diatribe above.

I guess her Valencia performance will either make you look foolish or smart.

I like it though. I think it would push people to run faster rather than chase a time. I think 200-250 is the right number. I missed the standard in 2000 by < 1 min. Oh so close. But would have made it then with 250 getting invited.[/quote]

I like 250 also.

I am all for the 1,000 number. It would help so much to build interest in the sport and give a 2:30 guy something to go after. Maybe a 14:30 senior makes the trials and runs 2:25, next cycle 2:18 and next cycle he in on the team...instead of basically having no route currently with a 14:30. Brian Sell, Christian Smith...I am looking at you.

Additionally, make the 100-1,000 guys pay to play. Say $500. Thats $450,000 dollars that can go to help develop/pay promising athletes, that could allow 10 men and 10 women sub-elitesto live/train like professionals.

And think of the fans, thousands of extra fans at the trials, making it feel very special.

The pro scene is worthless, lets get $$$, energy, interest, numbers.

Making the trials would still be vey prestigious, perhaps even more so than it is now if it becomes something the general public actually cares about, let alone even knows is occurring.

An issue with the 500 per gender number is that the last-chancers and on-the-bubble types will have a really hard path in the two months before the selection. Most will probably run another marathon to incrementally improve their position to not be bounced out by new performances. You will still have all of the negatives of "the chase" that we see at CIM, with a little hostility between runners thrown in. A time standard puts everyone on the same team, including race directors who know what to market.

Is it not about picking the team for the Olympics? You don't need 100 runners for that never mind 1000.

Like Japan.

Top three selected from specific events, perhaps only World Majors and WA Gold Label events, with the option for all others to surpass the #3 guy during the qualifying period.

As we have it now, Rupp has a small chance to podium. Riley and the senior citizen have zero chance to even be competitive. Now toss in Lenny under a selection process and he is a legit contender.

I agree with all of this. Look its easy to say things like risk of falling, cost, lessens the achievement, just trying to pick the top 3, etc. That's all fine, but you're missing out on an easy way to keep people involved and connected to the sport.

Looking back, something like this would have kept me engaged. Now I was never going to make an Olympic team, but having more people trying to run fast just makes everyone better.

If you make the olympic trials you're one of the best of the best. It doesn't matter if there are 100 competitors or 1000. Outside of your running circle you're unlikely to cross paths in your life with anyone who ran at that level. Most people can't even relate to your level of success. I've come across 1 person professionally who ran under 16 min for a 5k. Other than that it's people cahsing BQs that are unlikely to make it. Your achievement is not diminished if they let more people into the race. You can still say you placed 87th (or whatever) in the olympic trials marathon and it's going to sound a lot better when the answer to their follow up question about # of participants is 1000 instead of 88.

Judd wrote:

An issue with the 500 per gender number is that the last-chancers and on-the-bubble types will have a really hard path in the two months before the selection. Most will probably run another marathon to incrementally improve their position to not be bounced out by new performances. You will still have all of the negatives of "the chase" that we see at CIM, with a little hostility between runners thrown in. A time standard puts everyone on the same team, including race directors who know what to market.

These aren't the people making the Olympic Team.

Yea nothing wrong with 1000 that’d be cool. If you’re already putting in all the work and logistics to put on a major road race that hosts the oly trials you might as well fill a bunch of spots.

dfjkdfbsvbv wrote:

I am all for the 1,000 number. It would help so much to build interest in the sport and give a 2:30 guy something to go after. Maybe a 14:30 senior makes the trials and runs 2:25, next cycle 2:18 and next cycle he in on the team...instead of basically having no route currently with a 14:30. Brian Sell, Christian Smith...I am looking at you.

.

A 14:30 guy has a route. He goes runs a 2:25 at any of a. couple hundred marathons across the county. He then goes man the OT is only like 7 mins faster. I bet if I train seriously for a year I can do that. Letting him run a 2:25 at the OT gets you no where.

In reality it isn't the 14:30 guys we care about. It is the next tier of 7:55/13:40/29:00 guys. They are unlikely to ever be fast to make it on the track but if they all put in 2 years of doing marathon training a couple of them might be good at it and turn into sub 2:14 guys with a hope of being sub 2:10 with a few more years of training. But reality is a lot of people don't want to be marathoners. It is one thing to go run 90mpw. It is another to do 120mpw.

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.

This

I am for bigger-size fields. Part of the reason I suppose that in my prime I would have made the trials if the field was slightly bigger :-) But aside from that, think about what we run for. We run to get better, to reach a higher level of performance. We compete with others to help us reach a higher level of performance rather than just to be better than everyone else. So suppose we improve our training discipline, lifestyle, and science, and are able to do it to the point that millions are able to run a sub-2:10 marathon in normal shoes - let's have a wild run of imagination - and the world record becomes let's say 1:55 - so we have both incredible speed and even more incredible depth. Let us also say - for the sake of the argument - that our fantasy 2:10 marathoner is as tough and tenacious as a 2:10 marathoner of today. Would we be celebrating this success, and find a way to properly reward and remember each runner that is a part of this miracle, or would we simply say that if you cannot break 1:57, you are nobody, and should quit running?

While what I am describing right now sounds like a complete fantasy, I think many would agree that this is the direction we want to go. For sure, most of us in our training try to move in that direction, and that fantasy would be no longer fantasy if all of our dreams suddenly became reality. So if that is what we really want, then how do we get there? I think it should start with finding a way to encourage and properly reward exceptional effort on a larger scale. With that in mind, expanding the field of the Trials seems like a step in the right direction.

I like the idea of a top 490, with the last ten spots going to the eight fastest half marathoners without marathon times on the board (that would account for Seidel, Rupp, Fischer ect), and a spot for the winner of Western States and the Leadville 100.

They should let collegiate XC and track 10k All Americans qualify.

Reduced. 500 is a joke. For the “more interest” crowd, should we raise the track times too for more participation? We could give those who meet the Olympic standard byes for the first x rounds.