Olympic Marathon Trials rumor

Kvothe wrote:

Personal olympics? You don't understand the sport at all. Was regionals your personal nationals? Is conference the 8th fastest guy on the team's personal regionals? Your argument is stupid enough to make me mad.

Yes. Of course. Did you not know that? every athlete knows with soem certainty how far they're likely to advance. Do you think everyone goes into conference thinking they're going to make regionals? Good athletes have a clear idea how well they're lilely to perform. Nobody ends up at nationals saying "I really expected to get eliminated at conference, so this is a surprise."

And any tiebreak in selection goes to the Nike athlete.

barista wrote:

Um, the Trials was Seidel's first marathon.

Yes. if there hadn't been a Trials race, she would have run a different marathon.

215Marathon wrote:

According to this Twitter post the rumor is there may not be a trials.

This is such a stupid idea... but since it's USATF, it's probably true.

In a perfect world, I kind of like the idea of top two qualifying in a trials with a 3rd discretionary pick by USATF but it would probably just result in a bunch of politicking and corruption instead of ensuring we had the best team competing.

Put the blame on World Athletics. WA may release qualifying standards and procedures that don’t fit with having a Trials.

platinum elite. wrote:

Put the blame on World Athletics. WA may release qualifying standards and procedures that don’t fit with having a Trials.

How is that? WAs standards would just change the standards for the trials, even if they required a 210 from a wa label race a few Americans would be eligible.

Not horrific wrote:

Kvothe wrote:

Personal olympics? You don't understand the sport at all. Was regionals your personal nationals? Is conference the 8th fastest guy on the team's personal regionals? Your argument is stupid enough to make me mad.

Yes. Of course. Did you not know that? every athlete knows with soem certainty how far they're likely to advance. Do you think everyone goes into conference thinking they're going to make regionals? Good athletes have a clear idea how well they're lilely to perform. Nobody ends up at nationals saying "I really expected to get eliminated at conference, so this is a surprise."

They peak for that last race without holding delusions that it's more important than it is. No 219 guy is going all in, no job, training like a pro like the post I replied to implied. I just don't like the pretention that it's all or nothing. NBA basketball can have 300 pros but distance running can only have maybe 10? Letsrun would throw a fit if they learned the 150th best marathoner made his living from running, but no one blinks an eye that the 300th best baller makes half a million from that skill.

platinum elite. wrote:

Put the blame on World Athletics. WA may release qualifying standards and procedures that don’t fit with having a Trials.

Fair enough... also dumb. There is very minimal advantage to narrowing up the marathon field. It doesn't have the space constraints of the track. Doesn't make a lot of sense. You'll still wind up with athletes outside the standards qualifying under rules that make exceptions for small countries with limited athletes.

All I can add was that I was at the Atlanta trials as a spectator and it would be huge mistake to take away the trials. If growth of sport is the focus, it was an amazing atmosphere that gave some hope that our sport was a big deal to the entire country, not just to a small subset of the population

i mean, that's completely incorrect. They don't go into conference thinking "i hope i do my best, but it's just conference, so if i suck, it doesn't matter." They try to perform their best, and to see where they measure up,and then build on that. If they know they're only a conference-level athlete, that's going to be their most important race of the year.

And you're comparing team sports to individual sports. That's non-sensical.

jbdhdye wrote:

All I can add was that I was at the Atlanta trials as a spectator and it would be huge mistake to take away the trials. If growth of sport is the focus, it was an amazing atmosphere that gave some hope that our sport was a big deal to the entire country, not just to a small subset of the population

The crowds at Boston, Chicago and NYC are much bigger than Atlanta was. There's not going to be a marathon boom because people saw the Trials race.

What the Trials race does is lets American fans imagine a world where they don't have to compete against Africans and Europeans. It's a facade.

Trallz wrote:

[quote]I'll Take This One... wrote:

While that is sad, if squeaking under the OTQ standard is the height of your running ambitions, then you really should be working on your income generating career instead of sacrificing valuable time, energy, and money to garner a bragging right that very few care about outside of this message board or your local running shop.

This is really a sad way to go through life. Why do you think the purpose of life is to make as much money as possible? Whatever happened to living a good life as apposed to making a good living?

Go count your pennies you sad sack.

No, what's nonsensical is how little money is in running compared with other sports. It's not just team sports - golf and tennis too. Video gamers earn more than runners too.

at the 2020 trials, only 28% of men and 31% of women managed to achieve the qualifying time thye would have needed to get into the race. a grand total of 12 runners (6 of each) hit the Olympic qualifying standard.

The Trials race is fun to watch, but it's really just a US amateur championship with some elite runners at the front to give it some extra sizzle.

Getting rid of the trials would remove one of the most entertaining US events, when they should instead be focused on getting even more out of it.

On top of that, it's obvious that USATF can't be trusted with any kind of subjective process, and going to a pure time/points based selection just encourages over-racing (look at the Japanese runners in Tokyo).

The US Olympic Marathon Trials is a fun run and baby Olympics for 98 percent of the participants.

It would be more logical, and serve nearly all better, if the Olympic teams were based on a selection of the fastest marathoners and half-marathoners from a timespan agreed upon earlier, taking into account course conditions compared to what will be expected at the next Olympics (a howling tailwind at a 60 degree Boston day, compared to an upcoming Tokyo games).

Kvothe wrote:

No, what's nonsensical is how little money is in running compared with other sports. It's not just team sports - golf and tennis too. Video gamers earn more than runners too.

There's a lot of money in running. But it's spread out amongst sprinters and distance runners, men and women, montain and road, and hundreds of countries.

There are at most, 156 golfers in a major tournament. The156th-highest paid golfer on the PGA tour this year made $65k.

Tennis has a lot more middling tournments they can sell tickets to, so average guys can do ok, but it's still only about 300 men worldwide who do "well."

most "pros" in these sports are just like runners - they make very little, get 2-3 years of bragging rights out of it, and go home to work at a pro shop.

It would make sense for Nike to eliminate the olympic trials to ensure they get their most valuable athletes into the olympics. That alone is probably worth more than whatever the trials brings in. Regardless, I'm not even sure than an amateur race is the best format to pick our olympians.

If it's an issue of the trials not being profitable, just make the Boston the qualifying marathon. Actually having fast foreigners in the race might make for a better simulation of the olympic marathon anyway.

Uh oh! Looks like I have touched a nerve with some of you. Some regrets over life choices or unrealized dreams?