Zouhair Talbi - Ranking the US Marathoner's Prospects

Talbi just graduated from the US Army's basic training. He will be back to fitness by the fall I would guess. He's the real deal.

Also word on the street is that Hillary Bor and Joe Klecker are moving to the marathon. The Trials field is going to look a lot different than what we see now.

But yes, Mantz seems to be the man to beat. Maybe Clinger moves up too!

There has never been an easy US Olympic team to make, but the 2028 US track and marathon teams are going to be so tough to make. Expect many many Ben Trues finishing 4th. 4th is the saddest place......

Clinger said after the 25k champs that he was moving up.

Is Talbi going on reserve duty or will he have more army commitments moving forward?

They reported on this and Dom Scott on their podcast this Tuesday

No mention of Zach Panning who made the 2024 Trials race what it was. There are too many good guys at the top now that I wouldn’t bet on him, but his name should still be in the mix.

I don't want to be dismissive but he's never gone under 2:09. A number of other guys are under 2:08. We'll say, he would need a lot of help.

zouhair goes back home to morcco before big races. i wodner if this will continue.

Didn’t he compete in the Olympics for Morocco? You can still compete in US Champs as long as you’re a citizen, even if you represent another country in international competition

They said on the podcast that the waiting period is 3 years from acquisition of citizenship, so he'd be able to by 2028.

BYU SWEEP

Jonathan Gault has a story on Talbi up now:

https://www.letsrun.com/news/2025/05/206-marathoner-zouhair-talbi-is-living-the-american-dream-after-becoming-a-us-citizen-after-enlisting-in-army-reserve/

As a military veteran I think it would be nice if these guys chose to serve this country to protect it not to run for it. I was not at his level but ran the following times:

800m: 1:48

1500m: 3:45

Mile: 4:01

5,000m: 13:56

10,000m: 28:57

I ran for my services sports program but chose to move on to deploy when I could have kept training. Today I am disabled for it but feel I earned my veteran status. A hate to say it but a number of the WCAPS guys view it as a game a sports team they have not known guys that have lost their lives in uniform or attended funerals and award ceremonies for friends that have died. I lost a number of friends in training for deployment alone, let alone while deployed. I just hope they understand that when they wear a track singlet that says Army on it.

The spring 2021 colligate XC season might have been one of those rare years where the NAIA XC champ, Talbi, may have won the DI XC meet had he been in it.

As good as Mantz was one that day, Talbi was a god compared to the typical "All-American" NAIA runners and bested Mantz by 20 seconds in the Sound Running 10,000 just months later. Talbi also beat soon to be Olympian Joe Klecker in that race.

Yawn

Thank you for your service. Anyone who joins the military and is honorably discharged earned their veteran status, please don't put any caveats on it beyond that.

100% this

The fact that he felt the need to put a caveat on it means he didn't do sh*t

"disabled" but doesn't explain what that means. Someone can be 10% disabled for having sciatica and can call themselves "disabled"