2028 Olympic Marathon Trials Standards are Here: 2:16:00 for Men, 2:37:00 for Women

So 15 minutes off the WR vs 27 off the WR. How fair!

Accepting chip time is a huge improvement

two different committees, two different standards. Men's committee voted for the men's. Women's committee voted for the women. So the men are being unfair to... other men? Not sure that logic tracks.

Sounds like its about field size, not potential of qualifiers to run well at the Olympics. In the US, men are far more likely to take running seriously as a sport and run competitively than women. So it is, what it is. If the women get serious about sport their qualifying time will probably drop for 2032.

_____________

Half marathon standard is of course significantly tougher than the marathon standard. Top 10 finish at platinum label marathons might be the easiest way to get in if you can find a race to cherrypick.

Max Siegal is determined to kill any post-collegiate interest in this sport. Pathetic. You obviously need obtainable milestones to develop talent, but good, he gets to pump more money into his F1 team. What a joke.

The last 2 Trials everyone got their travel comped I believe which was very expensive.

The press release says they are returning to "A" And "B" standard to "to prioritize full fields" but I don't think that is the case at all. It's done to save money.

When I quit my job to train for the 2000 Trials the "B" standard was 2:22 and the "A" standard 2:20. With supershoes I can see the argument for taking it down to 2:16, but if you're not paying travel for these guys I could easily see it staying at 2:18. But the world record has dropped about 6 minutes in that time period so 2:16 seems ok to me.

I consider the Olympic Marathon Trials to be the lifeblood of the sport in the US and want the mark to be aspirational but achievable for a decent amount of people, while also not totally distances from the realities that this is an Olympic selection event. Are we still in that ballpark? I think so.

That's ridiculous. What about gender equity?

2:10 or bust for the males and the females should be 2:20 or bust.

A slightly fairer comparison is to go based on percentage.

The men's standard is 12.78% slower than the world record and 8.25% slower than the American record.

The womens is 20.83% slower than the world record and 13.37% slower than the American record.

Crazy that the men's standard is closer to the world record than the women's record is to the American record. However, this does reflect the state of marathon in the US as the main goal is to get an equal number of competitors.

You could make the same argument that 2:16 is too slow for the men's standard as well because 8 women have ran faster than that time.

My ideal would be to have 100 men and 100 women for each field. Still a large field but more elite than mass participation.

"These changes come following multiple town hall meetings in which the Long Distance Running (LDR) Committees—a majority athletes including nine Olympians—listened to feedback from athletes, coaches, and agents to establish qualification procedures that best prioritize athletes’ needs."

Its never been a consideration for this race. Usually they try for equal field sizes. There has never been gender equity outside of the upper echelon of the sport. From college all the way down, women have easier standards and easier opportunities to make teams. Fewer women go all in on running than men.

Its disappointing they are intentionally shrinking the fields this much - first last cycle with the massive cut for women, and now with a further cut for men. The Marathon OTQ remains pretty much only big achievable goal for a serious post-collegiate runner in the US, and the more you kill that dream you really hurt the entire amateur running scene. I'll never OTQ myself but have always been motivated by some of the guys/gals in my area who have. What happens when they give up?

As always, it mostly goes back to how much of a financial basketcase USATF is. What a mess

Track in the United States has always had a huge issue developing post-collegiate talent. Many athletes quit because there isn't clear infrastructure between NCAA Regionals Qualifiers and Professional competition.

The OTQ has always been a silver lining that motivated ~29:00 10k guys to try and further develop. 2:16 is getting close to discouraging those runners from continuing.

These qualifying times seem fine to me. Aiming for field sizes of 200 seems appropriate. I would have supported aiming for slightly larger field sizes, maybe 300 to 400, but I realize you have to make the cut somewhere and I think the important thing is they decided to keep a relatively large field size.

Moving to chip times is definitely a good move. Having B standard qualifiers pay for their own travel seems fine too.

Why are the qualifying times so slow?
take 5 mins off the men and 10 off the women

I see the committees for men/women are different, but for context 86 men ran under 2:16 for the 2024 trials, while 158 women ran under 2:37 despite mens marathon having more depth. 86th women qualifier in 2024 is 2:34:54. With the chip time we could also expect it to benefit women more than men (at least thats my intuition). In the past, I believe they've made the standard slower later on in qualification if the field is smaller than desired. Its still attainable either way, but not sure anything faster than 2:17 was necessary.

There is stuff like getting comped or elite entry at various regional level half and full marathons, but the issue there is you'll end up running alone in a lot of them and you probably would run faster at CIM or Chicago.

If you run a 29, you should be running a 2:13-2:15 marathon these days. let’s encourage them to put in the work rather than aiming to be 2:17 runners. It is the 30:30 guys who are going to think they have no shot.

you can argue the woman’s is about 90s to slow but the guys is pretty much right in line with improvements in marathon times over the past 30s. Take 6 mins off the WR and the OT time.

Interesting data. I was taking their word for it that the new standards would result in approximately 200 person fields based on past data, but if only 86 men ran under 2:16 last time that seems somewhat unlikely. Then again, US distance running has been improving a lot across distances the last few years, so maybe that trend will continue. I guess we'll see.