Japanese Olympic Marathon Trials Standards Announced- Want to make the Trials? You'd better run a sub 2:11

Micro wrote:

Great marathoner producing state, but also a high number of micro-penises.

Are we to assume to have personally handled and inspected enough micro-penises to make this conclusion?

wisenheimer at work wrote:

Tough standard doesn’t equal success wrote:

Tough standards do not translate to success or development at the elite level.

i think sub 2:11 is a good standard (if a country wants to produce competitive athletes and not olympic tourists).

i remember that in germany the standard was 2:12:15 at first for rio. only one athlete (arne gabius) was fast enough at that time, all the others failed, in one case a runner performed a 2:12:50. a big talk arose in the media, a lot of compassion. one argument was that championship races usually are not fast. as if an athlete, having very hard times to run a sub 2:15, would have a great chance to outpace the whole world elite in a quite "slow" olympic race. the standard was lowered to 2:14.

long story short, 210 runners performed in the year 2017 a sub 2:11.

USA with our 2:19 trials standard has 2 Olympic medals in the men's marathon this century to 0 for Japan. We have 6 major wins this century on the men's side, Japan 0. Plus several other top tens at the Olympics.

I don't think our "soft" trials standard setting us up for poor Olympic performances argument has any weight. In fact based on the credentials of the guys we send they overachieve compared to other nations runners.

Meme me..... wrote:

The Land of Rising Sun. wrote:

If you are going to have an Olympic trial, limit the field to those who have real chances to make the team. That makes sense unless you think racing a marathon with 12 people is awkward.

Not if you run it on a track.

+1

Primo Numero Uno wrote:

USA with our 2:19 trials standard has 2 Olympic medals in the men's marathon this century to 0 for Japan. We have 6 major wins this century on the men's side, Japan 0. Plus several other top tens at the Olympics.

I don't think our "soft" trials standard setting us up for poor Olympic performances argument has any weight. In fact based on the credentials of the guys we send they overachieve compared to other nations runners.

this is a good post and i am in trouble to find an argument. hard standards can not warrant championship success, but i still think that a hard standard is a strong sign. what remains to be done, considering the rankings of 2017?

I agree the standard is a bit on the tough side, but it sure is convenient for your argument to leave out the women. Here is what the Japanese women have done in the Olympic Marathon since they've been allowed to compete in it since 1984: Japan 1992: Silver 1996: Bronze 2000: Gold 2004: Gold USA 1984: Gold 2004: Bronze On the men's side if we go back to 1964 here's what we see: Japan: 1964: Bronze 1968: Silver 1992: Silver USA: 1972: Gold 1976: Silver 2004: Silver 2016: Bronze Combined the Japanese have more medals than the US has when it comes to the marathon, unless you want to include results from 1924 and before, which are valid, but hardly fitting in this discussion. Anyway, Japan is a proud nation when it comes to the marathon and they are doing the best they can, which may just end up being better than us when they get that homecourt advantage boost in August of 2020. I for one would like to see a Japanese runner win if someone from the US does not. The best thing for the sport, in my opinion, would be if Yuki Kawauchi won and showed the world you can work and be an elite athlete. That would be amazing.

Primo Numero Uno wrote:

USA with our 2:19 trials standard has 2 Olympic medals in the men's marathon this century to 0 for Japan. We have 6 major wins this century on the men's side, Japan 0. Plus several other top tens at the Olympics.

I don't think our "soft" trials standard setting us up for poor Olympic performances argument has any weight. In fact based on the credentials of the guys we send they overachieve compared to other nations runners.

Eliminates patronizing the 2:28's of the country. We all know they have no shot. and, it's just a pat on the back for 80% of the runners attending. I watched the 2012 in Houston, as they came around after 8 miles, it was clear you could have

pulled off 80-90 runners easily. They were never going to make up the time needed to make the top 3 by that point. Japan is just "cutting the fat". No fillers that live to tell everyone they made the OT's. For what?

Just my 2c

Meant 2:18's, not 2:28's

546 wrote:

Eliminates patronizing the 2:28's of the country. We all know they have no shot. and, it's just a pat on the back for 80% of the runners attending. I watched the 2012 in Houston, as they came around after 8 miles, it was clear you could have

pulled off 80-90 runners easily. They were never going to make up the time needed to make the top 3 by that point. Japan is just "cutting the fat". No fillers that live to tell everyone they made the OT's. For what?

Just my 2c

Spoken like a bitter schmuck who could never hit the trials mark.

Let's take everyone who can't win out of the race. In fact any race kipchoge enters he should run alone because no one is going to beat him.

Letting 2:18 guys into the trials does nothing to besmirch the event. Letting 2:30 guys in would.

This thread has been played out hundreds of times on LR in one form or another.

"B-but standards should be low because you should only include people who have a shot! This is good!"

Here's the thing buddy, no contender wants to run 26.2 miles with only four people to run with from the start. As was previously noted, if the U.S. applied a 2:11 standard in 2016, only five men would've qualified. I don't know about Japan, but I can't imagine they're going to have significantly more guys under the standard.

It's a f****** marathon. There's no space limitations.

wejo wrote:

Japan is going to an Olympic Trials Marathon race in 2020.

And to show how good the Japanese are at the marathon to get into the Trials you pretty much need to run sub 2:11 in the marathon as a man or sub 2:29 as a woman (at one hot weather marathon the standard moves to 2:15 but you still have to be top 3 Japanese).

Technically the standards are sub-2:08:30 for men and sub-2:24:00 for women, or an average of two races sub-2:11:00 / sub-2:28:00 on record-legal courses. The major Japanese marathons get special consideration and have the slightly easier standards mentioned above.

Yes, that's an important point. In Japan they already have a lot of races that serve the purpose of giving high-level amateurs and sub-elites something to aim for. The elite division in Tokyo is sub-2:21. The Fukuoka A-start is sub-2:27. Lake Biwa is sub-2:30. The same is true on the women's side. They don't need something else to cater to those people the way the U.S. Trials do. The Japanese Trials will only be for the ones who really have a chance. They don't expect more than a couple of dozen people at most.