Olympics Marathon Proposal

apologies for the poor formatting; inadvertently submitted before previewing.

Horrible idea. Essentially you will be limiting the medal possibilities to Kenya, Ethiopia and maybe Eritrea. We get plenty of that every year already.

part of the point of having a race on the roads is to accommodate a bigger field.

if you start with false assumptions you invariably end up with false conclusions.

cheers.

This has already been discussed. The rich get richer, the poor get poorer with this approach. It's the Olympics, not the World Marathon championships.

Make it like Boston and just have one big open race with a qualifying time of about 2h45 mins male or female. The marathon needs to be bigger and different from the other Olympic events.

I like the idea, but my cynical view of it is that limiting to 3 boosts revenues.

I agree with an earlier postthat it keeps it from being the East Africa Championships, and I think taking that one step further means a more diverse front pack = more viewership = more revenue. Adding a further layer of cynicism, I think there is more money to be made by increasing viewership in the US and Western Europe than east Africa. I think viewership in east Africa would be high enough already that increasing their representation wouldn't draw near the same percentage increase of viewership as is possible to draw in from the west by increasing their chance of showing.

It's s good idea- the USA did well in 2016- there's not reason to believe that adding 2 or 3 East Africans would have changed that.

better idea wrote:

Make it like Boston and just have one big open race with a qualifying time of about 2h45 mins male or female. The marathon needs to be bigger and different from the other Olympic events.

Fukuoka and Lake Biwa are both like this (2:35 and 2:29, I believe to gain entry). Both races are attractive to me personally if I get that fast (slow), but history aside, Fukuoka is merely a Gold label race that attracts depth in its recreational runner ranks. Its elite end isn't anything special relative to any of the majors.

Cottonshirt wrote:

part of the point of having a race on the roads is to accommodate a bigger field.

if you start with false assumptions you invariably end up with false conclusions.

Care to elaborate? Even if that is not a factor in the origination of the race, can you provide an explanation why it's not a reasonable proposal?

Sineical wrote:

I like the idea, but my cynical view of it is that limiting to 3 boosts revenues.

I agree with an earlier postthat it keeps it from being the East Africa Championships, and I think taking that one step further means a more diverse front pack = more viewership = more revenue. Adding a further layer of cynicism, I think there is more money to be made by increasing viewership in the US and Western Europe than east Africa. I think viewership in east Africa would be high enough already that increasing their representation wouldn't draw near the same percentage increase of viewership as is possible to draw in from the west by increasing their chance of showing.

Thank you for indulging me and added a cogent response. I'm not sure I follow how limiting field size to 3 runners per country boosts revenue unless you're referring to your later point about TV coverage in western countries. That's certainly fair. My sole interest is seeing a marathon with some actual depth at the top end, and I couldn't care less if they all came from the Rift Valley. I'm inclined to say that Dubai and your local IAAF silver or bronze level race with several runners trying to make a name for themselves are more entertaining to watch than many Majors which ultimately feature a race with just a few characters, and then your local American aiming to be "top American" (whatever that may/ not be worth).

Per the other poster's remark about the Olympics differing from the world championships, I'd be pretty happy to see this kind of development in the WC marathon.

I think we should actually take it in the other direction. Only allow 2 from each country. The US was so dominant in swimming they limited events to two per country to avoid sweeping the podium. Sure the number 3-5 in the world sometimes get left out of the Olympics, but it has kept the other countries from just giving up. No one wants to see Kenya with 10 runners at the front of the Olympic marathon. Just as no one wants to see Jamaica with 9 guys in the 100 meter final.

I don't like opening it to more entries to country per se. But what I would recommend is all Major winners from the previous 4 years get a "bye" to the olympics and don't count against their countries 3 athletes. And enforce the Olympic standard rather than letting countries send an athlete who is way below the standard because they have no other track and field participants, this is a BS practice and detracts from the professionalism of the event.

Also add prize money and a crap ton of it so the elites actually do the race going quite a way deep. If I was 10-20 in the world I would skip the Olympics for the appearance fee and opportunity at prize money at a fall major since winning. And don't give the crap about prestige and what not. Unless you win or an American/European/Japanese athlete who podiums a medal doesn't raise your career earnings that much, and only 1 guy gets to win. Better career choice to take the money for a fall Major if you're not one of the 3 or 4 favorites with the current lack of prize money.

people propose at every other marathon every year, so I say why should the olympic marathon be any different?

looking forward to the "she said yes" post on instagram! yay I love weddings!

So now Toni Reavis supports opening the olympic marathon to a bunch of snowflakes who couldn't qualify? I thought he was our last chance of keeping it real in a PC feminized world.

Olympic marathon should be ran like a xc country race.Have team and individual medals. And increase the number of athletes from 3 to 6.

I like the current format of 3 runners per country for a couple of reasons:

1. It keeps the field competitive. That is, the countries other than the African powerhouse nations have a shot at a medal. I think interest would wane if we were just watching a Kenya/Ethiopia contest.

2. It provides an element of strategy and uncertainty within a country's team. How do you choose your team that gives you the best chance to medal? Who is the best runner for the course/conditions? Who is best a peaking at the right time? If you're allowed to pick 5-10 runners, then it's not too tough to choose a team. But with 3 there is more of a risk. Your national organization has to be smart and organized to get your best runners to the race.

How about we just add cross country? I think it would be way more entertaining than the marathon. Picture how they cover the biathlon in the winter games (2-4k loop course; lots of cameras), but for runners instead of skiers.

Lydiard Cerutty wrote:

Olympic marathon should be ran like a xc country race.Have team and individual medals. And increase the number of athletes from 3 to 6.

I like this proposal. In fact, why not send 10 athletes from each country? We have too many debates about who is the greatest marathoner and citing Olympic medals doesn't add up to much when you look at the depth of some of those fields. Put them all in there, and may the best man/woman win. If it's Kenya or Ethiopia every year, so be it. They won and that's life.

Not the best analogy, but it is kind of like saying that Brazil should get to send two teams to the world cup because there are so many great Brazilian soccer players who do not make the team. What makes true international competition exciting is the pressure of only having a few entries in each sport. When you add more people to the marathon, you take away a lot of the pressure. If one Kenyan drops out, the pressure on the two remaining to medal is huge. If a second Kenyan falls of the lead, then the last one in the lead pack shoulders the hopes for a medal for the entire country. If there are five out there, you can have one guy be a rabbit, use another to make a surge and break up the pack and still have three runners in position for medals.