Looking at the 2 year out predictions and reading about Brett Larner's run on the Olympic Course today, I wonder why any established runner would want to run the Olympic Marathon? It was 96 degrees and humid today during what would be race time in Tokyo.
Take a look at Shalane and Desi. They have very few earning opportunities left in their career. The trials are in February 2020 which means that they will probably not be able to run NY in 2019 or Boston in 2020 and if they make the team and run in 90 degree temps in August will be too beat up to run 2020 NY. These 2 athletes would earn 25k-50k by running the trials and the Olympic Games and miss out on three pay days of $150k--$200k if they skipped the Olympics. This is a difference in a half a million dollars in appearance money.