Wowzers wrote:
I'd be more surprised by Gwen. After Rupp, the men's side is pretty open. There is a lot more competition for the women's spots.
This is the issue. If everyone is healthy and no one retires, the US women's marathon trials will be stacked with many of the all-time fastest marathon in US history running : Hasay (2nd all-time), Huddle (1st at 10k, 1/2-marathon), Flanagan (3rd all-time, 2nd at 10k), Cragg (5th all-time), Linden (6th all-time), Thweatt (7th all-time), Hall (9th all-time) and the list goes on, with all of these women in or near their career peaks.
Its hard to even make an equivalent list for men because a lot of the people who are still active haven't been running their peak times lately. It would start with: Rupp (3rd all-time) then maybe you include Ritz (4th), then you have to go back to 2015 for a time below 2:11: Puskedra (25th all-time).
note: I'm counting times run in Boston.